2024 Spring Festival movie:
Set off in the spring to keep the hot dream going
The "longest Spring Festival movie in history" in 2024 will be in theaters for 8 days. According to the latest data released by the National Film Administration on February 18, my country’s 2024 Spring Festival movie box office reached 8.016 billion yuan, setting a new Spring Festival box office record, with 163 million moviegoers. With high quality and hot topics, it was well-received and well-received. It helped the elderly and young bring families together and inspired a strong movie-going craze. The number of screenings exceeded 3.83 million, leading the New Year's box office to exceed 10 billion yuan, demonstrating the strong recovery and culture of my country's film market. Industry leading effect.
"Hot and Spicy" Happy Chinese New Year
Eight of the Spring Festival films were released in the first episode of the Lunar New Year, and many of the films scored high and contained a high amount of "happiness". The cumulative box office of " Hot and Spicy " exceeded 2.7 billion yuan, the box office of " Speeding Life 2" exceeded 2.4 billion yuan, and the box office of " Bears Reversal of Time and Space " and " Article 20 " both reached about 1.4 billion yuan. Medium-scale productions dominate, and the number of "dark horse" films with a box office of 1 billion+ has increased from two or three in previous years to four, which is a hard-won achievement.
Clueless comedies continue to be popular, highlighting the happy positioning of the Spring Festival. The "reunion" attribute of the Chinese Spring Festival means that most of the films in the Spring Festival are "family carnivals" in a broad sense. Comedies such as "Hello, Li Huanying" and "Miracle: Stupid Kid" have precedents of small and big. Dozens of film companies have matched their strengths with their schedule attributes, preferring reality-themed comedy movies with low cost, fast production and high conversion rate. The proportion of multiple works attracting three or more people to watch together has increased from less than 20% in previous years to 27%, and family audiences have grown significantly. The market awareness is clear, the target audience is clear, and the market prospects are promising.
's Spring Festival show has "familiar faces" that are familiar to the audience. Zhang Yimou will compete in the Spring Festival again after winning the double championship of "Sniper" in 2022, " River Red " in the Spring Festival release in 2023, and " Solid as a Rock " in the National Day release. "Article 20" opens up realism with a warm family comedy, Get out of the legal dilemma; Jia Ling directed and starred in the second comedy "Hot and Spicy", director Han Han and actors Shen Teng, Yin Zheng and other original cast members launched the live-action sequel movie "Flying Life 2", sports The theme of inspirational comedies has been popular among the public for many years; "The Bears: Reversing Time and Space" is the tenth major movie of the "Bear Bears" IP. Veterans and newcomers compete on the same stage, and Chinese films show the strong vitality of talents.
Little people develop realist undertones
"Four joys are coming", "flying" is coming, and "hot" is coming, each with a realist undertone. The camera focuses on ordinary little people in ordinary life in the big era, based on the boxing ring of life. Or a racing track, rooted in real life, expressing the spiritual core of refusing to lie down and return to nature.
Many creations carefully create typical characters. In "Article 20", middle-aged Han Ming, who has been assigned to the Municipal Procuratorate, acts as a peacemaker as soon as he appears, wearing casual clothes to persuade the petitioners who are "asking for an explanation". In the three cases of bus harassment, Wang Yongqiang's family being violated, and school bullying, in the face of the bus driver Zhang Guisheng's orphan daughter crying "Is it wrong for my father to be brave?" Hao Xiuping defended her husband and daughter Juanjuan in prison. However, he decided to jump off a building, Li Maojuan was detained for beating someone impulsively to protect his son, and prosecutor Lu Lingling asked "Do you think these are right?" The anxious Han Ming was repeatedly torn between love and reason, morality and law, public order and good customs, and the country's legal system. between. To rationally discuss the situation with the driver who refused to accept the verdict, he took out the surveillance video at the scene of the incident and analyzed it frame by frame according to the legal provisions. To the son who injured the school bully but refused to apologize, he used poker cards as a metaphor to persuade him. This is the relationship between love and law. The balance between competition, family and society is the result of the "experienced" in the workplace who still has an idealistic sense of justice, the conscience for children, and the true pursuit of conscience in a society governed by the rule of law. "We are not dealing with cases, but other people's lives." The work does not stand on the commanding heights of morality and incarnate as a "messenger of justice." Instead, it outlines the "arc" of the characters, touches the temperature of the law, and awakens the "sleeping" of nearly 40 years. "Justifiable Defense" legal terms, this judicial subject matter is more approachable and socially radiant than "Solid as a Rock".
