Picture source @Visual China
text | Entertainment Value Officer, author | Chen Tong, editor | Meiqi
In the past 2023, the total box office of the Chinese mainland film market exceeded 54.915 billion. This is the first time since 2020 that it has reached this whole number. At the same time, the summer box office and movie attendance reached record highs. Compared with last year's total box office revenue of 29.9 billion yuan, after three years of ups and downs due to the epidemic, this year's film market is like a sleeping giant awakened and finally returned to the normal development track.
Looking back on 2023, "recovery" is undoubtedly the key word for the Chinese film market. However, apart from the joy of harvest in the peak season, the sadness of poor harvest in the off-season cannot be ignored. The alternating hot and cold schedules, polarizing films, and the box office that is far from the 2019 film history record remind us that although the annual box office has returned to the 50 billion mark, the real spring of the film market will not come so easily.
In the new year, with the encouragement of policies and the promotion of consumers and producers, the film market will definitely continue to pick up speed, and the overall good fundamentals will not change . However, in the face of the influence of multiple factors such as the rise of offline tourism, high ticket prices and the diversion of short videos of drama series, the Chinese film market will also become more and more complicated in terms of subject matter supply, competition for schedules, marketing and promotion, etc., showing more obvious problems. The change.
(Data source: Lighthouse Film Laboratory)
Genre films are de-genreed Audiences no longer blindly pay for blockbusters
2023 Spring Festival box office champion and runner-up "Man Jiang Hong" (4.54 billion) and "The Wandering Earth 2" (4.03 billion) also did their part. They became the top two grossing films last year. At the same time, these two films also ranked sixth and tenth at the box office in domestic film history.
The third to seventh place in the annual box office rankings are all the "five dark horses" of the summer season: "All or Nothing" (3.84 billion), "The Disappearance of Her" (3.52 billion), "Fengshen Part 1" (2.63 billion) , "The Octagonal Cage" (2.2 billion) and "30,000 Miles from Chang'an" (1.82 billion).
From the perspective of subject matter, there is no so-called "genre speculation" among the top seven box office films this year. Traditional culture, science fiction, anti-fraud, crime, and suspense all shine. Any work that can break through will do so based on word of mouth. and content as prerequisites.
More importantly, these blockbusters who are also genre films have jumped out of the creative routine of genre films. "Man Jiang Hong" contains multiple reversal settings, and the comedy style is mixed with various elements such as murder, espionage, and undercover. It can be called a costumed script-killing movie. "The Wandering Earth 2" highlights the charm of "heavy industry" science fiction movies. "Fengshen Part 1" shows the imagination of the Chinese people in the bizarre and magnificent visual effects. "Thirty Thousand Miles from Chang'an" takes the lifelong friendship between Gao Shi and Li Bai as the main narrative line, highlighting people's destiny. "All or Nothing", "She Disappeared" and "In the Octagon" also have their own highlights in terms of reality.
While domestic genre films are de-typing and innovating, Hollywood blockbusters that are not enterprising are losing ground. Although mainland China is still the second largest box office for Hollywood movies after North America, it is undeniable that imported blockbusters are not as attractive to mainland audiences as they used to be.
Since "Avengers 4" in April 2019, no imported film has reached a box office of more than 1.5 billion. Although in terms of technical and industrial standards, Hollywood is still the first-class standard in today's film and television industry, and it will be difficult for Chinese films to surpass it for a while. However, while acknowledging this objective gap, we should also see how Hollywood has ruined itself. of. After the halo fades, Hollywood blockbusters will be a mirror for Chinese movies to continue moving forward. Both sides are worth studying and reflecting on.
Under the guidance of the market, whether it is the older generation of creators, or the new generation and beyond, the enthusiasm for genre films has reached unprecedented heights. In 2024, "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" directed by Tsui Hark, "The Legend" directed by Jia Ling, "Legend" directed by Jackie Chan, "749 Bureau" directed by Lu Chuan, "The Second World" directed by Zhang Yimou "Fourteen Articles", "Volunteer Army 2" directed by Chen Kaige, "Flying Life 2" directed by Shen Teng, and the animated film "Nezha 2: The Devil Boy Havoc in the Sea" are all on the list of movies that the audience is most looking forward to.
It can be seen that most of the relatively popular and topical movies in 2024 are still genre films, with themes covering animation, love, martial arts, action, inspirational, military, etc. After several years of development, Chinese film practitioners have shifted from the past blind pursuit of high investment, high pay, high special effects, and benchmarking against Hollywood, to the path of getting closer to the lives and psychological distance of ordinary people and making the stories more attractive. In 2024, the creative trend of breaking through boundaries and integrating across categories will also give birth to more innovative types of hits.
schedule competition intensifies box office polarization
5 Of the total box office of 4.915 billion, the summer season (June 1 to August 31) box office reached 20.62 billion yuan, setting a new record for summer box office in Chinese film history, accounting for nearly 40% of the annual box office . The movie box office during the Spring Festival period (January 21 to 27) was 6.758 billion yuan, second only to the 7.842 billion yuan during the 2021 Spring Festival period, ranking second in the box office during the same period in Chinese film history, accounting for 12.3% of the annual box office. The two most important schedules accounted for 51% of the total box office for the year, further intensifying the schedule head effect.
