Looking back at the whole year, during the Spring Festival period at the beginning of the year, the two films "Red on the River" and "The Wandering Earth" led the pack and made the first breakthrough; in the middle of the year, "Fengshen Part 1: Chaoge Fengyun", "The Vanishing Her", "Desperate" and "Chang'an Three" Phenomenal films such as "Ten Thousand Miles" jointly created the first summer season in history; in the second half of the year, "Solid as a Rock" won the National Day box office championship with outstanding results; in the year-end Lunar New Year period, "Twinkle, Twinkle Shining Star" refreshed the New Year's Day box office in Chinese film history Record, the single-day box office record for romance films in mainland film history, bringing a successful end to 2023.
Behind the high box office is the fact that Chinese film themes are becoming more diverse, combining realism and artistic creativity. Film creators are gradually finding the development direction of the Chinese film market. At the same time, the rise of the lower market, the innovation of publicity and distribution channels, and the increase in the proportion of female moviegoers have also provided new momentum for the development of Chinese films.
The number of moviegoers hit a four-year high, and new opportunities for development are emerging amid prosperity
In 2023, the Chinese film market will show a strong recovery trend, and the supply of high-quality content and the huge release of movie-viewing demand will jointly promote the rise of the market. The "Report" shows that the total box office of Chinese movies will reach 54.915 billion yuan in 2023. As the market recovers, the overall audience's willingness to watch movies has been activated, with 1.299 billion moviegoers throughout the year, a new high in the past four years. Among them, the proportion of people watching multiple movies has reached the highest level in the past four years, reflecting the strong market demand.
As the market returns to normal, new trends in the film industry have also emerged.
First of all, on the supply side, domestic films have become the absolute protagonist of movie theaters. The "Report" shows that domestic films accounted for 83.8% of the total box office this year. There were 73 films with a box office of over 100 million yuan throughout the year, of which 50 were domestic films. The top 10 films at the annual box office were also domestic films; in comparison, imported films The film has gradually declined since 2020, accounting for only 16.2% of the annual box office. Behind the leaping growth of
’s box office, the Matthew Effect of schedules still plays an important role, but there are also gaps during popular schedules. With the support of films such as "Fengshen Part 1: Chao Ge Fengyun", "The Octagonal Cage", "Chang'an 30,000 Miles" and "All or Nothing", the summer season contributed nearly 40% of the box office for the whole year, and the proportion of the box office during this period was higher than before In four years, it achieved “the strongest summer season in history.” The Spring Festival season contributed 12.3% of the annual box office, ranking behind the summer season.
Secondly, on the consumer side, new changes have taken place in the movie-watching crowd. Behind the 1.299 billion moviegoers, the lower market, parent-child moviegoing, and female audiences aged 25 and above will bring growth momentum to the movie market in 2023. In addition, charity screenings have been carried out in many places, which has also become an emerging force in promoting movie box office growth. In 2023, a total of 8.24 million charity screenings were held, benefiting approximately 450 million people.
's "Report" shows that the distribution of ticket warehouses in cities at all levels will generally stabilize in 2023. However, from the perspective of the new user profile structure, new users are more likely to be younger and in fourth-tier cities, and the sinking market will continue to release consumption potential. At the same time, films with educational and entertainment significance such as "Bear Bears: Bear with Me", "30,000 Miles to Chang'an", and "The Octagonal Cage" have intuitively driven many families to watch movies, driving the overall ticket purchase profile to be higher than in previous years. Prefer older women.
At the same time, audiences are not resistant to "increasingly long" movie lengths. The average length of movies with over 100 million in 2023 will exceed 2 hours, and the average length of movies with over 2 billion in box office in the past ten years will be 132.2 hours. minutes. It can be seen that high-quality long-form content has not been abandoned in the era of fragmentation. Looking globally, the duration of the top 10 popular movies of the year also exceeds the average.
Finally, on the channel side, theater construction will slow down in 2023, and new movie theaters will increase year-on-year. sinking. According to the "Report", the annual growth rate of theaters nationwide will slow down in 2023, and newly built theaters are mainly distributed in lower-tier cities. In the past two years, the proportion of newly opened theaters in third- and fourth-tier cities has exceeded that of first- and second-tier cities, accounting for more than half.
The new increase in the film market this year reflects the obvious rebound in the audience's willingness to watch movies. There is still room for expansion in the domestic film market. It also provides film practitioners with more directions to explore in creation, promotion and distribution.
Composite genre films are making a splash, and diverse content is accurately promoted.
In 2023, domestic films are rising strongly, and their themes and content are also showing new characteristics. Maoyan Research Institute integrates the top 10 list of the 2023 film market through Maoyan big data, providing practitioners with insights into industry trends from different dimensions such as film content, audience, publicity, and distribution.
In terms of subject matter and content, among the top 10 films at the annual box office, "All or Nothing" and "The Vanishing Her" combine suspense, crime, love and other elements to ignite the audience's interest in watching movies from multiple dimensions, becoming the key to the film's "exception".
In addition, the emergence of phenomenon-level films with high viewership, such as the historical film "Thirty Thousand Miles from Chang'an", the science fiction masterpiece "The Wandering Earth 2", and the "heavy industry" film "Fengshen Part 1: Chaoge Fengyun", also reflects the The film market is showing a diversified trend as it prospers.
Against the background of differentiated movie content, IP series movies still show strong box office appeal. The "Report" shows that among the top 10 imported films in 2023, 7 are sequels to series of films, and IP films have a natural "eye-catching" effect. But in addition to IP movies, domestic films are also achieving "out of the circle" effects through different vertical contents. For example, "Tea No. 2 Middle School" has achieved "out of the circle" at the age level, and "Desperate Househusband" has "out of the circle" in the region and genre dimensions. .
