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The "strongest" Spring Festival stall is not strong enough, who is "dragging its feet"?

The "strongest Spring Festival file" that has been shouted for a long time finally arrived, and it handed over a box office result of 1.34 billion on the first day of the new year.

Theaters are back in the crowded bustle, but yesterday's overall box office can only rank fourth compared with the same period of previous years - 1.458 billion in 2019, 1.693 billion in 2021 and 1.454 billion in 2022.

In terms of breakdown, all data dimensions have declined. According to Lighthouse Professional Edition data, the number of moviegoers on New Year's Day this year was only 24.04 million, down 7.4% from last year and 30% from the previous year. The decline in the number of people was not as fast as the number of games, with a total of 436,000 games held at the beginning of this year, 23% less than last year.

The "strongest" Spring Festival stall is not strong enough, who is "dragging its feet"?

Correspondingly, theater attendance has increased. This year's six new films all had attendance of more than 30%, while four of last year's eight new films did not reach 30%. In the top echelon, "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Manjiang Red" reached 47.8% and 55% of the single-day attendance, while last year's "Changjin Lake Water Gate Bridge" only 44.7% on the first day.

The fare problem that the public complained about every year also ushered in the first decline in 7 years on this New Year's Day, with an average ticket price of 55.4 yuan. Compared with last year's 56.1 yuan, although the decline is not obvious, it has stopped the trend of continuing to rise, and has not caused large-scale audience viewing negative emotions.

How the box office curve in the next few days is the key battle of the entire schedule, not to mention, the enlightenment of the Spring Festival file to the film market is far more than the box office dimension.

Why is "strongest" not strong enough?

Many people in the industry call this year the "strongest" Spring Festival file after watching the film, the main reason is of course the recognition of the quality of the film. It's just that the high expectations before the schedule were not well realized on the first day of the first year.

Specifically, the total number of screenings this year has dropped sharply compared with previous years. Not counting "Chinese Table Tennis Jedi Strikes Back", which was released only on the third day of the Lunar New Year, the average length of the 6 new films in the Spring Festival file is 130 minutes, which is a full 21 minutes longer than the average length of the Spring Festival file in 2022. In particular, the two head films "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Manjiang Red" are 173 minutes and 159 minutes long respectively - the length of the film is too long, and the number of theaters that can be shown in a day is reduced.

In the case of a decline in the number of performances, the number of people is bound to be forced to decline, so that it is difficult to break through at the box office. However, the decline in the number of people is significantly lower than the number of screenings, which shows that the willingness to watch movies is still there.

Secondly, the ultra-long length of the film not only did not bring higher ticket prices, but also declined compared with last year. In previous years, most of the box office growth of the Spring Festival file was piled up by high ticket prices. On the first day of the Chinese New Year in 2022, when the number of moviegoers fell by 24.8%, relying on a 14.2% increase in ticket prices, it maintained a result close to the second in history. And this year's ticket prices have fallen, and the box office has naturally returned to a normal level.

Although the average ticket price this year has not dropped much compared with last year, it is still a big improvement from 49.1 yuan the year before. However, Poison Eye has also analyzed before that the minimum release price of films last year and this year generally increased by 5 yuan, so it is basically in line with the laws of the market from the perspective of theater pricing.

On social platforms, "high ticket prices" are no longer the core of discussions about the Spring Festival on New Year's Day. Last year, #Year of the Tiger Spring Festival ticket price in history#Mightily appeared on Weibo hot search, many netizens left messages "The movie really looks down". And this year, the top two on the hot search list on the first day of the new year are titles such as #Wandering Earth 2# and #Manjiang Hong#, and the discussion content in the topic is mostly focused on the discussion of the content of the film. In the Weibo search keyword "fare", the real-time Weibo that can be turned to is basically occupied by the words "worth the fare".

The "strongest" Spring Festival stall is not strong enough, who is "dragging its feet"?

