"The film market has been ups and downs. Every time the market is lower than expected, it means there is a misalignment between us and the audience's needs. It is a critical moment for filmmakers to summarize the problems and seek changes."
August 22, 2024 , at the entrance of Broadway Cinemas in Dongcheng District, Beijing, citizens walked past movie posters. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Chu Jiayin
html On September 23, China Film (600977) held a 2024 semi-annual performance briefing. Fu Ruoqing, chairman and general manager of China Film, responded to how he viewed the film market’s summer season being less than expected and the Mid-Autumn Festival performance being normal. He said that judging from the past two schedules, the main reason is the lack of top films' traction on the market. Regardless of domestic or imported films, the supply quantity and quality need to be greatly improved. "The demand of the audience is rapidly iterating, and the differentiation and screening end are changing." Diversified transformation is imperative. It should be noted that the film industry has paid attention to these problems and has some response strategies. Therefore, Chinese films are very confident about the subsequent development of the film industry and film market. ”According to Beacon Professional Edition data, the total box office for the 2024 summer season (June 1 to August 31) was 11.643 billion yuan (including service fees), a year-on-year decrease of 44%. The "2024 Summer Movie Data Insight Report" released by Maoyan Research Institute on September 1 shows that the total number of movie-goers at this summer's summer box office has shrunk by nearly half, and audiences have not been able to enter theaters, mainly because of fewer blockbuster movies. According to statistics from the National Film Administration, the national movie box office during the 2024 Mid-Autumn Festival (September 15-17, 2024) will be 389 million yuan. This result is less than half of the 803 million yuan box office achieved by the "strongest Mid-Autumn Festival in history" in 2019.
Regarding the upcoming National Day release, what are the top Chinese movies that can boost market confidence? Fu Ruoqing told reporters from The Paper that on September 30, " Volunteer Army: Battle of Life and Death " produced by Chinese film owners will be released. This is the second part of the trilogy "Volunteer Army" directed by Chen Kaige . On October 1, another film produced by the company, " Only This Green ", was released. After limited screenings in some cities in the past two weeks, the audience responded enthusiastically.
In the first half of this year, Chinese films led or participated in the production and release of 18 films, with a cumulative box office of 12.882 billion yuan, accounting for 69.53% of the total domestic film box office in the country during the same period. Among the top ten films at the domestic box office, 7 are films that have led or participated in the production. However, judging from the performance of Chinese films in the first half of the year, both revenue and net profit dropped.
China Film’s semi-annual report shows that the company’s operating income in the first half of the year was 2.122 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 25.72%; the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 204 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 43.30%. As for the reasons for the change in revenue, China Film stated that the main reason is that the overall box office of the film market in this period is lower than that of the same period last year, and there are no films under the company's main investment and control with a similar box office size to the same period last year. This has resulted in the company's creation, distribution Business revenue fell.
Not only Chinese movies, but also Tangde Film and Television (300426), Huayi Brothers (300027), Bona Pictures (001330), Hengdian Film and Television (603103), Jinyi Film and Television (002905), etc. have experienced year-on-year declines in revenue.
At the performance meeting, some people also raised questions. The performance of film companies is obviously dependent on the box office. In the absence of box office hits, the performance of many companies in the industry has declined. Will Chinese films develop other business curves in the future?
Right Therefore, the management of China Film stated that large-scale investment and large-production film projects are launched within a certain reporting period, resulting in significant fluctuations in financial data, which is an issue that listed companies need to study. In recent years, the company has also been trying a variety of measures to expand more sources of income and use diversified investments to hedge risks and balance returns. For example, in terms of creation, layout planning of projects of different sizes and themes, time considerations for rolling and echelon launches; tapping the potential of the company's distribution business in response to current market changes; and layout of film IP derivatives, cultural tourism expansion, etc. .
Chinese film management also revealed that the movie "The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Greatest Man" directed by Tsui Hark and starring Xiao Zhan and Zhuang Dafei is in post-production and will be finalized as soon as possible.
According to Beacon Professional Edition, 7 films have been scheduled for the National Day holiday this year (October 1 to October 7). If the three films released on September 30 are included, there are 10 films competing for the National Day holiday, including "749 Bureau ", " Road to Fire ", " Crisis Route ", "749 Bureau", "Volunteers: Battle of Life and Death", etc., covering multiple sub-types such as crime, science fiction, theme/war, animation, comedy, etc. .
Guolian Securities pointed out that looking back at the National Day box office over the years, the box office scale from 2019 to 2021 has climbed from the previous 2 billion to 4 billion, mainly due to the concentrated release of supply-side theme blockbusters. In the past three years, films with a box office of more than 1 billion during the National Day period include "My Homeland and Me" in 2019, "Captain of China" in 2020, "My Hometown and Me" in 2020, "Jiang Ziya" in 2021 Year " Changjin Lake ". After 2022, due to the lack of top content on the supply side, the National Day box office dropped back to the range of 1.5-3 billion yuan. The National Day period in 2024 will continue to diversify supply, and the head volume will be slightly lower year-on-year.
CICC pointed out in the report that taking into account the impact of the holiday base (the National Day holiday in 2023 is 8 days) and the film supply situation, the current movie viewing decisions are more cautious, and the National Day holiday may still be under pressure. It is expected that the National Day holiday in 2024 will be 7 days Box office revenue including service fees was 2.46 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 10.0%.
