Source of this article: Times Weekly Author: Ouyang Qianqian
After years of silence, the film market will finally usher in an explosive recovery in 2023. On January 1, 2024, m Big Data, 1905 Movie Network, and the Movie Channel Integrated Media Center jointly launched the "2023 Chinese Film Annual Survey Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"). The report shows that the movie box office for 2023 will be 54.915 billion yuan. Among them, the Chinese market won the global monthly box office championship with 10.09 billion yuan and 7.767 billion yuan in January and August respectively. January not only broke the January box office record in Chinese film history, but also set a record for the fastest annual box office in Chinese film history to exceed 10 billion.
Looking at the major schedules, the box office of the Spring Festival, May Day, Dragon Boat Festival, summer, National Day and other schedules in 2023 have increased compared with the same period in 2022. Among them, the cumulative box office of the summer season was 20.619 billion yuan, with more than 500 million moviegoers, and the single-day box office exceeded 100 million yuan for 72 consecutive days, setting multiple records in Chinese film history.
Looking at the annual box office of theaters across the country, Wanda Film (002739.sz), China Film Digital, Shanghai United, China Film Southern, and Guangdong Dadi Theaters are firmly in the top five theaters. Happy Blue Ocean surpassed Hengdian Film and Television (603103.sh). Ranked sixth. Among them, Wanda Cinema Line has ranked first for many consecutive years.
According to the "2023 China Film Industry Annual Report" released by Tuopu Data, the total box office of the Chinese mainland film market in 2023 will basically return to the level of 2017, and the global box office contribution proportion will increase to 23.3%, a new high since 2019. In 2023, there will be 1.299 billion moviegoers, a year-on-year increase of 82.56%; there will be 131 million screenings, a year-on-year increase of 28.08%, setting a record for the highest number of terminal screenings in film history.
Hu Jianli, secretary-general of the China Film Critics Society, told a reporter from Times Weekly that the total box office data of movies in 2023 is impressive and the film and television industry is recovering. On the one hand, this benefited from policy support, especially the announcement in May 2023 on the phased exemption of special funds for the development of the national film industry. This policy benefits major film and television companies. On the other hand, due to the abundant supply of movies, there are a variety of movie types released in 2023, including the backlog of movies in previous years, which have all passed the review in 2023. This satisfies the movie-viewing preferences of different audience groups, especially in the summer season. The movie box office exceeded the sum of the previous three summer seasons.
Source: Tuchong Creative
Realistic-themed movies are far ahead
m Big data shows that there will be 73 films with a box office of over 100 million yuan in 2023, including 50 domestic films, an increase of 16 films compared with 2022. Among the top 30 films in the global box office rankings, domestic films account for 8 seats, an increase of 4 films compared with 2022.
In 2023, the top 10 films at the box office will all be domestic films, with a box office of more than 1.1 billion yuan. "Amores", "The Wandering Earth 2" and "All or Nothing" ranked among the top three, with box office reaching 4.544 billion yuan, 4.029 billion yuan and 3.848 billion yuan respectively.
Looking at the total box office, the total box office of domestic films in 2023 will reach 46.005 billion yuan, accounting for 83.77% of the total box office for the year. In terms of movie themes, the movies released in 2023 have a wide range of themes, including suspense, science fiction, cartoons, and realistic themes.
2023 is the highlight moment for domestic suspense crime films. m big data shows that the total box office of the 30 suspense crime films released in the mainland exceeded 18.881 billion yuan, which is far ahead of other domestic films with themes. Among the top five movies in the 2023 box office list, 3 are suspense crime films, which have won both reputation and market. They are "Man Jiang Hong", "Desperate" and "The Vanishing Her", of which "The Vanishing Her" has a box office of 3.523 billion yuan.
Reality-themed films are also one of the hottest genre films in 2023. Among the top ten films in the 2023 summer box office rankings, seven are realistic-themed works. Among them, the four popular works "All or Nothing", "The Vanishing Her", "Octagonal Cage" and "The Three Brigades" were all adapted from real events, and all received favorable reviews.
