The picture shows Beijing Chaoyang Road, Guanhua International Cinema, and the poster of the Spring Festival movie "Changjin Lake Shuimen Bridge". Image source: Visual China
There is no suspense, many people's circle of friends posted the movie "Chosin Lake No. Water Gate Bridge" won the "first card" of the Tiger Year's Eve file.
On February 7, the National Film Administration released this year's "Spring Festival" box office data showing that "The Water Gate Bridge of Changjin Lake" achieved a result of 2.528 billion yuan, and the entire "Spring Festival File" box office also reached 6.035 billion yuan. In addition, there is an interesting statement in the official announcement, the film history "Spring Festival file" box office second. The two words of film history have properly evoked many people's memories of the "Spring Festival" movie.
So, what kind of film history does the "Spring Festival stall" have? Over the years, what changes have taken place in the "Spring Festival stalls"? And do you remember which movie you watched in the cinema in the last Year of the Tiger? If the impression has been blurred, it doesn't matter, follow our combing, let's go through the light and shadow of the "Spring Festival stall" in the past 12 years.
In 2010, the year of the tiger in the lunar calendar.
This year, the focus of the domestic film market is still the "New Year file". On January 4, the first working day after New Year's Day, "Avatar" landed in mainland theaters. This 3D blockbuster, which was created by Cameron for 14 years, was destroyed after its release, and in a month it almost occupied the screens of major theaters across the country, and refreshed the record of the mainland film box office that year - 1.34 billion yuan. This record was not broken until 4 years later by Transformers 4: Reborn.
After 10 years of release, "Avatar" was re-screened in the mainland film market. The picture shows the movie tips for "Avatar" at Beijing Emperor Film City on March 21, 2021. Image source: Visual China
The record-breaking box office also made the market really pay attention to the commercial potential of the "Spring Festival stall" for the first time.
Compared with the seven-day period of the "Spring Festival stall" from Chinese New Year's Eve to the sixth day of the first year, around 2010, the "Lunar New Year file", as the main battlefield of commercial film wrestling, has a broader time limit - the consensus in the industry is that the end of November to the beginning of March of the following year is the end of November every year. In the nearly one-month period, the popularity of "Avatar" continued until the Spring Festival, and the seven-day Spring Festival holiday contributed more than 100 million yuan to the box office, which became the "top card" of the schedule and also ignited the entire "Spring Festival stall".
In 2010, the overall box office of the "Spring Festival Stall" reached 339 million yuan.
Of course, the significance of "Avatar" to the mainland film market is not only a commercial success, but also a prelude to the construction of mainland cinema screens, especially 3D screens, while prompting people to enter theaters during the Spring Festival. According to statistics, in the half a year before and after the release of the film, the number of 3D screens in theaters nationwide jumped from 330 to 970. Data from the National Film Administration shows that in 2021, 6667 new screens will be added, and the total number of screens in the country will reach 82248, continuing to rank first in the world.
After "Avatar", the "Spring Festival File" changed again in 2013.
On February 10, 2013, the first day of the Lunar New Year, the movie "Journey to the West to Descend the Devil" directed by Stephen Chow was released on this day. Zhang Wenbo, founder of Bole Marketing, recalled that the "Journey to the West" originally chose the "Spring Festival File" due to the production schedule, but unexpectedly triggered a "frenzy" of movie viewing across the country - the film broke the mainland box office record of many Chinese-language films in the same period.
The picture shows the scene of the press conference of the movie "Journey to the West and Descending Demons" on November 20, 2012. Image source: Visual China
On the fifth day of the Lunar New Year in 2013, Valentine's Day, the single-day box office of "Journey to the West" exceeded 122 million yuan, becoming the first Chinese film with a single-day box office of more than 100 million yuan in the "Spring Festival File". The film eventually grossed 530 million yuan in the seven days of the "Spring Festival file" and raised the total box office of the entire period to 780 million yuan.
Since then, the "Spring Festival stall" Chinese films have begun to occupy the dominant force. In 2014, "Journey to the West: The Great Haunting of the Heavenly Palace" and "Macau Storm"; 2015 ,"The Heavenly General" and "Wolf Totem"; 2016 ,; 2017 " Journey to the West " The Demon " , " The Great Haunting of Tianzhu " ... The box office of the Spring Festival stalls has also begun to climb, 1.45 billion yuan in 2014, 1.81 billion yuan in 2015, 3.08 billion yuan in 2016... 7.822 billion yuan in 2021 and 6.035 billion yuan in 2022.
2018 is the third qualitative change of the "Spring Festival stall".
On February 16, 2018, the first day of the Lunar New Year, the "Red Sea Action" released on this day became a box office dark horse in a number of comedy themes, and successfully pulled the "new main theme" movie of war theme into the "Spring Festival File", and finally won the "Chinatown Detective 2" and "Catch the Demon 2" and won the third place in the "Spring Festival File" box office that year. This year, while remembering "Red Sea Action", people also remembered the name of a director - Lin Chaoxian. The name, a few years later, reappeared in two works in the "Chosin Lake" series.
Zhang Wenbo said that the significance of "Red Sea Action" is to let the film theme of the "Spring Festival File" enter the period of "contention and blooming" and no longer pile up comedy. The reporter combed and found that the 2019 "Spring Festival" box office "top card" "The Wandering Earth" is a science fiction film; 2021 "Detective Chinatown 3", a suspense film; 2022 "The Watergate Bridge of Chosin Lake", a war film...
In the future, what themes will the "Spring Festival stalls" usher in, and what dark horses will emerge? At present, it is impossible to predict, but one thing is certain is that the "Spring Festival file" has become one of the most important commercial slots in the domestic film market, and has also become an experimental field for various types of films to pursue innovation and breakthroughs. ([Financial Translator] Huang Hao/Wen)