Text | Duyu, Author | Zero One According to data from the Beacon Professional Edition, as of November 27, the total box office of movies in 2024 (including pre-sales) exceeded 40 billion yuan. This number will be reached much later than 2023. Judging from the current situation, t

text | Duyu, author | Zero One

According to data from the Lighthouse Professional Edition, as of November 27, the total box office of movies in 2024 (including pre-sales) exceeded 40 billion yuan. This number will be reached much later than 2023. Judging from the current situation, the possibility of catching up significantly in December is not high. There is a high probability that 2024 will be the year with the lowest box office since 2015 except for 2020 and 2022 during the epidemic. The box office figure in 2019 was 64.1 billion. It seems unattainable today.

The current top ten box office movies in 2024 are 1. " hot and hot " 2. " speeding life 2" 3. "Catch the Baby" 4. "Article 20" 5. "Bear Infested·Reverse Time and Space" 6. " silently kills " 7. "Volunteer Army: Battle of Life and Death" 8. "The annual meeting cannot be stopped!" ” 9 “ Godzilla vs. Kong 2: Rise of an Empire ” 10. “ What kind of life do you want to live ”.

The top five and 2 billion+ movies of the year are all Spring Festival movies. The sixth-ranked "Silence" has a cumulative box office of 1.35 billion. Compared with the fifth place, the box office gap is lagging behind, which means that after the Spring Festival in 2024, there will no longer be a real movie. The S-class top hits, the performance of other important periods such as summer vacation and National Day are far worse than in 2023.

The decline of the total box office in 2024 is a foregone conclusion, but since November, there are still some industry phenomena worth recording in the film market.

The dark horse of the domestic film "New Three Axes": sensory impact, comedy, new emotions

"New Species" was successfully accepted by the market. Director Shao Yihui's second work " good stuff " has rapidly gained popularity after it opened with a score of 9.1 on Douban. In less than a week, the cumulative box office has exceeded 200 million. It is expected that the final box office will reach more than 500-600 million, making it the largest box office in November. surprise.

Domestic "low-scoring horror film" is the biggest dark horse in late adulthood. The domestic horror film " Yuanyanglou·Horror " starring Li Meng and Su Xiaoding has a cumulative box office of more than 100 million, which is five or six times higher than the previous media forecast, breaking the domestically produced film in the past five years. Regarding horror film box office records, the last time a domestic horror film exceeded 50 million in box office was "Die Xian" in 2019. The ratings of "Yuanyanglou·Horror" on Douban, Taopiaopiao, and Maoyan are much lower than other films.

Mainstream imported films continue to receive extreme cold reception from the market. Ridley Scott's " Gladiator 2" and "Red One: Winter Operations" starring Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans have performed stably in the international market, both at the same time or even ahead of North America. Released in the market, "Gladiator 2" currently has a global total of The box office has exceeded 226 million U.S. dollars, and "Red One: Winter Operation" has accumulated a global total of 120 million U.S. dollars. However, these two films only received 25 million and 19 million at the box office in mainland China, which means that the Chinese market only accounts for these two films. It accounts for about 2% of the global box office, which is almost negligible.

There are no surprises in the literary and artistic films at the film festival, and there are many surprises. "Old Gun" received less than 5 million, Jia Zhangke's new film "The Romance" shortlisted for Cannes received 4.11 million, and "The Blizzard" director Dong Yue's new film "Man with a Wig " brought in the topic of starring Huang Xiaoming and only received 3.75 million After the box office, it was rushed to streaming media, and "Perfect Days" was released separately with only 1.81 million.

. It is worth mentioning that some of these trends are not unique to the Chinese market, especially the market performance of small and medium-cost high-quality horror and thriller films.

For example, "Alien: Death Ship" has achieved over 100 million US dollars in the North American market, which is not much different from "Venom: The Last Dance", but the two are not at the same investment level; and "Joker 2: Double Delusion" The plasma film "Joker 3" released at the same time has achieved success in the North American market. The box office is about 54 million U.S. dollars, which is almost the same as "Joker 2". However, the "Joker" series has always been an extreme niche horror-seeking and bloody film. In 2022, "Joker 2" only took in 10 million U.S. dollars. Now, It has directly increased five times, surpassing "Joker 2" with huge IP appeal during the same period.

"Mediocre movies" with box office day tours hurt the market the most

Recently, the China Film Association and Alibaba Pictures Beacon Research Institute released the "2024 Chinese Movie Audience Change Trend Report". The "Report" shows that as of October, 2024 moviegoers will Women accounted for 58% of the ticket users, 79% of the audience were aged 25 and above, and 41% of the audience were from small and medium-sized cities. means that the mainstream audience in 2024 will be women and mature age groups, and the proportion in small and medium-sized cities will further increase.

