In the Spring Festival in 2024, the enthusiasm of mainland audiences is unprecedentedly high, and they are no longer simply thinking about whether to watch a movie, but how to plan the viewing time and choose which movie to choose first. This kind of scene across the country has directly led to a record number of movie box office and moviegoers: from February 10 to February 17, 2024, the national movie box office reached 801.6 billion yuan, and the number of moviegoers reached 16.3 billion, an increase of 18 over the same period last year47% and 2636%, a new peak. According to past experience, the Spring Festival stalls usually account for 8%-10% of the annual box office, so the overall box office in 2024 may set a new record again. However, this exciting result is worth pondering: due to the increase of two days of holiday time for the Spring Festival this year, and the box office on the last day (February 17) reached 71300 million yuan. At the same time, the conflict of interests has led to some discordant voices, such as withdrawing files, changing gears, screen photography, splitting lines and other issues to be exposed again, casting a shadow on the seemingly prosperous back.
Before the arrival of the Spring Festival stalls in 2024, no one could have predicted such fierce competition. Unlike previous years, this year's Spring Festival stalls are a bit bland. Conventional comedies such as "Flying Life 2" and "Hot and Hot", as well as films such as "Let's Shake the Sun Together" and "Mr. Red Carpet" are huge, but they all lack the domineering of blockbusters in previous years. The once-highly anticipated films such as "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", "Dunhuang Heroes", and "Volunteer 2" were absent one after another. This means that, in addition to factors such as capital, companies, and stars, this year's Spring Festival file pays more attention to the narrative ability and emotional power of the movie. "Hello, Lee Hwan Young" has proved this, and it shows great appeal by blending simple values such as family, love, and friendship with comedic elements. From the perspective of ROI, "Hello, Li Huanying" is undoubtedly a success story that all filmmakers dream of.
Similarly, this year's competition between "Hot and Hot" and "Flying Life 2" also highlights the preciousness of sincerity. Jia Ling's ** and Shen Teng's counterattack both point to the same point of view: sincerity is the most precious.
However, with the full rise of comedy, there is a little more uncertainty about the future of the Spring Festival. In the past, despite the fierce competition during the Spring Festival, there were occasional scenes of harmonious coexistence, and movies of various genres had a chance to reach the top of the box office. For example, in 2018, "Operation Red Sea" won the Spring Festival champion, showing the potential of the main theme military film; In 2019, "The Wandering Earth" beat out comedies such as "Crazy Aliens", "Flying Life" and "The New King of Comedy", showing the possibility of domestic science fiction films for the first time. Even last year, non-comedy films such as "No Name" exceeded 900 million at the box office. This shows that in the past few years, the market has generally believed that the Spring Festival is not only the world of comedy and family films, but also more types of films can be successful in this period.
However, this year's Spring Festival stalls are unusual. There is no unexpected popularity, and there is no unexpected dramatic story. This Spring Festival file clearly shows that happiness is the real keyword of the Spring Festival file, and other types of films can hardly find a foothold. This may explain why a film based on a real case like "Article 20" is full of strong comedy, because in the Spring Festival, no matter how serious the theme, if you want to attract the audience, the key is to bring them happiness. On the surface, this year's Spring Festival stalls are very lively and the box office is also gratifying, but in fact it is a complete oligarchic game. A healthy film market shouldn't have just one or two oligarchic films, nor should it have just one or two genres. However, it is a pity that although the Spring Festival stalls seem to be determined by the voting results of the audience, there is competition on the capital side hidden behind it. This makes it more and more difficult to make a breakthrough in the future Spring Festival stalls, and the only pursuit is to maximize benefits.
In contrast, the "Bear Infested" series of movies has become the most novel film in the Spring Festival file. Since its first entry into the Spring Festival stalls in 2014, the box office of this series of films has always been in the top five. It can be said that when the Spring Festival is coming, there will be movement in "Bear Infested", and each one shows a steady forward trend. From the first movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in which humans and animals cooperate against the ** forces, to 2015's "Snow Ridge Bear Wind" adding fantasy elements, to 2019's "Primitive Times" integrating time-traveling colors, and then to the recent sci-fi narrative, each of them has maintained a good Douban score, and the box office has also hit new highs. This strong performance has made the Huaqiang Fangte company behind it a lot of profits. Data shows that in 2016, the company only generated 8300 million yuan, and just relying on animation licensed goods, it has created a value of 2 billion yuan. From 2016 to 2019, the company's net profit increased from 7$1.1 billion increased to 81.3 billion yuan.
This year, the "Bear Infested" series, which has no rivals, has entered its tenth year and seems to be steadily making progress towards the goal of 2 billion box office. The era of the head movie and the year of the cancellation of the schedule are what almost every filmmaker is looking forward to, everyone hopes to succeed and become a dark horse. However, opportunities often come with risks. For movies, the choice of schedule is crucial, especially for commercial films participating in the Spring Festival competition, which is a big gamble. As a result, although the competition for the Spring Festival file is becoming more and more fierce, in the end, only 1-2 top films stand out, and it is difficult for other films to gain attention. In recent years, such cases have not been uncommon. For example, in 2021, "Detective Chinatown 3", which was initially dominant, was counterattacked by Jia Ling's "Hello, Li Huanying" just 3 days later. These two movies shared 80% of the box office during the Spring Festival. In 2022, the head films "Shuimen Bridge of Changjin Lake" and "This Killer is Not Calm" will receive a total of 3.8 billion box office, accounting for 60% of the total box office; Last year's "Man Jianghong" and "The Wandering Earth 2" were also far ahead of other films.