If IP is regarded as an important "handle" for a movie to attract audiences, then the schedule, fans' sense of ritual, and film quality are the key "pushers" that contribute to the movie's high box office and ratings.
According to the "Report", the top 10 pre-sold movies on the first day of the year are mainly movies with schedules and strong fan rituals. For example, "Twinkle Twinkle" has inspired the audience to watch the movie to a greater extent with the topic of "New Year's Eve Ritual" enthusiasm. At the same time, the top 10 films with annual ratings are concentrated in films with high fan attributes, which also reflects the strong role of fans in promoting films. The top 10 most wanted-to-watch-ticket-conversion movies of the year are concentrated in high-quality films such as "Fengshen Part 1: Chaoge Fengyun" and "Oppenheimer". It can be seen that audiences are now more rational and will comprehensively review the post-screening Use word of mouth to make consumption decisions.
In addition to high reputation, the type of film determines its main audience group and also affects the film's box office ceiling. According to the "Report", new content and new topics are popular among young audiences. Male audiences are the main audience for imported action films, while female audiences tend to choose parent-child animations and films that focus on female issues. Young audiences are more inclined to choose innovative settings, Movies with novel topics pay for them, and the demand for family viewing often explodes during the holidays, which is much higher than the average.
In addition, if the video wants to reach the audience more accurately, it needs to choose different promotion methods based on the characteristics of each platform.
"Report" shows that on the Weibo platform, the communication of creators in front of and behind the scenes, media matrix, multi-field KOL and "tap water" users with interests can help increase the popularity of movies; due to Douyin's strong social attributes, the film can be Secondary creations and new movie viewing perspectives reflect social issues, arouse group resonance, and achieve "breaking the circle"; at station b, the film can be widely disseminated through in-depth interpretation, interesting conversations, and making jokes; on the Xiaohongshu platform , emotional resonance has become the breakthrough point for the film to "break the circle"; as an original content platform, Zhihu's informative content about "film content dismantling" is more popular among users.
Therefore, in the promotion process of the film, it is necessary to clarify the audience group corresponding to the content, select the vertical audience and corresponding platform, and prescribe the right medicine, so that we can cut as much of the cake as possible among the 1.299 billion movie viewers.
Internet entertainment reflects the mood of the times, and movie narratives are in line with social trends
This year, Maoyan Research Institute and Jiujiu Consulting have extracted cross-category content worthy of attention in 2023 from short videos, games, online articles, film and television dramas, social media and other pan-entertainment fields. The top ten Internet entertainment content keywords analyze the underlying logic behind the popularity of excellent content and provide insights into the trend of content creation in the new year.
Film and television content recognized by the market is a mirror of social trends. Looking at Internet entertainment content in 2023, story content is driven by three types of emotional engines: self-examination, social relationships, and environmental settings, which respectively correspond to the public's psychological reflection, concern, and expectations.
combined with the "Report", the keywords of "self-examination" include "new femininity", "midfield of life", "crazy alternation" and "grayscale role". People are more inclined to pay attention to their own gender situation, age situation, mental health situation and moral situation. In 2023, people will clarify their own existence through inward exploration.
In terms of "social relationships", "chaotic relationships", "reverse family relationships" and "new emotional relationships" have become the three keywords for entertainment content this year. In addition to inward exploration, the public is focusing on the relationship between self and others. Traditional, one-way interpersonal relationships are being deconstructed one after another. People are looking for a comfortable philosophy of life in multiple relationships, reverse relationships, and non-long-term interpersonal relationships.
In terms of "environment setting", rule-based suspense, apocalyptic paradise, and new classic entertainment products have exploded this year. In addition to traditional narratives, people prefer to see possibilities outside the routine: the destruction of daily rules, the destruction of tradition A retelling of culture, an escape from modern civilization. The audience enjoys discovering universal emotional resonance in the unusual story setting.
The production cycle of entertainment products is long, and the market direction changes rapidly. There are often phenomena of "homogeneous products getting crowded together" and "dark horse projects unexpectedly breaking out of the circle". Catering or innovation has become the choice of content creators when choosing themes. difficulty. Therefore, looking at the essence through the phenomenon and gaining insight into the underlying social emotions is the best way to create high-quality content on a long-term basis.
In addition, based on its deep involvement in the field of film distribution, Maoyan Professional Edition will also launch the "offline distribution" function in the second half of this year to serve theaters and film studios to match up off-line screening cooperation. Cinemas can directly apply for screenings from film studios. Currently, "One and Four", "Your Wedding", "Silence Notes" and the new film "If You Are the One 3", which was just released on December 30, have been included in the branch distribution film library.
Maoyan Professional Edition's "Cloud Booking" function has also received multiple updates: "Worry-free Cloud Booking" has been upgraded to support "worry-free refunds and full refunds"; a new "Limited Time Booking" gameplay has been launched; 50% off subsidies and services are provided cost. As of December 2023, Maoyan's "Worry-free Cloud Booking" has supported a total of 207 films, helping the box office exceed 22 million, an increase of 227% compared with 2022.
Maoyan Professional Edition's "Movie Grand Slam" function crowned many top films. In the second half of the year alone, 6 films achieved Grand Slam achievements, further boosting box office growth. At the same time, Maoyan's "Shadow Market Battle Report" function has been upgraded, adding more honor list achievements, and niche films such as historical films and documentaries have also been awarded with honors, making them a focus of media attention.
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Xiao Yang