"Boxing is quite interesting. Two people can fight like that and hug each other in the end." "Hot and Spicy" uses a bead-like narrative structure to clearly show the protagonist Du Leying's life journey. She uses her body to become a weapon and exerts influence on life. Heavy punch, expressing strength and forming empathy in the images of the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Her soft words changed from being submissive to being clear, decisive, light and confident, and she learned self-consistency, self-love and self-improvement. She waved her fist briskly under the pure moonlight and ran calmly into the distance by herself. She is worthy of being "Li Huanying's daughter". Jia Ling's previous work was written to her mother, showing her tenderness and weakness; her new work is written to herself, showing her firmness and hard core. Empathy comes from sincerity, such as the unique recognition of smiles and pear vortices.
In "Flying Life 2", the driving school instructor Zhang Chi knows the way on a track full of hard rocks and gravel, which makes Li Xiaohai, who can only settle for a test drive at the "Laotou Le" car factory, feel like going home and returning to the driving school. After abiding by the rules, The pursuit of fairness and innocence in the story of finding the lead seal. As for the photolithography team and the gasoline-electric hybrid racing cars built with heavy investment behind them, the main force does not select the most capable, but only the richest. "There will only be fewer and fewer wild drivers like Zhang Chi."
In the mirror that has appeared many times in several films, Du Leying, who hopes to win once, is reborn, and Jia Ling is reborn; 42-year-old Zhang Chi is as determined as the 37-year-old, and the two cars were combined five years ago, and the King of Bayinbrook The word "王" shows three variations - "王" (glory and glory), "土" (confidence and foundation), and "干" (hard work and hard work); Andy Lau's performance in " Mr. Red Carpet " Angry star Liu Weichi sees that life is like a drama and that in the Internet age, " Let's Shake the Sun Together " is the final chapter of director Han Yan's "Life Trilogy" and his most mature film, showing the patient's perseverance in life difficulties. The earth is born towards the sun.
Film critics jokingly call the "Bear Bears" series the "profit and loss line" for the Spring Festival. If the box office exceeds this line, it can maintain its capital and become the winner of the period. Since its debut on the big screen in 2014, "Bear Bears" has been released every year. From the perspective of children, Xiong Da, Xiong Er and Bald Qiang discuss issues such as natural environmental protection, left-behind children, returning home, space programs, artificial intelligence, etc. A hot topic with a sense of the times, the series of films is firmly in the middle of the schedule, with a cumulative box office of more than 7.1 billion yuan in ten years. During the Spring Festival, it is a very precious achievement to maintain the above-average level and IP popularity for ten years. In the tenth film "Bear Infested: Reverse Time and Space", Bald Qiang walks out of Gou Xiong Ridge and becomes a worker in a large urban factory. The film fondly recalls the previous film in the form of a parallel universe, and brings together important characters from the past ten years in the climax scene, which is close to the hearts of the people and heart-warming.
China’s film and cultural industry continues
During the Spring Festival, moviegoers are in a rush to return home. The time cycle is usually seven days, which highly reflects the interest of moviegoing in third- and fourth-tier cities. The box office during the period often exceeds 6 billion yuan, generating the total box office for the year. 10%-20% of the movie box office is the most concentrated and competitive period of the year, and it has also become the first point of industry observation. The average ticket price for the Spring Festival stalls in the Year of the Dragon is less than 50 yuan, which is significantly lower than the 52.3 yuan for last year’s Spring Festival stalls and the “most expensive Spring Festival stalls in history” in 2021. Local management agencies from the National Film Administration to the Beijing Film Bureau have provided preferential subsidies totaling more than 100 million yuan, and ticket purchasing platforms have also invested in promotion. The average number of people per game and the attendance rate increased year-on-year, and the profit-sharing and diversion effect was significant, forming new trends such as "returning to hometowns to watch movies" and "watching while traveling". Weifang, Baoding, Nantong, Xuzhou and other cities saw considerable box office growth during the Spring Festival. The box office share in third- and fourth-tier cities reached 54%, higher than last year’s 50.1%.
