The movie set an unprecedented best record during the Spring Festival.
According to preliminary data from the National Film Administration, the national box office during the Spring Festival holiday (February 10 to February 17) in 2024 reached 801.6 billion yuan, and the number of moviegoers was 16.3 billion. Compared with the 2023 Spring Festival holiday, the box office and the number of moviegoers increased by 1847% and 2636%, which is a new record in the same period.
According to a detailed analysis, the top four movies at the box office are: "Hot and Hot" reached 271.8 billion yuan, and "Flying Life 2" is 239.8 billion yuan, "Bear Infested: Reversing Time and Space" is 138.9 billion yuan, and Article 20 is 13400 million yuan.
On the other hand, the Spring Festival schedule is turning into a fierce gamble.
Let's Shake the Sun Together", "Mr. Red Carpet", "Huang Pixiu: The God of Wealth Cat from the Sky" and "Eight Rings: The Nether of the Canopy" decided to cancel their releases.
The market as a whole is looking for more control.
Driven by many topics such as "Jia Ling**", the hot search rate of the movie "Hot and Hot" reached its peak on the first day of release. **Source: Poster of the filmmaker.
This is a new record.
From an objective point of view, there are many factors behind the record-breaking of this Spring Festival stall.
On the one hand, the Spring Festival schedule in 2024 (that is, the first day of the first lunar month to the eighth day of the first lunar month) is two days longer than in previous years (Chinese New Year's Eve to the sixth day of the first lunar month), and it also includes the Valentine's Day schedule. If you follow the calculation standard from the first day to the sixth day of the first lunar month, according to Tuopu's statistics, the national box office with service fee will reach 66 in 20240 billion yuan, a decrease of 218%；In 2024, the number of moviegoers in the country will reach 13.3 billion, an increase of 332% growth, a figure second only to the same time period in 2018 and 2021.
In addition, movie ticket prices during the Spring Festival this year have been generally reduced. According to Maoyan's professional data, the average ticket price of a Spring Festival movie in 2024 is 491 yuan, a decrease of 61%, which is a downward trend for the second year in a row. Among all cities, the first-tier cities saw the most significant declines, from 93 yuan to 55$8.
There are many drivers behind it. According to the reporter of the 21st Century Business Herald, the expensive scheduling costs in the past have now become a thing of the past, so the producer decided to invest more money to compensate. In addition, subsidies are provided in all regions**. For example, during the Spring Festival holiday, Beijing provided 20 million yuan in subsidies for movie-watching, which benefited more than 250 theaters in the city. According to preliminary data from the Beijing Municipal Film Bureau, during the Spring Festival in 2024, Beijing's box office revenue will reach 26.5 billion yuan, which makes it the leader of the national urban box office.
Judging from the details of the movie, this year's Spring Festival schedule shows the pattern of "two supers and two strong", and the competition is still very fierce.
Hot and Hot is directed and starred by Jia Ling herself, and the first production unit is Tencent's Xinli Media, and the production unit also covers many companies such as China Film and Alibaba Pictures. In the movie with "Jia Ling" as the core element, the big bowl entertainment she represents is at the bottom of the producer's ranking, which is enough to prove that she attaches great importance to the team. As a feature film with a medium investment value, the return on investment of this project is very significant. "Flying Life 2" is the work of director Han Han, and the first production unit is Tingdong Pictures controlled by Han Han, and the shareholders of this company also include Alibaba Pictures and Bona Films.
It is worth mentioning that the box office revenue of the New Year's Spring Festival stalls has surged, which is undoubtedly a marketing victory.
In the movie "Hot and Hot", this is particularly prominent. In fact, the first-day advance box office of "Hot and Hot" and "Flying Life 2" only accounted for more than 40% of the single-day box office, which are the two lowest proportions of films since 2018.
With the wide spread of various social platforms, the box office is expected to reach a new peak. Jia Ling, as a famous comedy actress, has become the focus of everyone's attention because of **, which also promoted the hot search of "Hot and Hot" on the first day, injecting new vitality into its victory at the box office on the second day; From the first day of the new year to the seventh day of the new year, the number of hot searches on Weibo reached 447, and the time on the hot search list was as long as 789 hours, far exceeding the movies of the same period. On the Douyin platform, the number of times the topic of "Hot and Hot" has exceeded 2 billion times for five consecutive days.
