Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

On January 4, 17 days before the Spring Festival, a popular question and answer appeared on Zhihu: can the 2023 Spring Festival be called the "strongest Spring Festival"?

After the recurrence of the epidemic and the sharp rise in cinemas' prices, most audiences are not optimistic about this year's Spring Festival. At that time, netizens' answer was more pessimistic, and some viewers even said that it might be the "most street-bashing" Spring Festival.

In fact, on January 22nd, the first day of the Lunar New year, the performance of the Spring Festival film was really not good. The box office that day totaled 1.356 billion yuan, the second-to-last since 2018, and the number of moviegoers was 25.487 million, the lowest since 2018.

But the market did not remain depressed. Instead of raising ticket prices as they did last year, cinemas have brought back audiences with more affordable prices. Statistics released by the State Film Administration on the 28th show that the Spring Festival ticket booths in 2023 reached 6.758 billion yuan, making it the second highest-grossing Spring Festival box office in China's film history.

The Spring Festival is like a shot in the arm into the film market. Currently, 12 films are expected to be released in 2023, far more than seven in 2022 and 11 in 2021. As said in wandering Earth 2, hope is as precious as a diamond in our time, and the film industry is ushering in a promising spring.

The ticketing system was jammed and the seats were over 50%. At 06:30 in the evening on the third day of the Lunar New year, the meatball found that all the movie tickets in his city could not be bought. Before long, more and more people had a similar experience-the ticketing systems of most cinemas across the country were crushed by the enthusiasm of users, and there were too many people watching movies.

After an hour and a half, the system was repaired. But it is still difficult for most of the audience to get the right seat at the right time. One viewer told Tech that she planned to see the movie "Manjianghong" on the sixth day of the Lunar New year, but when she bought tickets on the fifth day of junior high school, she found that the right time was basically sold out, or there were no seats left in the edge and front row. But she bought a ticket for 09:30 in the morning on the sixth day of junior high school, but when she arrived at the cinema, she found that there were already many people waiting for "wandering Earth 2" at 9: 50, and the chairs were full.

Cinemas that sink into the market are even more overcrowded. A viewer who returned home for the Spring Festival told Tech that more people went to the movies than went to the mall. From the first year of junior high school to the sixth year of junior high school, there was a long line at the cinema in his county every day, because he could only buy tickets on the spot, and every time he made a telephone reservation, he was on the phone, or there was no answer. The efficiency of buying tickets on the spot is so inefficient that you can't buy a central seat if you go later. When you buy a ticket two or three hours in advance, there are usually only edge seats in the first row and the second row.

Most of the viewers are young people on holiday, as well as many parents with children. This year's Spring Festival films have a variety of themes, including the comedy Family Carnival "Exchange of Life", the suspense comedy "Man Jiang Hong", the much-anticipated sci-fi film "wandering the Earth 2", the animation "Bear haunts", "the Deep Sea" and so on. The county cinema, which had little space, was packed with crowds.

With the full flow of passengers, sales of snacks such as popcorn and cola in cinemas have also doubled. 30 yuan a bucket of popcorn, the cinema staff packed bucket after bucket.

A county cinema manager told Tech that this is the first year that the epidemic prevention policy has been liberalized in the three years since the epidemic. The whole cinema is looking forward to the Spring Festival this year. In order to accept the passenger flow during the Spring Festival, cinemas have recruited some part-time staff in advance. Usually there are two ticket sellers in cinemas. During the Spring Festival, they sent additional staff, and four of them sold tickets at the same time. The audience was the largest in the first and third days of junior high school. On the second and fourth days of the Lunar New year, people in the county went to visit relatives and friends according to traditional customs. "although the passenger flow of cinemas in the fourth-and fifth-tier counties cannot be compared with that in second-and third-tier cities, this year's Spring Festival gives many people hope. The film market is bottoming out."

At first, cinemas almost gave priority to "wandering Earth 2". On the opening day of the Spring Festival (January 22), "wandering Earth 2" topped the championship with a box office of more than 500 million yuan, and was the first to break through the 1 billion mark. Two days after its release, "Man Jiang Hong" surpassed "wandering Earth 2" at the box office and ranked first at the box office during the Spring Festival.