Looking back in 2023, the Chinese film market achieved good results with an annual box office of 54.915 billion yuan and a total of 1.299 billion moviegoers. It has become an important driving force for the recovery of the global film market and the continued trend of the world's second largest film market in 2024. Good to lay a solid foundation. In 2023, 73 films will have a box office of over 100 million yuan, of which 50 domestic films will be in the top ten, and 11 films will have a box office of over 1 billion yuan. Movies have returned to the center of the cultural industry, providing cultural enjoyment and gathering spiritual strength for the public.At the beginning of the Year of the Dragon, the popular Spring Festival stalls are the finishing touch, showing the vitality of Chinese films and the epitome of the booming cultural industry.
While the Spring Festival box office market is "hot", from February 14th to 17th, that is, from the fifth to the eighth day of the first lunar month, "Let's Shake the Sun Together", "Mr. Red Carpet" and the cartoon "Huang Pi:" A total of four films, including "The God of Wealth" and "Bajie: The Lower World of the Canopy", have announced their withdrawal from the Spring Festival schedule, indicating that competition has intensified, thresholds have risen and even "ice and fire". Half of the films account for less than 10% of the daily schedule. The withdrawal is unexpected and reasonable, reflecting the uncertainty and risk of the film market. This also suggests that it is necessary to grasp the laws of film and television market distribution and cultural product consumption at a macro level, obtain the mainstream recognition of mainstream values from mainstream audiences to the greatest extent, and extract the consensus value of the film industry through word-of-mouth fermentation, key extension, and long-term marketing.
The supply of Spring Festival stalls requires stronger competitiveness and more precise positioning. In recent years, the proportion of the box office of the Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and non-holiday periods has further declined, reflecting the intensifying "schedule dependence" and even "head schedule dependence" in the entire industry. Around the New Year, "Break War", "Goldfinger" and "Stealth", as well as Stephen Chow's "The New King of Comedy" and Jackie Chan's costume film "Detective Pu Songling" during the Spring Festival in previous years, have also attracted continued attention to the future of Hong Kong films. The industrial difficulties caused by the "cold winter" of capital, the reshaping of people's movie-watching habits by streaming media, the differentiation and dilution of attention by TV screens and mobile dramas and micro-series, etc., are challenging the film itself and the film industry in the multi-screen era. Sexuality and the quality of artistic works and cultural products. The number of moviegoers in 2023, 1.299 billion, is far lower than the 1.73 billion in 2019, the 1.717 billion in 2018, and the 1.622 billion in 2017. The number of core movie fans who watched more than 6 movies throughout the year dropped from 22.3 million in 2019 to 9.75 million in 2023. For some time, the plight of the original content pool withering, the short-term and fast operation model, the single comedy genre or contemporary themes, "withdrawal" and "stolen filming" have been hot searches, all of which remind us of the need for theme supply, genre development, slow work, and meticulous work. There is still a lot of room for improvement in terms of schedule announcements, movie viewing culture and derivative cultural creations, and industrial chains.
In the new year, with the encouragement of policies and the promotion of consumers and producers, the film market will continue to pick up speed, and the overall good fundamentals will not change. Chinese films have sufficient adaptability and endogenous power. Mid-range and small- and medium-sized films have a larger market space. They have already set out to "continue" in the spring and are moving from "top-heavy" to "stand tall and head high" to attract more audiences. Watching movies has changed from "celebrating the New Year" to "living life", moving towards a more balanced and enriched "new normal".
(The author is the director of the Research Department of the Literary Criticism Center of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles)
Text source: "Literary News" February 26, 2024, page 8
WeChat editor: Lu Yimeng
Second review: Xu Wanni
Third review: Li Xiaochen