It is these factors that together propel "Hot and Hot" to the peak of the box office.
The so-called "wave of withdrawals".
However, when Jia Ling began to enjoy the dividends of traffic, many movies suffered huge losses.
Mr. Red Carpet is particularly striking among them. The film is themed "how to make a movie", in which the in-depth revelation and satire of the entertainment industry, capital, and rewards becomes the most engaging part. On the evening of February 16, "Mr. Red Carpet" officially announced that it would withdraw from the Spring Festival schedule. During the scheduling period, the film reached 8231 at the box office740,000 yuan.
Initially, the market had high expectations for the movie "Mr. Red Carpet". Inviting Andy Lau, who has played a benchmarking role in the film and television industry, to play a popular star, and a large number of plots are based on real events in the entertainment industry, these are the highlights of publicity. Andy Lau is also enthusiastically participating in the roadshow. On February 15, he carried out the promotion of "Mr. Red Carpet" in Chengdu, and just the day before, Andy Lau visited Zhengzhou.
However, in the face of such a huge investment, the situation does not seem to be rosy.
According to the official announcement released by the production company Huanxi Media in early 2022, the total production budget of the film is close to RMB 26.1 billion yuan, of which the protagonist's salary is as high as 60.7 million yuan, while the director's fee is 24.6 million yuan. At that time, the project "Mr. Red Carpet" was also named "All the Stars", and its first release was planned in 2023.
It is worth mentioning that the movie 2The $6.1 billion budget only covers production costs, while the total budget also includes high publicity and distribution costs. The general view in the industry is that in order to successfully carry out the promotion and release of the Spring Festival stalls, the cost required will start from 100 million yuan. Of course, considering the relatively low-key marketing rhythm of this film and Andy Lau's own high traffic, the publicity cost of "Mr. Red Carpet" may be controllable, but it will not be too low.
According to the 21st Century Business Herald, the reporter learned from the release announcement of "Mr. Red Carpet" that the film's investor split ratio reached 43%. In the process of distributing the film and investing in the production company, the distributor will deduct the publicity and distribution fee and a certain percentage (usually 10% to 15% of the distribution revenue) of the distribution commission, and then distribute the remaining part to the investment producer.
Therefore, for investors in Mr. Red Carpet, they will most likely need to make more than 7800 million yuan to reach the level of profitability. Compared with the box office performance of the Spring Festival stalls of about 80 million yuan, this figure has a big gap.
In anticipation of huge losses, "Mr. Red Carpet" decided to withdraw. This also means that the previous publicity expenses have been wasted, and there are still more publicity funds invested. Such an option may increase the risk of losing money.
Regarding the poor performance of "Mr. Red Carpet", a movie with its own high traffic, at the box office, there are several potential risks. As for whether the film will be recognized by the market, this is a question that needs to be thought about deeply, especially considering that "Mr. Red Carpet" has ended on the last day of the Spring Festival schedule. Film critic Wei Qiao pointed out in his article that the slow development of the plot and the large number of metaphorical shots in the second half of the film make it difficult to attract the attention of the audience, and sometimes even make people feel drowsy. The rating of "Mr. Red Carpet" on Douban is 68, and the movie "Crazy Stone" directed by Ning Hao also won 86 ratings.
In addition, whether the Spring Festival schedule matches "black humor" is also a question worth thinking about.
At least, Lianrui Pictures, as the main producer of "Let's Shake the Sun Together", has made it clear that the Spring Festival schedule is not suitable as a heavier "** theme". On the evening of February 14, it was announced that the film would be withdrawn from the Spring Festival schedule and the release date was postponed to March 30. The withdrawal statement pointed out that there was a serious mistake in the selection of the schedule, which not only disappointed the expectations of the director and actors, but also lived up to the hard work of many main creators and staff in front of and behind the scenes. During the scheduling period, the box office revenue of the movie "Let's Shake the Sun Together" reached 9332970,000 yuan.