The cinema scheduling system followed big data, and the county cinema manager told Tech that cinema scheduling naturally gave the high-grossing films "Man Jiang Hong", "wandering Earth 2" and "Bear haunts". 36 shows a day, there are only one or two shows reserved for "Exchange of Life", and "nameless" is no longer filmed.

Cinemas in first-tier cities also ushered in a peak of cinema viewing during the Spring Festival. Chen Xi, a conductor at Lumiere Studios in Beijing, told Tech that this year's Spring Festival basically returned to the level before the epidemic, with the film's attendance at about 50%. There are many customers and many movies. The quality of the film is high, and the customers have returned to the cinema, "finally returning to what the Spring Festival should be like".

The intensity of work is also full during the Spring Festival. Chen Xi said that the work is busier than usual, and the prime time in the afternoon and evening will basically be full. For the audience, if you want to have a good seat, you have to buy a ticket half a day in advance. Chen Xi's cinema has six halls, almost 35 shows a day, and a ticket costs about 60 yuan, with an average box office of 140000 yuan a day. Compared with the past, when the income was the worst, the box office may only be a few thousand yuan a day.

After three years of silence, cinemas finally ushered in a large-scale recovery.

The Spring Festival in 2021, with a box office of 7.8 billion yuan and 160 million moviegoers, set a new record for the Spring Festival, which is still being held today. However, the film did not have a good reputation that year, and the audience did not have many choices. "Chinatown investigation 3" and "Hello, Li Huanying" were both considered to be deficient in the quality of the plot.

In terms of the quality of the films released, the Spring Festival in 2023 will exceed that in 2021. According to the preliminary statistics of the State Film Administration, the results of the Chinese Film audience satisfaction Survey in 2023 showed that the audience satisfaction score during the Spring Festival was 87.1 points, all of which entered the "satisfaction" range (≥ 80). Among them, there are 4 films with more than 85 points of satisfaction: 88.4 points for "Man Jiang Hong", 88.0 points for "wandering the Earth 2", 85.3 points for "the Deep Sea", and 85.2 points for "Bear's presence with me", the highest for the Spring Festival.

The types of films are rich and diverse, with suspense, science fiction, animation, plot, espionage, etc., and many heavyweight directors such as Zhang Yimou, Wong Kar-wai, Guo Fan and so on. Li Xuejian, Liu Dehua, Lei Jiayin, Wu Jing, Zhang Yue, Wang Yibo and many other well-known actors appeared in the scene, saying that it was a fairy fight without exaggeration.

A film practitioner told Tech that this year's type, director and actor configuration, not to mention the last, but absolutely unprecedented. The shooting cycle of "wandering Earth 2" took 16 months, and the overall creation cycle of "Deep Sea", which is regarded by some viewers as another milestone in Guoman, reached seven years.

The competition is fierce. Wandering Earth 2, which topped the box office on the first day of the Lunar New year, was overtaken by Manjianghong the next day. At first, Bear haunted, which ranked only fifth in pre-sale, successfully surpassed nameless and Exchange of Life, and counterattacked to third place. In order to avoid direct competition, "Chinese Table Tennis", directed and starring by well-known actor Deng Chao, was rescheduled to the third day of the Lunar New year. Two days after its release, it was withdrawn because of "major mistakes and deficiencies in publicity."

There is no suspense about the competition for champion and runner-up, and there is a good chance that they will occur between "Man Jianghong" and "wandering Earth 2". Overseas, some viewers rated the computer animation level of "wandering Earth 2" as good as James Cameron. The audience rating of rotten tomatoes reached 94%. After a Chinese watched the premiere in New Zealand, the film ended with applause. The movie even led more than 80 million crowdfunding around wandering Earth 2.

One spectator said that after his show was over, people did not seem to have done enough and did not leave the venue as quickly as usual. On the social platform, many viewers can be seen infected by the plot, and after the end, they recite the video of "Man Jianghong" impassively.

A theater manager told Tech that multiplying the box office for the first seven days by two is basically the final box office of the movie. According to this calculation, there is no problem with "Man Jiang Hong" grossing more than 4 billion yuan at the box office, while "wandering the Earth 2" should be just over 3 billion yuan.

The popularity of the film also led to the production company behind it. As the "Manjianghong" main control of the product side of the happy media can be described as the big winner of the Spring Festival, the share price rose more than 20%. If the final box office of "Man Jianghong" can reach the 4.627 billion yuan predicted by Maoyan, according to the proportion of 39.05% and 52.27%, the film side and the cinema side will receive a box office share of 1.808 billion yuan and 2.419 billion yuan respectively.

