In the past three months, we have experienced a deserted scene in the cinema, and also witnessed a small outbreak of the Spring Festival that exceeded expectations, and in the blink of an eye, a quarter of 2023 has passed. According to the Yien Content Think Tank, the total box office of movies in the Q1 quarter was 15.86 billion, an increase of 13.3% year-on-year over the 13.978 billion in the first quarter of last year, and the box office contribution of the seven days of the Spring Festival alone exceeded 40%. Although the number of films released decreased by 11 compared with the same period in 2022, there were 2 films with a box office of more than 2 billion, and 13 films with a box office of more than 100 million, an increase of 2 films over the same period in 2022.
It is said that 2023 is the year of the full recovery of China's film market, and many people have begun to recall the highlight moment of the 60 billion box office in 2019, as the policy measures to expand domestic demand and promote consumption continue to make efforts, movies as an important venue for offline consumption, perhaps the dream of 60 billion is not far away.
The box office of movies in the first quarter was nearly 16 billion, and the box office in January hit a record high in a decade
In the first quarter of this year, the national box office market (including service fees) reached 15.858 billion yuan, an increase of 13.5% over the 13.975 billion yuan in the same period of the previous year, but less than the 18.1 billion yuan in the same period of the previous year. With the blessing of the 2023 Spring Festival file, the number of moviegoers in January rose very significantly, with a cumulative box office of 10.09 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 191.3% over 2022, and a cumulative box office of 3.861 billion yuan in February, a slight decline compared with last year, but by March, the number of moviegoers showed a significant upward trend, with a cumulative box office of 1.907 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 104.2%.
As the hottest festival of the year, there is no doubt that the Spring Festival file is an important box office for the film market to hit the box office. After experiencing the epidemic lockdown, this year's Spring Festival file is also particularly lively, and the top five films have basically reached 1 billion. Although the fourth-place "Nameless" and the fifth-placed "Deep Sea" box office were 931 million and 918 million respectively, failing to break the 1 billion mark at the end, they can also be regarded as 1 billion players. The Spring Festival film drove the box office in January to reach 10.09 billion, the highest box office result in January in nearly a decade. Among them, "Manjiang Red" and "The Wandering Earth 2" alone contributed 51.8% of this year's box office revenue in the first quarter. Affected by the Spring Festival movie-watching boom, the annual box office market exceeded the 15 billion yuan mark in less than three months, about two months earlier than in 2022.
At the same time of joy comes worry. In addition to the outstanding results of "head" films, the film market with a volume of less than 100 million is particularly severe this year, and many films that were optimistic before their release have not reached the expected results. Such as "More than End", "Space Exploration Editorial Department", "Thunder Shazam! The box office of "Wrath of All Living Beings" is actually only about 50 million, while "Rattle", "Wasteland" and "Umbilical Cord" are even lower, none of which exceed 2 million. The benchmark work given by the outside world before the release of "More than Endless" was "I Am Not the God of Medicine", and "Space Exploration Editorial Department" appeared in a difficult to find phenomenon during the Beijing International Film Node screening last year, "Thunder Shazam! "Wrath of All Beings" is a Hollywood DC blockbuster, "Umbilical Cord" and "Rattle" are movies with Jia Zhangke sitting in town, and the other is regarded as an excellent film that combines commercial films and literary films well. These movies that are not big in size, and it is inevitable that they have achieved this result, which is still a little surprising.
Imported blockbusters are cold, and the Marvel effect fails
The most embarrassing thing this year is the imported blockbuster movie. Many people believe that in addition to the epidemic, the lack of high-quality imported blockbusters is also one of the reasons for the poor box office. At the beginning of this year, many imported poop have officially announced the release date, and in the past, they may not be able to wait for one in half a year, but three films were released in three months at the beginning of this year, but the box office results after the release were unsatisfactory. The box office of "Black Panther 2" on the first day was only 20.032 million, and the box office of "Ant-Man 2" on the first day was only 39.622 million, and as of March 31, the total box office of the two films did not exceed 300 million. And the DC on the other side is even worse, "Thunder Shazam! Wrath of All Living Beings" has not even reached 50 million at the box office so far.
If the performance of DC movies is inherently cloudy, then the market performance of Marvel movies is somewhat surprising. In the years of rapid box office growth in the film market, the box office appeal of Marvel superheroes is beyond doubt. With "Iron Man" and "Captain America" as nodes, superheroes gathered in "The Avengers" to create the most successful IP universe in commercial film history. It not only trampled the old rival DC under its feet, but also went all the way up at the box office in the global market, contributing a lot to the box office of Chinese films. In 2019, before the epidemic, "Captain Marvel" won more than 1 billion at the box office, the Transformers series "Bumblebee" also had 1.149 billion, and even Fox's "Alita: Battle Angel" reached 896 million at the box office. Unexpectedly, after 4 years, Marvel superheroes were collectively muted, not to mention 1 billion box office, even 500 million box office is a luxury.
In fact, there are many reasons for the decline in the box office of Marvel movies. The first is that domestic films are becoming increasingly powerful, and many domestic films are enough to meet the needs of the audience. Secondly, the general audience believes that the quality of Marvel movies is declining, lacking creativity and charm, and the formulaic storyline is not attractive enough, which may be the main reason for the loss of interest in Marvel movies.
Although imported blockbusters are cold in the "cooling-off period" after the Spring Festival, there are still players who perform well, such as the dark horse film "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer" without big-name directors and actors; The box office result exceeded 300 million in three days of release, and "Journey to the Bell Buds"; The box office exceeded 600 million in half a month, such as "Keep You Safe", these films not only brought surprises to the audience, but also made a great contribution to the box office sprint in the first quarter.
Marketing has helped the box office soar, and the future of the market is still promising
However, it is worth noting that although the enthusiasm of the film market in the first quarter was high, the overall evaluation of the film was not very high. For example, "The Wandering Earth 2", many audiences think that its overall viewing is not as good as the previous one, and for example, the story logic of "Deep Sea" and "Lingbud Journey" has also been criticized by the audience, and "Keep You Safe" is also considered by the audience to be forcibly sensationalized, in short, the high box office performance of many films is not proportional to word of mouth.
The film market performed so well in the first quarter, in addition to the great entertainment demand from the public in the past due to the epidemic, it also has a lot to do with the publicity. "The Wandering Earth 2" because of the reputation of the previous work, the film itself is highly anticipated, after the release, China Aerospace, Sinopec, PetroChina, China Construction Group and other official recommendations, #Traffic Earth 2 science fiction behind is a big country heavy industry#, #Is the equipment in the Wandering Earth real#, and other Weibo topics such as hot discussions among the public and increased the audience's confidence in entering the theater. "Manjiang Hong" has Zhang Yimou sitting in the town, and Yi Yangqianxi, Shen Teng, Zhang Yi and other powerful and traffic actors starring, the combination of comedy and suspense, whether it is the lineup or the content, will be full of expectations, after the screening, word of mouth soared, and the box office rose. "The Deep" focused its publicity on special effects technology before the screening, and on topics related to people with depression after the screening. The release of the pre-screening theme song, trailer, tidbits and offline activities in many places have played a good publicity and communication effect, and after the screening, with the support of high word-of-mouth, the film publicity continued to make efforts, and the two blessed each other to promote the box office long-tail effect.
In terms of market performance, the box office results in the first quarter of this year can be said to be pleasantly surprised. Driven by the enthusiasm of today's national entertainment, I believe that the next May 1st and 11th box office results will also live up to expectations.