If a line were used to describe the Chinese film market in 2023, it would be like an ink painting of mountains: the Spring Festival at the beginning of the year was the first peak to rise, but then the altitude dropped and the mountain became lower. It was not until the summer holiday that it jumped to another high point and set an unprecedented record. After that, it was a deep valley until the New Year's Day holiday at the end of the year.
Data released by the National Film Administration shows that from December 30, 2023 to January 1, 2024, eight theater movies grossed a total of 1.533 billion yuan in box office, breaking the New Year's Day box office record in Chinese film history. This number has not stopped growing after the holidays, especially the word-of-mouth hit "The Annual Party Can't Stop!" ", it has exceeded 700 million all the way, counterattacking "Twinkle Twinkle Star", which was originally ranked first, and reached the championship.
And just when the popularity of the New Year’s Day sales has not completely subsided, the curtain of the Spring Festival sales has also begun. On January 10, two movies, "Let's Shake the Sun Together" and "Flying Life 2", were officially announced to be released on New Year's Day in 2024. The next day, Jia Ling posted on Weibo, announcing that her new film "Hot and Spicy" will be released on January 10th. Meet the audience during the Spring Festival; on the 12th, Zhang Yimou's movie "Article 20" held a lineup press conference in Beijing and released its first trailer. Including "Bear Bears Reversal of Time" and "Mr. Red Carpet" directed by Ning Hao, which have been scheduled earlier, as of now, a total of 6 movies will compete for the Spring Festival. In addition, among some unconfirmed rumors, Jackie Chan's film "Legend" and the animated film "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Guardian" may also be included.
So what kind of picture will this approaching Spring Festival show? After the film market has experienced a year of comprehensive recovery, after the 2023 Spring Festival stall won the second place in film history in the same period with a box office of 6.758 billion, in the same period After the New Year's Day movies hit the screens again in 2024, will the upcoming Spring Festival movies take off and create greater glory? At the same time, what kind of development trend will the film market in 2024 usher in as a whole starting from this?
Comedy returns during the Spring Festival
"I think the Spring Festival will be better than the New Year's Day." There is still one month left before the Spring Festival, and several scheduled films have not yet begun specific publicity and distribution work. Therefore, even the managers of major theater chains across the country We haven't seen the movie yet. Despite this, Lin Jia, who works at a group cinema center store in Beijing, still has optimistic expectations for the Spring Festival stalls. In her opinion, the 2024 Spring Festival festival has actually returned to a certain tradition: "These movies are basically comedy-based, and one focuses on warmth, plus cartoons, it is actually a bit like the previous Spring Festival festival, the whole family A family reunion for young and old."
For the Chinese film market, the Spring Festival period is actually only ten years old. In 2013, "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" directed by Stephen Chow was released on New Year's Day. It took in a box office of RMB 530 million within seven days, breaking more than 20 records for domestic Chinese films, and raising the total box office for the entire period to RMB 780 million. The year-on-year increase reached 89.7%, turning this traditional festival into a film business blue ocean that can be developed. In the following years, the Spring Festival schedule was basically based on comedy, animation and variety movies. It was not broken until the addition of "Changjin Lake Shuimen Bridge", "Sniper" and "Miracle Stupid Kid" in 2022.
The 2023 Spring Festival schedule is particularly diversified. The 7 movies each adhere to a genre, with almost no overlap. But in the end, "River Red" topped the box office, proving that comedy elements still have an irreplaceable position in a peaceful holiday atmosphere.
Therefore, Lin Jia believes that the strong comedy color of the 2024 Spring Festival stalls will be an important market guarantee. "And after the epidemic, everyone's concept of family and affection has become stronger. Taking the family into the cinema to watch a comedy is a good choice for returning home during the New Year." Kang Le, the film scheduling manager of another theater chain, also believes that comedy is a good way to go home during the New Year. A stable chassis will be built for the 2024 Spring Festival. On this basis, he has a prediction: Compared with last year, the overall box office this year will be higher than last year, and may even exceed 9 billion yuan, becoming a record high.
He made this explanation for "China News Weekly": "On the one hand, the size of the Chinese film market is still growing. The number of screens in 2023 will already be 86,000, ranking first in the world. On the other hand, last year's Spring Festival The average movie duration is 147 minutes, the highest in history. The duration will affect the turnover rate of shows. The longer the duration, the fewer shows can be shown. This year, it is basically around 120 minutes. The turnover rate is definitely higher. I estimate that the total movie duration will be 147 minutes. The number of screenings must be increased by at least 10%, or even 15%."
In this basic expectation, Kang Le is particularly optimistic about the two movies "Hot" and "Article 20", a new film that comes from cross-border transformation. Jin director Jia Ling is a descendant of the fifth-generation director Zhang Yimou. "I think the marketing of "Hot and Spicy" is very well done this time. It uses Jia Ling's weight loss as a selling point, but neither the trailer nor the poster are released to you, which is equivalent to thirsty marketing. Then it is adapted from Japan "One Hundred Dollars of Love", a female theme, shows the light of independent women. And from the trailer, it can be seen that Jia Ling's style is very obvious. From the trailer of "Article 20", the style is very alternative. Starting from "Above the Cliff", almost all commercial themes have not disappointed everyone. He has grasped the aesthetic orientation and value orientation of contemporary audiences. In addition, it also has some social focus topics. Several blockbuster movies last year were all about realism. "
Lin Jia is also optimistic about "Hot and Spicy" and believes that "Flying Life 2" may also enter the head sequence: "Of course this only represents my personal opinion. Han Han and Shen Teng may be less enthusiastic among younger audiences, because Our store itself is an office building-type cinema, and the age group of the audiences who come to watch movies here will be a little older than other cinemas." Kang Le feels that if Han Han can further embrace the market this time, "Flying Life 2" should be the problem Not a big one: "Han Han's previous films tended to be a bit both happy and tragic. He always believed that the core of comedy is tragedy, but in fact, for Chinese audiences, tragedy cannot go too deep, so "Four Seas" included this When the ratio of things to things increases, the audience does not understand it."