In fact, in previous years, in the audience's complaints about high ticket prices, there was often a neglected second half of the sentence: "Are these movies worth this ticket price?" "The underlying logic is that when the content quality and viewing satisfaction of the film are improved, the audience's tolerance for high ticket prices will also increase accordingly. This provides a new perspective on ticket prices – fares are not infallible, but need to be based on the premise that the content supply is mature enough.

In addition to ticket prices, this year's new film is set and pre-sale start time is late, which makes the pre-screening warm-up work of the film very intense. Film marketing is a job that needs to be repeatedly reached, and it is difficult to mobilize enough willingness to watch movies when the number of contacts is limited. According to Lighthouse Professional Edition, the pre-sale of the Spring Festival in 2023 will open three days later than in 2022, with a gap of 87.58 million yuan on the first day of opening, but the pre-sale growth rate of the upcoming release is faster than last year, and the final pre-sale performance gap is only 55.58 million yuan. It can be seen that if we can have a longer marketing fermentation time, it is possible to surpass last year in terms of pre-sales results.

In addition, "Chinese Table Tennis: Jedi Strikes Back" was temporarily changed to the third year of junior high school, resulting in only 6 new films in the first year of this year, returning to the level of 2018 in terms of the number of options, and also losing some potential moviegoers.

The "strongest" Spring Festival stall is not strong enough, who is "dragging its feet"?

Of course, although the overall performance of the broader market is not as good as in previous years, there are still some positive changes in the breakdown data. This year is the first Spring Festival file after the liberalization of epidemic prevention and control, and after excluding the impact of "celebrating the New Year in place", the proportion of box office in lower-tier cities has increased significantly, driving incremental group viewing. According to Lighthouse Professional Edition, the box office of third- and fourth-tier cities on the first day of the Lunar New Year this year accounted for 52%, compared with 48% last year.

Therefore, it is not necessarily a bad thing that the box office on the first day of the real schedule is not so "strong", after all, there are still 5 days left in the Spring Festival file, and the head film still has a long box office release time after the end of the Spring Festival file. The significance of Lunar New Year's Day is to be able to gather the audience back to the cinema and try to pick up the gradually forgotten viewing habit. With the number of moviegoers in 2022 falling by nearly 40% compared to the previous year, this New Year's Day has tried its best to get off to a good start.

What is the stamina?

After the first day of junior high school, the war was not over. In order to achieve further good results in the following time, word of mouth is undoubtedly a key factor. As of the release of Poison Eye, except for "Nameless", the rest of the films Douban have been scored, and the average score of the 5 new films is 7.3 points. In contrast, the average score of the Spring Festival opening stage in 2022 and 2021 is 7 points, which is already the best in all years. From this dimension, there are traces to call this year's "strongest" Spring Festival file.

Judging from the echelon pattern shown on the first day of the new year, the "two-person turn" of the head echelon: "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Manjiang Red" are basically stable. On the first day, the two contributed 64.7% of the box office with a combined 52.7% of the films. This situation is further fed back to the market of the second year of junior high school, and the current proportion of films in the two has risen to 55.6%, and the box office continues to lead.

The "strongest" Spring Festival stall is not strong enough, who is "dragging its feet"?

In terms of word of mouth, these two films also successfully led, with "The Wandering Earth 2" scoring 8.3 and "Manjiang Red" scoring 8.0. Compared with the head films of the past two years, "Shuimen Bridge of Changjin Lake", "Detective Chinatown 3" and "Hello, Li Huanying" scored 7.2 points, 6.8 points and 8.1 points respectively. Perhaps who will win this year's Spring Festival championship is still in suspense, but there is no other candidate for the top two.

Specifically, "Manjiang Red" had the second box office on the first day, with a gap of 74 million at the box office with the single-day champion "The Wandering Earth 2", but its attendance rate was higher, leading by 7 percentage points. In the current arrangement of the second and third years of junior high school, "Manjiang Red" has achieved a reverse of "The Wandering Earth 2", and until the release of Poison Eyes, the box office champion position on the second day of the new year is still occupied by "Manjiang Red". The length of "The Wandering Earth 2" is too long, which has a great impact on the schedule, and if the attendance rate cannot be effectively increased in the next few days, it will seriously threaten the subsequent films, thus determining the ownership of the schedule champion.