Except for these two top schedules, the box office performance of other schedules was average. The five-day box office for the "May Day" period (April 29 to May 3) was 1.519 billion yuan. The total box office of the National Day period (September 29 to October 6) reached 2.734 billion yuan, returning to the level of 2017, and there were no blockbusters. It became the only National Day period in the past five years that no single film has a box office of more than 1 billion. .
In addition, the box office share of the Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, plot and non-program periods has further declined, which also reflects the intensifying "schedule dependence" in the entire industry, especially the increasingly serious "head schedule dependence". The box office of the movie market outside of schedules is collapsing as a whole. Outside of the Spring Festival and summer schedules, 1 billion has almost become an insurmountable threshold.
Judging from the news released by many blockbusters, more than 90% of head and middle-length movies in 2024 will be released in the Spring Festival and summer seasons.. On the other hand, because small-budget movies lack the ability to work alone, instead of going on a silent "one-day trip" on weekdays, it is better to form a group to create buzz and get a share of the collective movie-watching wave. Compared with the top schedules of the previous two years when blockbuster movies were concentrated, more mid-level movies will also flood into these two schedules in 2024. This year's film market will have a more obvious alternation between hot and cold.
can foresee that in 2024 the Spring Festival and summer festivals will continue to increase their share of the box office throughout the year, which will further weaken the audience's movie-watching habits on weekdays and weekends, which will in turn affect the decision-making of new films. This will not only lead to Further shrinking of the box office will also make mid-range films that have to squeeze into the top schedules face more fierce competition for survival.
At present, many mid-range films are already in a dilemma. It is difficult to attract the audience's attention when they are released on a regular basis. It will be even more difficult to be "rolled up" in the holiday release together with the top blockbusters. With the increasingly obvious siphon effect, the box office gap between various films in the schedule is getting wider and wider. Relatively speaking, the living space of more mid-range films is constantly narrowing.
While top-notch blockbusters siphon off various resources, mid- to mid-range films will struggle. Young directors often do not have enough resources to helm blockbusters. Mid-range films are often their only choice for a long time after entering the industry. I hope that in the new year, mid-level films and young filmmakers will get more opportunities in the increasingly fierce competition for schedules. Otherwise, mid-range films will lose their living space, which will severely damage the vitality of the entire market, which will inevitably hinder the healthy and long-term development of the Chinese film market.
Sinking marketing is becoming more and more involved
In 2023, both audiences and practitioners can clearly feel that there are more and more ways to market movies, from various online short video second creations and grass planting to various offline road shows , large-scale screenings, and premieres with a strong sense of ritual, sinking marketing is becoming more and more involved. Behind the high-box office movies, there are no exceptions for movie marketing strategies.
Online, marketing on short video platforms has become the main way for movies to attract lower markets. After "All or Nothing", which ranked third at the box office in 2023 and also topped the summer box office, was scheduled to be released, materials such as "Wang Chuanjun's fraud group's magical brainwashing slogans and famous scenes of worshiping Buddha" were fully deconstructed on the short video platform, attracting more than a hundred leading experts. Imitation participation.
Various deconstructions and secondary creations caused netizens to joke, "I suggest you check it out, it doesn't feel like it was acted." They also consciously forwarded it like crazy, pushing "All or Nothing" to a state of near carnival across the entire Internet. "She Disappeared" became the first hit of the summer season with the so-called "800 marketing events"; the crew of "Fengshen Part 1" shouted "123 link" in Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room, and went to Liu Genghong's live broadcast room to dance "Compendium of Materia Medica" "Hot search that dominates the screen. With the advantages of fast planting and strong traffic diversion, short video marketing has helped many films break through the industry quickly and achieve a box office jump . Offline, if the audience has not seen the fancy marketing scene of the film, it will also be incomplete. The famous scene of men, women and children reciting ancient poems together in the theater after the screening of "Thirty Thousand Miles to Chang'an" is still talked about by many people. The creator of "All or Nothing" went on a road show in eight cities non-stop for a week, which put other films of the same period in awe.
Not long ago, "Twinkle Twinkle Star" relied on the "Snow Field" marketing to obtain a first-day pre-sale box office of 70 million and became the Chinese film with the highest first-day pre-sale box office. Subsequently, "The Annual Meeting Can't Stop" and "Taylor Swift: Time Tour" also quickly joined the marketing of special events. Those who are alive are working together to survive, and those who are not alive have to be tough. In this era when everything can be rolled in, the film producers have also consciously "rolled" up.
If most of the films released this year want to stand out in the fiercely competitive top schedule, they will inevitably continue to "volume" sinking marketing. For small and medium-cost films, , with the help of clever short video planting and offline activities, may attract more attention in the gap between blockbuster movies and alleviate the 28th effect of "the head eats all, and the middle and lower classes starve to death" .
The recovery of the film industry cannot only depend on the performance of large-scale releases, nor can a healthy market rely solely on a single genre or theme. In 2024, the Chinese film market will face more changes and reforms, as well as more opportunities and challenges. We will wait and see who will become the top player in in the new year, what kind of surprises the market will create, and whether the annual box office is expected to return to 60 billion+.