Regarding director Ning Hao's new film "Mr. Red Carpet," both Lin Jia and Kang Le gave relatively conservative views. Lin Jia said that he was a little unsure, while Kang Le believed that compared to other films, the lineup of this one was a little thin, and as a satirical comedy, it was difficult to determine its audience recognition. After all, there was a similar "Second Hand Masterpiece" last year and it was not very popular. accepted by the market.
Similarly, "Let's Shake the Sun Together" also relies heavily on the audience's ability to accept it at that time. Director Han Yan's previous films have all performed well, but a tear-jerking movie about a terminally ill patient may not go well with the holiday atmosphere. The filmmakers took this risky move in the opposite direction. In the end, it all depends on how many people are willing to watch it. During the Chinese New Year, I sat in the theater with tears in my eyes.
As for "Bear Infested: Reverse Time and Space", both of them made a judgment that there is no need to guess, because this series has been on the Spring Festival schedule for nine consecutive years, making a fortune without a single miss, and it is the most stable evergreen tree. "It's equivalent to a Spring Festival movie that can be considered a real success only if it surpasses it." Kang Le said.
Cautiously Optimistic
However, the reason why the 2023 Spring Festival stalls are so popular is more or less affected by some practical factors. Last year's Spring Festival was a holiday with low mobility. According to data released by the Ministry of Transport, a total of 226 million passengers were transported by railways, highways, waterways and civil aviation across the country during the entire festival, a 46.4% decrease from the same period in 2019. In view of this, movie watching, as a more accessible form of entertainment, has naturally become an important part of people's vacations.
Apparently that has changed this year. On January 12, the Ministry of Transport, together with multiple ministries, commissions, and agencies, jointly issued the "2024 Comprehensive Transportation Spring Festival Service Guarantee and Safety Production Overall Plan", pointing out the cross-regional mobility of people, self-driving travel, and commercial passenger transportation in the entire society during the Spring Festival this year. The volume will increase across the board. Moreover, the holiday time this time has also been extended compared to previous years.This means that this year’s Spring Festival vacation methods and contents will be more diverse, and the film market may face strong competition from the outside. It is precisely with this aspect in mind that although Lin Jia is not without confidence in the Spring Festival stalls, he does not dare to have high expectations: "After all, everyone has more choices."
Kangle is much more optimistic than Lin Jia. In his opinion, , such worries are not necessary. "Everyone has two trips, one is to go home, and the other is to travel. Going home does not affect movie viewing. At most, it transfers the box office from first-tier cities to third- and fourth-tier cities. In the past years, they were all return cities. The box office has shown a significant increase. Will tourism have an impact? Let me take the National Day holiday as an example. There were more people traveling during the National Day holiday in 2019 than last year's National Day holiday, but the box office of the National Day holiday in 2019 set a new record. , indicating that tourism will not necessarily affect the box office."
In addition, another special feature of the 2023 Spring Festival schedule is that it has, to a certain extent, taken over the collective demand to release enthusiasm for movie watching after the film market has been deserted for a period of time. The two longer periods of decline throughout the year further indicate that this demand is unsustainable and appears to have been exhausted.
In this sense, Lin Jia believes that the new reality is not only related to the Spring Festival, but needs to be faced throughout 2024. "After experiencing a blowout box office growth in 2023, the movie market will gradually return to normal in 2024. I don't think the overall box office will be too high, unless some topical films may be very popular for a period of time."
In her contacts with multiple film distribution companies, Lin Jia also discovered a market behavior that is likely to become a popular operation in 2024, which is the new year's holiday such as snow resorts, beer parks, Orange market and other fancy marketing. She feels that this is a double-edged sword, which is fine for the film studio, but for the theater chain, it increases the cost, but may not bring more revenue. "Just like the snow resort has increased the cost of buying snow machines and cleaning costs, the on-site operation pressure is also relatively high. If it is not done well, it will damage the screen and destroy the seats. Instead, there will be many complaints and refunds." She told " China News Weekly said.
Audiences are becoming more and more rational. Good films are the most important prerequisite for attracting audiences, and other fresh methods such as topic guidance during announcements and momentum building are just icing on the cake. According to the analysis of film schedule manager Kang Le, except for the lack of supply of imported blockbusters in November and December caused by the Hollywood strike, the two low points last year were just regular off-seasons. The summer and New Year's Day releases hit new highs twice, which just proves that audiences have not given up on movies and theaters. "As long as the movie is good, the audience is still very happy to go to the cinema. A big change in 2023 is that the audience's aesthetic requirements are higher. They don't go to watch movies during the holidays, no matter what kind of movie, but only good movies. Go watch. The sluggish performance of the National Day schedule is due to problems with the film itself. Judging from the few films released on New Year's Day, the one that really supports the box office is "The Annual Party Can't Stop!". Moreover, the needs of various groups have become more obvious. Some people may not have been consumers of theaters before, but they have been mobilized over the past year.”
Of course, this does not mean that he does not wait and see cautiously. Although he believes that the box office volume will steadily increase in the next year, he dare not make too big a judgment on the extent of the increase. "Because the Chinese film market is not completely decoupled from the global film market, current predictions for the global film market in 2024 are all on a downward trend. It is indeed a test for China to achieve growth on this basis."
(at the request of the interviewee (Lin Jia is a pseudonym in the article)
Reporter: Xu Pengyuan
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