Author| Sun Pengyue
Editor| Gale
Every year, the Spring Festival holiday is a carnival for filmmakers.
According to Maoyan Professional Edition: as of 12 o'clock on the 24th (the third day of the Lunar New Year), 5 Spring Festival movies have exceeded 100 million yuan at the box office, respectively, "The Wandering Earth 2" 1.048 billion yuan; "Manjiang Hong" 1.04 billion yuan; "Bear Haunted, Accompany Me "Bear Core" 330 million yuan; "Nameless" 276 million yuan; "Deep Sea" 169 million yuan.
A total of 7 movies will be released in this year's Spring Festival, with relatively rich themes, involving science fiction, spy warfare, costumes, animation, sports, etc., making this year's New Year "movie menu" more colorful. The pre-sale box office is the highest in the past five years, and it is predicted that the overall box office of the Spring Festival file is expected to exceed 9 billion yuan.
In 2023, as the first year of the opening up of the epidemic, the strong return of the Spring Festival file has given a shot in the arm to the recovery of China's TV market.
The two heroes competed for hegemony, and Wang Yibo fell behind
If anyone can become the champion of the Spring Festival in the new year, "The Wandering Earth 2", "Manjiang Red" and "Nameless" are the three movies that have attracted the most attention from the outside world.
Among them, "The Wandering Earth 2" is a prequel to "The Wandering Earth", the film is set in science fiction, disaster, and doomsday, telling the story of Liu Peiqiang, played by Wu Jing, saving the earth.
And "Manjiang Hong" is the opposite of personal heroism, it is a group portrait movie, Shen Teng, Lei Jiayin, Zhang Yi, Yi Yangqianxi are all actors with great box office appeal, plus director Zhang Yimou, although "Manjiang Hong" is not as loud as "The Wandering Earth 2", but it is full of stamina.
Just two days later, "Manjiang Hong" has already surpassed "The Wandering Earth 2" at the box office in a single day in the second day of junior high school, and by the afternoon of the third day of junior high school, the box office of "Manjiang Hong" has successfully surpassed "The Wandering Earth 2".
Compared with "Manjiang Red" and "The Wandering Earth 2" have a good reputation at the box office, which are expected to exceed 4 billion momentum, "Nameless" is undoubtedly a little bleaker.
As a movie starring Tony Leung and Wang Yibo, the fan appeal of "Nameless" can be called the first in the Spring Festival file, leading the pre-sale in the Spring Festival file, ranking first with a pre-sale box office of 57 million. On the first day of release, the box office ranked third, but because the content of the movie was too obscure, the box office began to collapse, and even the proportion of theatrical films fell all the way, and finally was surpassed by "Bear Haunted" and became the first "loser" of Spring Festival movies.
The movie "Nameless"
The box office failure will not shake the foundation for veteran actor Tony Leung. But for Wang Yibo, Lehua Entertainment, which has just gone public behind him, is undoubtedly a thunderbolt.
Wang Yibo's Lehua Entertainment finally went public after the fourth hit IPO. And the biggest confidence in Lehua's listing is Wang Yibo.
According to the prospectus submitted by Lehua Entertainment to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Wang Yibo's name appeared a total of 18 times; In the three years from 2019 to 2021, Wang Yibo's personal income accounted for 16.8%, 36.7% and 49.5% of Lehua's total revenue; Even in the first nine months of 2022, a total of 58.8% of Lehua's revenue came from Wang Yibo.
Wang Yibo, born in 1997, is only 25 years old this year and can already support an IPO company with a total market value of 4.898 billion.
Such a serious "Wang Yibo" dependence has made Lehua's road to listing questioned by the outside world. After several successive failures, Lehua chose to significantly reduce the amount of funds raised, from the original plan to sell 132.56 million shares globally, with an issue price of HK$6.8-8.5, raising about HK$900 million to HK$1.127 billion, directly shrinking by more than half, and raising less than HK$400 million.
With the fight of "Nameless", Wang Yibo's first entry into the Spring Festival stall ended in failure, and the stock price of Lehua, which has the greatest impact, is bound to fall sharply.
A number of listed companies surrounded the Spring Festival file
According to media statistics, a total of 172 film and television companies (not deduplicated) participated in the production and distribution of this year's Spring Festival, which is astronomical.
Among them, the production, production and distributor of "The Wandering Earth 2" have the largest number of participants, including Maoyan, Taoqiao, Alibaba Pictures, Sunac Future Culture and Entertainment, Wanda Film and Television, Shanghai Huace Film, Douyin Culture, Huayi Brothers, Shanghai Film, Poly Pictures, Emperor Film, Sina Film and Television, Pearl River Film Group, etc., with a total of 4 main producers and 35 joint producers, 12 more than "The Wandering Earth 1".