Hu Jianli said that the main reason for the outstanding performance of domestic films in 2023 is the emergence of many excellent works during the year, especially the emergence of a large number of reality-themed films. For example, there are several phenomenal movies such as "The Vanishing Girl", "In the Octagon", "The Third Team", etc., as well as the recently released "The Annual Party Can't Stop". Although this movie is a comedy, it is very close to real life. The above-mentioned real-life movies Movies with themes performed well at the box office.
In addition, he further said that in 2023, Chinese films have also made new attempts and breakthroughs in integrating excellent traditional culture. "Man Jiang Hong" integrated a word known to women and children into the film, and the show created a dramatic story with twists and turns; "Chang'an" "Thirty Thousand Miles" also uses many traditional cultural elements in the movie. The above two major reasons, coupled with the popularity of suspense crime themes, show that Chinese movies are becoming more and more story-telling, and Chinese movies are returning to the traditional Chinese dramatic narrative style.
The film and television sector continues to recover, and the
film and television industry can be expected to recover in the future in 2024, driving the bottoming out of the film and television sector in the A-share market. From the perspective of the capital market, concept stocks in the film and television sector will rebound strongly in 2023, rising by more than 20% throughout the year. 11 listed companies increased by more than 10%, among which Shanghai Film (601595.sh), Aofei Entertainment (002292.sz), and Zhongguang Tianze (603721.sh) ranked first in cumulative gains, rising 135.46%, 87.77%, and 87.77% respectively. 67.50%.
Judging from financial report data, 14 of the 20 A-share listed companies will achieve profitability in the first three quarters of 2023. Although Wanda Film changed hands at the end of the year, its performance recovery is far ahead. In the first three quarters of 2023, Wanda Film's operating income was approximately 11.347 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 46.98%; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was approximately 1.115 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 309.14%; excluding non-net profit was 1.104 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.606 %.
Wanda Film’s financial report shows that as of September 30, 2023, the company has 877 theaters and 7,338 screens in operation in China, including 709 directly operated theaters and 6,159 screens, and 168 asset-light theaters and 1,179 screens. The company's cumulative market share in the first three quarters was 16.5%.
In addition to Wanda Movies, there are 9 listed companies whose net profits attributable to their parent companies will achieve at least 100% growth in the first three quarters of 2023. Among them, China Film (600977.sh) and Aofei Entertainment experienced the most significant growth, reaching 79104% and 768.25% respectively, with net profits attributable to shareholders of 471 million yuan and 81 million yuan respectively. China Film stated that the reason for the eye-catching data is that the film market’s gradual recovery has driven box office growth.
Entering 2024, the recovery of the film and television industry is accelerating, and the box office data of the New Year's Day just passed continues to rise. According to Beacon Professional Edition data, the total box office for the New Year's Day period (December 30-January 1) was 1.462 billion yuan, even exceeding the 1.303 billion yuan box office for the New Year's Day period in 2021, which was the high point in recent years, setting a new record for the New Year's Day box office in Chinese film history. record. Among them, the top three movies at the box office are "Twinkle Twinkle Star", "The Annual Party Can't Stop" and the movie "Stealth" starring veteran Hong Kong stars. As of January 2, 2024, the box office of the three movies were respectively Reaching 613 million yuan, 326 million yuan and 228 million yuan.
Looking forward to 2024, Hu Jianli said that judging from the New Year's Day box office in 2024, this is a good start. There will also be seven or eight films released in the Spring Festival in the future, and expectations are also high, such as "Volunteers 2". Therefore, it can be foreseen that the future recovery trend of the film market will be quite gratifying.
But at the same time, he also told a reporter from Time Weekly that more high-quality overseas movies can be introduced in the future. "In 2023, my country's total movie box office will rely more on domestic films, and imported films will not have enough power."
He analyzed that the reason for the poor box office of imported films in 2023 is that on the one hand, Chinese audiences have stronger cultural confidence and are less interested in Haolai routines. The aesthetic fatigue of commercial genre films and sequel-type commercial genre films has appeared; on the other hand, it is due to Hollywood's own problems. Its leading commercial genre films, such as Marvel series and Disney series, have become increasingly routine-based and lack of film production models. Innovation. "We hope that the box office of imported overseas films will be better in 2024, driving the continued recovery and activity of our country's entire film market." Hu Jianli said.