The Spring Festival has attracted a large number of seemingly "inappropriate" films, mainly because the popular screening period is still the main viewing time for audiences throughout the year, especially during the Spring Festival. According to the statistics of Lighthouse, the schedule contribution in 2023 has reached a peak of 68% of the box office throughout the year, especially during the Spring Festival, which accounts for as much as 12% of the box office.
It is gratifying that the box office share of the Spring Festival schedule is gradually decreasing. In 2022, the box office in this time period accounted for 20% of the year, compared to 9% in 2019.
Looking at the fierce conflict in 2024, it seems that the film industry also needs to come out of the Spring Festival schedule.
A brand new space.
In fact, there are already new trends in the market.
For example, the box office of "Bear Infested: Reversing Time and Space" is reaching a scale of 2 billion yuan. For this movie, the highlight is not only limited to the box office revenue during the Spring Festival, but more importantly, it has a huge IP influence behind it.
Since 2012, the "Bear Infested" series has produced a total of 18 TV animations (with a total of 1,066 episodes (including 10 theatrical film stage plays and 1 interactive drama), thus building the IP "universe" of "Bear Infested". As of February 20, 2024, the box office revenue of the movie "Bear Infested" has exceeded the 7.3 billion yuan mark.
Hua Qiang, the producer of the film, made it clear in their 2023 annual report that they are actively promoting activities such as the "Bear Infested Family Run" in the park to attract more visitors. The company is still expanding its portfolio of bear-infested hotels. Huaqiang Fantawild cooperated with Le Caesar to launch authorized parent-child set products, and opened a co-branded theme store called "Bear Infested" in the physical store. In addition, the influence of bear infested IP in the fields of beauty, transportation, ** and enterprises, and public welfare activities has also been further expanded.
It should be particularly emphasized that Huaqiang Fantawild has conducted in-depth details on the commercialization of "bear infested". When we focus on the design of a brand's product, the core content is like a script. Intersecting with this playbook, we identified the brand's target audience, direction, and market, and fundamentally, we were running a marketing campaign. The senior management of the partners of "Bear Infested" told the reporter of the 21st Century Business Herald.
From an objective point of view, this approach has already begun to sprout in the industry.
For example, China's film industry is using The Wandering Earth to create a "paradise for Chinese science fiction films." In May 2023, the company released data indicating that the total sales of derivative assembly toys of "The Wandering Earth 2" are about 300,000 sets.
52toys toy company is also working hard to create a transformer mecha IP - the content ecology of the beast box, they have launched a variety of content including **, comics, anime and movies, and signed a contract with science fiction writer Wang Nuonuo to co-create the official first **. The beast box was released by 52toys in 2016 and belongs to one of China's original transformation mecha series.
Moving towards commercialization is an extremely challenging task for content-derived IPs, and we have crossed a fairly high threshold. Once the content is successful, the monetization power of the IP will grow exponentially fast. Huang Jin, co-founder and president of 52toys, explained to the reporter of the 21st Century Business Herald how the company built the IP logic. He also mentioned that many content providers have shown strong interest in the Beast Box project, and there are streaming platforms from overseas that have taken the initiative to contact them.
However, there are still certain risks in such a direction. The movie "Fengshen Part 1: Chao Song Fengyun" achieved 26200 million yuan in box office revenue, but in the end it ended in a loss. According to the official announcement of Beijing Culture, the income range of this film is 5between 4 and 600 million yuan, while its operating costs are about 61 to 6between 700 million yuan.
Fengshen marks the first film in the history of Chinese cinema to be created in three consecutive films. For the series, the wide world was not yet fully presented, and its production company was already in financial trouble. By 2023, Beijing culture is expected to face 2500 million to 2A loss of 900 million yuan.
Director Chen Sicheng made it clear in an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that he is refocusing on the core content of the film. "The current time is not particularly radical, it is more suitable for so-called territorial expansion and a show of strength. "Chen Sicheng is widely regarded as a leading figure in the Chinese film industry. His "Detective Chinatown" series has established derivative development partnerships with more than 50 different categories of industries, such as model toys, cultural and creative industries, 3C, small household appliances, clothing and accessories, food and beverage, etc. In addition, he plans to further develop areas such as games and location-based entertainment in the future.
From a macro perspective, the film industry is gradually recovering its vitality, and "getting out" of the Spring Festival schedule is undoubtedly a key and challenging part of this process.