In addition to the champion and runner-up, "Bear Haunted, Accompany Me "Bear Core" also received an unexpected performance on the first day. It maintained the third position at the single-day box office during the day, until it was slightly surpassed by "Nameless" in the evening due to the low proportion of gold scenes. On the first day of the Lunar New Year last year, the attendance rate of "Bear Haunted, Return to Earth" reached 57.3%, which was already quite good, and this year it went further, with an attendance rate of 61.3%. The enthusiasm of the audience has also been reflected in the arrangement of films, and the proportion of films in the first year of junior high school has risen to 12.9% and 11.8% respectively in the second and third years of junior high school.

This can hardly be said to be entirely the credit of this work "Bear Haunted, Accompany Me "Bear Core". Its Douban score is 7.0, slightly higher than the series of works in recent years, but it is still in the same range, and the willingness to watch movies on the first day of release is rarely transformed by word of mouth. As one of the few successful brand films in China, although the audience pays for the brand, in previous years, "Bear Haunted" also took the route of continuous efforts, but this year it ushered in an outbreak on the first day of the new year.

The "strongest" Spring Festival stall is not strong enough, who is "dragging its feet"?

Perhaps more important reasons than their own changes are externally - the original second- and third-tier films have not been able to keep up. The three films "Nameless", "Deep Sea" and "Exchange Life" all accounted for a lower proportion of the box office on the first day than the proportion of scheduled films, which failed to meet market expectations. In terms of word of mouth, unlike the applause of the top echelon films, the polarization of the word-of-mouth of these three films is very common.

More importantly, even if the overall reputation of these films may be acceptable, there is no all-round collapse like "Four Seas", but "not suitable enough for the Spring Festival file" seems to have become a consensus.

"Nameless" does not adopt a linear narrative method with high public acceptance, and the simple plot has become a existence with a high threshold for viewing after the non-traditional editing method, and the statement of "super commercial film" in the pre-screening promotion is unconvincing; "Deep Sea" tells the story of a depressed patient, which is called a "cruel adult fairy tale" by many audiences, and it is difficult for such a film to be "suitable for all ages" in the Spring Festival file; "Exchange Life", as the only comedy, was placed on high hopes of becoming a dark horse before the screening, but it essentially belongs to the category of light comedy, with a limited degree of funny, coupled with the lack of attractiveness of the cast, the Douban score is only 5.7 points, and the success of "This killer is not very calm" or "Hello, Li Huanying" is basically hopeless.

The "strongest" Spring Festival stall is not strong enough, who is "dragging its feet"?

Some industry analysts told Poison Eyes that it is expected that the results of this year's Spring Festival will be about 5.5 billion, slightly lower than last year. Before the start of the Spring Festival stall, the industry's general expectation for the "strongest" Spring Festival stall was to work towards 7.8 billion in 2021. Now the expectation is greatly discounted, on the one hand, there are objective reasons such as the number of performances and ticket prices mentioned above, and on the other hand, it has a lot to do with the difficulty of providing continuous support in the follow-up after the word-of-mouth ban of the second and third echelon films is lifted.

Today's Spring Festival file wants to strive for better results in the future, mainly relying on the reputation of the two head films "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Manjiang Red" to further break the circle, and the gap between the top two films and the subsequent echelons will become larger and larger. In addition, it remains to be seen whether "Chinese Table Tennis Jedi Strikes Back", released in the third year of junior high school, will bring new increments.

What kind of Spring Festival stalls do we need?

The average score is getting higher and higher, and the reputation is getting better and better, which is of course a kind of progress in the Spring Festival file. But when the Spring Festival file has developed to a new stage, it seems that a good reputation is no longer enough.