The main producers of "Manjiang Hong" include Huanxi Premiere, Huanxi Media, Yixie Pictures, Huan Shixi, Li Feng Culture, Maoyan Micro Shadow, Light Pictures, China Film Co., Ltd., Happy Twist, Mataway, and Yangjie;
The producers of "Nameless" include Shanghai Bona, Joy Film, China Film Co., Ltd., Huaxia Film, Ali Pictures, and Bona Film;
The main producers of "Bear Haunted, Accompany Me "Bear Core" include Huaqiang Fantawild , Hengdian Pictures, China Film Co., Ltd., Wanda Film, and Lianrui Trojan;
In addition to traditional film and television companies, Internet giants have also begun to gradually participate in film investment. According to statistics, Alibaba Pictures participated in "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Exchange Life"; iQiyi Pictures participated in "Chinese Table Tennis Jedi Strikes Back"; Douyin Culture participated in "Bear Haunted, Bear Core with Me".
And in the anxious confrontation of many film and television giants and superstars of Tianwang, the biggest winner is not "The Wandering Earth", nor Zhang Yimou, but the "Bear Haunted" series.
"Bear Haunted"
At present, "Bear Haunted, Accompany Me "Bear Core" has accumulated a box office of 330 million yuan, ranking third ahead of "Nameless", while it only has a 8.8% film ranking rate on the first day of the new year, and "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Manjiang Red" have 3 times more films than it.
What is even more surprising is that the "Bear Haunted" series has landed in the Spring Festival file for 9 consecutive years, and the two bald and strong trio of bears and bears every year can steadily get 100 million yuan at the box office and become a cash cow flowing with honey.
In 2014, "Bear Haunted, Treasure Raiders of the Bear Soldier", 247 million yuan box office;
In 2015, "Bear Haunted Snow Ridge Bear Wind", 271 million yuan box office;
In 2016, "The Return of the Bear's Heart", with a box office of 287 million yuan;
In 2017, "Bear Haunted, Fantasy Space", 521 million yuan box office;
In 2018, "Bear Haunted, Metamorphosis", 606 million yuan box office;
In 2019, "Bear Haunted, Original Era", 717 million yuan box office;
In 2021, "Bear Haunted, Wild Continent", 595 million yuan box office;
In 2022, "Bear Haunted, Return to Earth", 978 million yuan box office.
The reason for the high box office of the "Bear Haunted" series is nothing more than that it is a family-style children's cartoon, the audience is stable between 6-12 years old, often dragging the family to watch movies together, a movie ticket can form the effect of three, prompting the "Bear Haunted" series to rise and occupy 5 positions in the top ten of the domestic animated film box office list.
Compared with the astronomical production costs and actor salaries of other movies, the cost of the "Bear Haunted" series may only be a fraction of that of "The Wandering Earth".
In addition, the directors of the first eight "Bear Haunted" series are all Ding Liang, and the creative team is the same group of personnel, which greatly ensures the smoothness of the series of movies, and there will be no problems such as the collapse of the character of the main characters such as Xiong and Big Bear. Let "Bear Haunted" become a childhood impression of children from beginning to end.
In a sense, the "Bear Haunted" series has completely surpassed Feng Xiaogang's "Feng's New Year Film" and has become a pivotal evergreen tree in the Spring Festival file.
A revived film market
Movies are a business full of accidents, no matter how well-known directors and excellent actors will have a day when they overturn. Although the "Bear Haunted" series has been a box office miracle for 9 years, "Joy and Big Big Wolf" has also prospered for ten years and has gone into decline.
There is no long-lasting IP, with the "Bear Haunted" series to earn a lot of Fangte Animation is very clear about the market rules, so it has successively launched nearly 30 series of cartoons and anime movies such as "Chickens Are Not Good to Mess with", "Zodiac Legend", "Little Insects Have Great Wisdom" and so on, trying to create a new IP to replace the "Bear Haunted" series, but they all broke at the box office.
Replicating the box office myth of "Bear Haunted" seems impossible.
"The Wandering Earth"
But in any case, after three years of silence, the Chinese film market is like a stagnant pool, and too many film and television companies have either delisted, closed down, or gone bankrupt.
With the opening of the epidemic, the stagnant water has slammed into an oil pot, and the entire film market urgently needs a huge Spring Festival file.
Not afraid of falling vigorously, afraid of dying quietly and silently, no matter what the outcome is, the film industry is finally lively.