According to Beacon Professional Edition data, as of 21:00 on January 1, the box office for the 2024 New Year's Day period (December 30, 2023 - January 1, 2024) reached 1.517 billion yuan, setting a new record for the New Year's Day box office in Chinese film history. Twinkle Twinkle Star" "The annual meeting cannot be stopped! ”, “Goldfinger”, “Stealth” and “If You Are the One 3” are among the top five box office releases. Data from Maoyan Professional Edition also shows that the New Year's Day 2024 box office hit a new high in Chinese film history, with a total of 36.164 million moviegoers and a total of 1.402 million screenings, setting a new high in the total number of New Year's Day screenings in Chinese film history.
The main reason why this year’s New Year’s Day package is outstanding is the abundant supply, large number of films, and good reputation. A total of 13 movies will be released on New Year's Day, many of which are topical works; and they have a wide range of themes, including love, suspense, comedy, animation, etc., which can meet the movie-watching needs of audiences of different ages and cities, and maximize the number of movie-watching groups. cover.
But even so, the New Year’s Day results are still somewhat unexpected. The New Year's Day slot is actually not a particularly popular period in the movie market - the holiday is not long, and many producers are more willing to move impactful movies to the Lunar New Year slot. For reference, the total box office for New Year's Day in 2023 is only 547 million yuan, which shows the huge progress this year. The excellent performance of
's New Year's Day release has also given a good start to the domestic film market in 2024 and laid a high starting point. Overall, China's film market is still in a recovery period due to various factors. The "2023 China Film Market Annual Review" released by Lighthouse Film Laboratory shows that the box office in 2023 will surge by 70% compared to the past three years and return to the level of 2017. The number of people will increase by 60%, and the average number of movie viewings per capita will rise to 2.58 times.
But this data has not actually reached the peak level. The movie box office in 2023 was 54.915 billion yuan, and in 2019 it was 64.266 billion yuan. When the Chinese movie box office will break the 60 billion mark again has always attracted public attention. This year's New Year's Day data undoubtedly gives people more room for imagination, and people have higher expectations for the film market in 2024.
In fact, apart from the box office, another angle worth observing is the average ticket price. In recent years, movie ticket prices have increased significantly, causing many viewers to complain. Some observers even believe that the recovery of the box office in recent years is largely due to high ticket prices, and the quality of the box office seems to be mixed with "impurities."
This statement may be a bit exaggerated, but the worry behind it is real: if the quality of movies does not improve in step with the ticket price, it will inevitably lead to the loss of the audience base in the long run. When people complain about high ticket prices, they don’t just feel that the price is high, but they feel that the price and quality seem a bit “not worth it” in comparison.
But a welcome change in this year’s New Year’s Day is that it has demonstrated its ability to reverse the price increase trend, and the average ticket price has begun to decrease. According to data from Maoyan Professional Edition, the average ticket price is about 42 yuan, a year-on-year decrease of about 4.7%. This is also a response to social voices and shows a certain positive attitude of the industry: the industry has realized and is determined to attract audiences to cinemas through high-quality movies, rather than simply "fattening" through ticket prices.
Objectively speaking, society always pays special attention to the film market. The quality of the works and the box office always trigger a lot of discussions. This may also be determined by the special status of the film. Movies are the most intuitive and vivid artistic presentation of an era, a visual extension of people’s thoughts and emotions, and a display of a society’s “dream-making ability”; cinemas are the most important carrier of fireworks, and crowded cinemas There is always a soothing power, which means that people have the energy and interest to actively seek a kind of spiritual satisfaction.
Therefore, the performance of the film market also deserves people's long-term attention. It is an important indicator of the depth of social thinking and economic vitality. We also hope that this year’s bright start to the New Year’s Day schedule can continue, with practitioners bringing more high-quality products, and audiences helping the market prosper, and jointly creating more “record-breaking moments” for the development of Chinese films. (The author is a well-known media commentator)
text｜Yizhi