In the case of limited viewing options on weekdays, the emergence of high-reputation films may arouse the enthusiasm of more audiences to enter the theater. But in the Spring Festival, where the viewing options are rich enough, in addition to having a word-of-mouth foundation, it is also very critical whether the film is suitable for the schedule.

Last year's experience greatly proved the importance of "Spring Festival gear adaptation". "Sniper", as the best word-of-mouth film in the schedule, can only rank sixth at the box office during the schedule. On the contrary, "Four Seas", which has both collapsed in word of mouth and box office, may not have received so many negative reviews if it is not released in the Spring Festival.

The "strongest" Spring Festival stall is not strong enough, who is "dragging its feet"?

This year's situation is even more so, there is far more than one film with a good reputation, but watching only one film is the norm for most audiences. According to the "2022 Spring Festival Data Insights", the average person watching 1.16 movies in the 2022 Spring Festival file will be watched, and the proportion of viewers who "only watch one film" has gradually increased from 81.2% in 2018 to 86.3%. For this part of the audience, it is difficult to choose a film other than the top echelon as the only viewing option.

Therefore, in order to complete the re-evolution of the Spring Festival file, in addition to more and more films with good reputation, it is necessary to calmly consider the degree of adaptation of the film to the schedule. For example, if a film like "Deep Sea" is released on the summer National Day and other schedules, it may have a larger box office space.

For the film side, the 28 effect of the Spring Festival file every year is a sure thing, instead of fantasizing that they have a chance to become a dark horse who has a sudden rise, it is better to sit firmly on the head in other schedules and master the right to speak on the film; For theaters, the uneven hot and cold schedules in the year are significant, especially last year, many regular schedules lacked the supply of heavyweight new films, resulting in wasted box office space; For the audience, even if it is affected by the word-of-mouth breaking effect of the film, it may be dissuaded by too few schedules, and choose other films or other cultural entertainment activities at the right time.

So, what kind of movie is suitable for the Spring Festival? From the perspective of the audience composition characteristics of the Spring Festival file, it should be a film that can attract low-tier cities and low-frequency moviegoers more than usual. Taking the 2022 Spring Festival as an example, the number of moviegoers in third- and fourth-tier cities accounted for 56.4%, while the proportion of moviegoers in third- and fourth-tier cities in 2022 was 48.7%. At the same time, the proportion of medium and low-frequency moviegoers in the Spring Festival file is also significantly higher than that of the whole year.

Looking at the films that have achieved good results in the Spring Festival file over the years, in order to attract this part of the audience, at least one or more of the following characteristics are required: the actor is a familiar face of the public, has a strong visual effect large-scale production scene, has the blessing of national IP, and is relaxed and funny in style.

On the contrary, films that do not meet these conditions, or even violate some options, are naturally films that do not match the compatibility of the Spring Festival file. In the sequence of works in this year's Spring Festival file, it is clear that only "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Manjiang Red" can meet at least two conditions, and the rest of the films have their own defects. As a result, in the ticket purchase selection of the incremental group of moviegoers, the top echelon films have an unattainable priority.

The "strongest" Spring Festival stall is not strong enough, who is "dragging its feet"?

If the original intention of the rest of the films is to start from a specific audience such as a fan group or fan group and break the circle outward, then it should land on other schedules, and after eliminating competitors with higher priority, mobilize the willingness of incremental groups to watch movies as much as possible. Rushing into the Spring Festival file, the end can only be "carnival in the circle", breaking the circle like hitting a stone with a pebble.

In essence, everyone wants to share the "big cake" of the Spring Festival stall, but the part of this cake that is larger than other cakes comes from incremental users, but if the movie itself is not created for this group of incremental users, how can it be possible to share how much cake? Reasonable setting is not only for the consideration of the balance of supply and demand in the entire market, but also to maximize the interests of the film side.

After all, any schedule is not a hammer sale, and new box office records still have to start with finding the right movie.

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