The market difference between the Spring Festival period and the regular period is huge. The following analysis mainly focuses on the regular period.

Reading Entertainment believes that the direction that the industry should pay more attention to is not to please the mainstream audience image in 2024, but to think more about how to find the other side of the user image: male users, teenage users, first- and second-tier cities Why are users less willing to go to movie theaters? One of the most obvious and serious problems of

is the change in the age of the audience. In 2018, teenagers accounted for 8% of ticket purchases, and those aged 20-24 accounted for 30%. In other words, those under 24 years old accounted for as much as 38%, making them the core and main force in purchasing tickets in the entire market. In 2024, those under 24 years old accounted for 30%. Only 21%, accounting for almost half.

In other words, the audience base of the movie market is basically "stagnant". The young users cultivated by the market around 2018 became the core group six years later, but the market failed to complete the connection with the lifestyle of the new generation of young people.

At the same time, in terms of the frequency of movie viewing, the proportion of people who have watched movies more than 6 times in 2018 is as high as 16%, and it will only be 6% in 2024. This means that the motivation of core movie fans to watch movies has been greatly weakened, and there is no longer enough reason for them to watch movies. Spend the extra time and money to get into the theater.

has also declined in its appeal to young people and movie fan groups. The core problems in the theater market can be summarized as follows:

movies, as a relatively "high threshold" for offline entertainment consumption and a part of "low experience", have led to the public's dissatisfaction with movie consumption. Overall enthusiasm declined.

There is no need to go into details about the high threshold. The ticket price of a movie is tens of yuan. In today’s era when entertainment content is available everywhere on mobile phones, this consumption expenditure is a more “luxury” item for the public than in the past;

is equivalent to 2023 For example, the time to reach 40 billion yuan in box office in 2024 has been significantly delayed, reflecting the weakening of the overall market momentum. Due to the lack of support from leading blockbusters and the lack of explosive power in the summer and National Day schedules, box office growth has been weak. In addition, audience consumption has become more rational, and the rise of online entertainment activities has also diverted audiences from the film market to a certain extent. The lack of innovation in film content, especially the increase in the number of mediocre films, has further reduced the overall attractiveness of the market. , especially during non-holiday periods.

Imagine that you have worked hard for a week, walked into the theater on the precious afternoon/evening of a Saturday, and watched a movie of "The Untold Story" and "Under the Stranger" for the price of five 9.9 Luckin drinks. " "749 Games" " legend "... Will you be more cautious about buying tickets for watching movies? Will you prioritize doing something else next Saturday? Will you wait until it becomes free to stream movies?

privately believes that these films with some publicity points and medium investment levels will do far more harm to the film market than the so-called "bad films". The common feature of is that it relies on its lineup or IP to attract early popularity. Almost 60-70% of the box office of these films is concentrated on the first day of release. The box office drops off a cliff after one day. The audience feels that they have been cheated, and the movie-watching behavior has become a waste of money. Buy and suffer.

Against the background of these films, "Thelma and Louise", "Alien: The Last Ship", and "Yuanyang Mansion: Terror" will appear so "normal". These films are not good films in the traditional sense, but they are market-leading The required "regular content" has clear selling points and no fraud. It should provide laughter, blood, and scares. As for the story that is not told in depth, in fact, the audience has already had psychological expectations. The

Lighthouse report mentioned that the top factors that hinder audiences from entering the venue are poor reputation, clichéd stories, and unattractiveness.

Another problem caused by the above-mentioned mediocre movies is that it is generally more difficult to promote movies nowadays . Audiences are becoming more cautious about promotional materials and big V comments on Weibo, Douyin and other platforms, and instead trust the original mutual recommendation of relatives and friends. With the "acceleration" of the social media era, word-of-mouth fermentation is lightning fast. It spurred the popularity of films such as "Good Stuff" and also caused the box office of "Legend" and "Under the Stranger" to plummet after one day. Stars and IPs have no room for long-term development.

Therefore, the film industry must start to reposition the misunderstanding between market demand and content supply as soon as possible. Specifically, it is necessary to have new people and new ideas join in the content creation stage and to quickly iterate and clear out from old ideas. In particular, low-profile content and regular schedules are the long-term battlegrounds for cultivating the movie-watching habits of a new generation of viewers. To keep the audience in the theater, we can no longer look back to the past and try to serve the same dishes as ten years ago, which is equivalent to the current audience. At the same time, it is a waste of money and time. Small and medium-cost movies and regular schedules must open up a new situation.

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