Will 100 films be released this year? will it lead the industry out of the cold winter? "this year's Spring Festival is quite a boost to morale," veteran filmmaker Xu Wusheng told Tech Planet.

In a narrow sense, the Spring Festival is over, but the "stamina" of the demand for cinema continues to release. According to Maoyan Professional Edition, the box office on January 27 (the seventh day of the Lunar New year) also reached about 970 million yuan.

"in fact, at first, the industry was pessimistic about this year's Spring Festival, because everyone thought that during the Spring Festival, there would be a second peak of infection in O'Micron due to the tide of returning home," Kuo Wu-sheng told Tech. "it wasn't until two or three days before New Year's Eve that the circle dared to make optimistic predictions. Ten days before the Spring Festival, no one in the industry dared to have optimistic ideas."

In addition to getting a high box office, filmmakers also hope to take advantage of the Spring Festival to bring audiences back to the cinema.

In order to re-cultivate the audience's habit of watching movies, the overall ticket price of this year's Spring Festival is maintained at about 40-50 yuan, the overall pricing is more balanced, and there is no phenomenon of large-scale "sky-high movie tickets".

A media analyst told Tech that the overall ticket price this year was even slightly lower than that of the same period last year, in part because the minimum distribution price was lower. "because the film market is in a period of recovery, the film side also wants the number of people to recover. The recovery of short-term attendance and viewing habits is the most important to cinemas, and after three years, public spending power and habits have also changed."

In the end, according to Maoyan Professional Edition, 129 million people watched the Spring Festival in 2023, an increase of 13% over the same period last year.

The above-mentioned media analyst revealed that during the Spring Festival this year, the cinema operating rate was about 93%, and 7% of the cinemas could not be restored. With the overall number of cinemas reduced, 129 million people will be able to watch movies during the Spring Festival, which has exceeded expectations in the circle.

The Spring Festival has come to an end, and what is more important is to continue the enthusiasm of the Spring Festival. In terms of content, we all have more confidence in 2023.

The audience embraced the cinema again, and the filmmakers regained their certainty. According to the plan, from February to May this year, films have been scheduled one after another, ready to accept the enthusiasm of the audience.

"when the Wind Rises" starring Aaron Kwok and Tony Leung recently announced that it would be released to the February 5 yen Lantern Festival. "the poisonous tongue lawyer" starring Huang Zihua and Xie Junhao is also scheduled for February 24, and "May Day" includes "Procuratorial Wind and Cloud" directed by Mak Zhaohui. This year, there are also imported films such as "Black Panther 2", "Ant Man and Hornet Girl: quantum Craze" and "Thunder Shazan" and other blockbusters or announcements.

Speaking Wusheng said that the previous large backlog of film inventory is completely enough to support the whole of this year, and the content will not be scarce. "there is a great deal of certainty, and there is a good chance that about 100 films will be released this year."

"the probability of this year will be about 90% of that of 2019," predicts Wu Sheng. The capital market also has confidence in the film market in 2023.

"this year's box office will exceed 47 billion in 2021, 50 billion in neutral and 54 billion in optimistic situations," the media analyst predicted. "the box office of domestic films in 2021 has actually returned to 2019 levels, while imported films have only recovered to about 30 per cent."

"We are very confident about the recovery of domestic films at the box office in 2023, and the key variable is imported films, and the quality of overseas films this year is heavy enough," said media analysts. "the current situation of introduction is good. We need to continuously observe the introduction situation, and whether the viewing habits and preferences of domestic audiences have changed."

But speaking Wusheng also said that the popularity of the Spring Festival has accelerated the speed of market recovery, but also made peer competition more fierce.

During the Spring Festival, there is obvious excessive competition in the market using their own publicity channels, which will also increase the uncertainty of this year's film market. "the overall market is still in a period of recovery, their respective publicity teams should exercise restraint and cherish the hard-won market situation."

"as long as there is a good work, the audience will be there." filmmakers have been following this phrase for many years. In three years, the film industry has regained hope, and now all it needs is time.

This article is from the official account of Wechat: Tech (ID:tech618), written by Wang Lin Xirui Zhai Yuanyuan

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