The competition for films is fierce, and the film schedule changes rapidly. Every year during the Spring Festival, there is a huge difference in film scheduling, and this year is no exception. According to the data of Maoyan Professional Edition, the four films in this year's Spring Festival file, "Hot and Hot", "Flying Life 2", "Article 20" and "Bear Infested" occupy 98% of the box office share and 919% of the film schedule. This means that in the remaining 8% of the film space, the bottom four films will only compete for 2% of the box office share. In previous years, disadvantaged films may have resorted to emotional pleas or sincere pleas, but this year, the disadvantaged films have chosen a more direct approach – to change gears. This initiative, which was first proposed by "Chinese Ping Pong: The Jedi Strikes Back" last year, has now become a regular means for second- and third-tier films. Five days later, "Let's Shake the Sun Together" announced that it would withdraw from the Spring Festival schedule and be screened on March 30. In the statement, they harshly criticized their schedule choices, admitting that they were disappointed by the hard work of the director, actors and behind-the-scenes team.
The Spring Festival stalls are the best time to attract audiences who don't often visit the cinema on weekdays. The influx of these audiences means maximum social impact for the film, so the film that can succeed in this time period will be the ultimate winner. "Let's Shake the Sun Together" is not a bad reputation, but it is not suitable for this "New Year" schedule. The same fate is connected by the black comedy "Mr. Red Carpet" jointly created by Ning Hao and Andy Lau. Although the film once again shows Ning Hao's sophisticated skills in black comedy, the audience's reaction may not be as expected at this critical moment of the Spring Festival. With the announcement of the rescheduling of "Let's Shake the Sun Together", "Huang Pi: The God of Wealth Cat", "Mr. Red Carpet" and "The Nether of the Canopy of the Eight Rings" have withdrawn from the Spring Festival stalls, and they have to say goodbye to the audience temporarily.
The only difference is that "Chinese Ping Pong" took only 48 hours from the announcement of the rescheduling to the implementation, and it still maintains a certain sense of mystery.
However, the controversy faced by the four films that were withdrawn during the Spring Festival is obvious, they have enjoyed the dividends brought by the Spring Festival and even Valentine's Day, and their fate is full of uncertainty when they are rescheduled for release again. What's more, even if they meet again in the future, "Chinese Ping Pong" may not be able to complete its Jedi counterattack. When it was released on the third day of the Lunar New Year last year, the proportion of "Chinese Ping Pong" was 102%, ranking fourth in the Spring Festival stalls, with a box office of 29.25 million yuan and an attendance rate of 151%。However, after the file was changed to February 17, although the proportion of films rose to 118%, but the attendance rate is only 54%, and the final box office only skipped 100 million. The winner-takes-all logic not only affects the Spring Festival file, but also affects the future of the rescheduled film, and until the time of release, no one can know for sure how much space is left.
In addition to the scuffle of the movie itself, there are some external factors that affect the fate of the Spring Festival stalls.
For example, screen photography, AI, and sub-line distribution. Among them, the screen boom caused by Xue Zhiqian is particularly eye-catching. This was originally for the promotion of "Flying Life 2", but in the end it evolved into an accusation against him, which caused widespread controversy, and there were endless debates about whether screen photography was illegal.
The controversy over screen photography continues. The National Copyright Administration released a public service announcement on February 7, starring Lei Jiayin, aimed at protecting the copyright of the film, clearly stating that you should put down your mobile phone and not screen the camera during the movie. However, the law does not clearly stipulate the act of piracy, and posting ** or Xiao** to the circle of friends does not constitute copyright infringement. The lack of a collective voice of filmmakers has also contributed to the phenomenon of screen photography, especially highlighted by the low-key publicity of "Flying Life 2". The impact of the screen camera phenomenon will continue, and in the absence of a definition of this in China, OpenAI, a leader in the field of artificial intelligence, has once again launched a technology that has shocked the world.
Sora, a tool that ensures that the theme in the screen is always consistent, even if the theme is not in the picture for a while, and can generate multi-camera. The news is widely believed to be a game-changer for the film and television industry, however, these challenges are left to be addressed in the future.
At present, what attracts attention is the new idea of the Spring Festival file line issuance. In the past, China's film market has always adopted a unified national screening model, but since the first National Film Trade Fair was held in October last year, the split distribution model has been officially launched. According to online rumors, five films chose to be released separately, among which "Flying Life 2", "Article 20" and "Hot and Hot" require 22% of the daily film schedule in theaters, and "Let's Shake the Sun Together" and "Bear Infested: Reversing Time and Space" adopt the ** sales method, requiring the proportion of film scheduling to be 12% and 10% respectively. This behavior was accused of "putting an end to unfair competition", and the distribution of the Spring Festival stalls was forced to stop under the pressure of **.
However, "Mr. Red Carpet", which did not participate in the sub-line distribution, did not achieve the expected results, and "Let's Shake the Sun Together" also lost its screening space due to the competition of the top films, so it had to choose another arrangement. Compared with the current situation where the top films occupy 30% of the film schedule, the former 22% film scheduling requirement has become a constraint. If the distribution of separate lines had continued, the results might have been different, but the reality is far from ideal. The future of split line issuance remains challenging.
Although the Spring Festival has ended, the impact of the Spring Festival stalls is still continuing. With the end of the Spring Festival holiday and the return of returning personnel, the competition in the second half of the Spring Festival stalls has also begun to become fierce. According to the experience of previous years, there are always some surprises in the post-Spring Festival schedule. Since yesterday (the ninth day of the first lunar month), the box office of "Article 20" has gradually risen, surpassing "Flying Life 2" for the first time, and today it has surpassed "Hot and Hot" and "Flying Life 2" with a slightly lower number of films, becoming the box office champion.