Domestic films take the lead The box office of the film market in 2023 will reach 54.915 billion yuan

Reporter Zhang Jingchao reports from Beijing

When the time enters 2024, the total box office of the Chinese mainland film market in 2023 will finally be fixed at 54.915 billion yuan, an increase of about 83.4% compared with 2022. The total number of moviegoers also resumed growth, reaching 1.299 billion, an increase of about 82.44% over 2022.

Behind the jump growth of the box office, the Matthew effect of the schedule still plays an important role, but there is also a gap during the popular period. With the blessing of films such as "Fengshen Part 1: Chao Song Fengyun", "In the Octagonal Cage", "Thirty Thousand Miles of Chang'an", "All or Nothing", the summer file contributed nearly 40% of the box office of the year, and the proportion of the box office of the schedule was higher than that of the previous four years, making it "the strongest summer file in history". The Spring Festival stalls contributed 12.3% of the annual box office, which is behind the summer stalls.

The reporter of "China Business Daily" noticed that while the market is recovering, the supply and demand market is also showing new characteristics. Maoyan Research Institute pointed out that the average duration of films with a box office of more than 100 million yuan in 2023 will exceed 2 hours, and the average duration of films with a box office of more than 2 billion yuan in the past ten years will be 132.2 minutes. It can be seen that high-quality long-form content has not been abandoned in the era of fragmentation, and looking at the world, the duration of the annual TOP10 popular films also exceeds the average. ”

"The market in 2023 is largely supported by big schedules such as summer and Spring Festival, and 'door to the door' is still the norm for most movie theaters on weekdays and weekends. A person from a cinema company said.

"It's recovered, but it's not quite restored. Jin Yan (pseudonym), who is engaged in film production, said, "Blockbusters and good films are not released until the big schedule, which shows that the production investors and publicity parties are also not confident in other times except for the big schedule." 'Big schedule dependence' still exists, and this should also be a problem that the whole industry needs to work hard to resolve in 2024. ”

Supply side: domestic films contribute more than eighty percent to the box office

On the supply side, domestic films have become the absolute protagonists of cinemas. According to public data, domestic films will account for 83.8% of the total box office in 2023, with a total of 73 films with an annual box office of more than 100 million yuan, including 50 Chinese-made films, and the top 10 films at the annual box office are all domestic films, and there are 11 films with a box office of more than 1 billion yuan, all of which are domestic films, and they are from the four prime periods.

Among them, "Man Jianghong", which was released during the Spring Festival, led the box office with 4.544 billion yuan, and the film also created a number of box office records in Chinese film history. "The Wandering Earth 2" won the runner-up at the annual box office with 4.029 billion yuan. A total of 5 films in the summer file have a box office of more than 1 billion yuan, "All or Nothing", "Disappearing Her", "Fengshen Part 1", "In the Octagonal Cage" and the animated film "Thirty Thousand Miles of Chang'an", ranking third to seventh in the annual box office list respectively. The resident guest of the Spring Festival stalls, the "Bear Infested" series "Bear Infested, Stay with Me "Bear Core"", ranked eighth in the annual box office list with 1.495 billion yuan. "Solid as a Rock", which was released on National Day, ranked ninth at the annual box office with a box office of 1.349 billion yuan. The "dark horse" of May 1st-"Unfamiliar with Life" ranked tenth with a box office of 1.184 billion yuan.

The emergence of phenomenal films with a high number of viewers, such as the historical film "Thirty Thousand Miles of Chang'an", the sci-fi masterpiece "The Wandering Earth 2", and the "heavy industry" film "Fengshen Part 1: Chao Song Fengyun", also reflects the diversification trend of the film market in the process of prosperity.

In contrast, imported films have been declining since 2020, accounting for only 16.2% of the annual box office. It is especially worth noting that among the top 10 imported films in 2023, 7 are sequels to the series of films. But the lack of sequels has also made Hollywood a rout in 2023.

Throughout the year, the decline of superheroes belongs to the "hardest hit area", from "Shazam 2", "Black Panther 2", to the "Aquaman 2" that is being released, the box office of most superhero movie sequels has dropped by more than 80% compared with the previous work, and the audience's attitude towards these movies has changed 180 degrees in a short period of time. In other aspects, the old IP of "Mission Impossible 7" has also declined seriously. Fast & Furious 10 is down 63% from the peak of the series, and Transformers: Rise of the Power Warriors is down 67% from the series' high.

"Hollywood's reliance on IP sequels without innovation has been going on for the past decade, and the reason why there will be a cliff-like decline in 2023 is that the innovation ability has indeed declined, and the second is that the Hollywood strike that began in May 2023 has affected the film's early project establishment, production and shooting, and post-publicity. "In particular, although the Hollywood strike will end in November 2023, the impact of the strike will take some time to resolve, at least until the beginning of 2024." ”

Demand side: the return of theater popularity

Movies are an offline traffic business, and the recovery of the industry also means the return of the popularity of movie theaters. Behind the 1.299 billion moviegoers, the sinking market, parent-child moviegoers, and female audiences aged 25 and above will bring growth momentum to the film market in 2023. In addition, public welfare screenings have been launched in many places, which have also become an emerging force to promote the growth of film box office, with a total of 8.24 million public welfare screenings in 2023, benefiting about 450 million people.

According to the "2023 China Film Market Data Insight Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") released by Maoyan Research Institute, the distribution of ticket warehouses in cities at all levels will generally be stable in 2023, but from the perspective of the new user portrait structure, the new users are younger and more biased towards fourth-tier cities, and the sinking market will continue to release consumption potential.

On the channel side, the construction of theaters will slow down in 2023, and the new cinemas will sink more year-on-year. According to the report, the annual growth rate of cinemas across the country will slow down in 2023, and new cinemas will be mainly distributed in lower-tier cities. In the past two years, the proportion of newly opened cinemas in third- and fourth-tier cities has exceeded that of first- and second-tier cities, reaching more than half. However, data from the Beacon Research Institute shows that cinemas with an annual box office output of less than 5 million yuan still account for 70% of all theaters.

In addition, the reporter learned from Lighthouse Professional Edition that in 2023, the average attendance rate of cinemas will only be 8.3%, which is still not back to the level of more than 10% before 2020. However, the average movie ticket price for the whole year rose to 42.28 yuan, a record high.

The Beacon Research Institute pointed out that in addition to the popular schedules, the box office of non-popular schedules in 2023 will even regress to a certain extent compared with 2021. In the 33 weekend files, an average of 2.4 new films with more than 10,000 people want to watch are released every weekend, but the boost to the weekend market is different, among them, popular Japanese animated films, Hollywood films, and suspense films are the three types that can drive the ordinary weekend files in 2023.

Marketing side: publicize the new trend

Although there are still regrets in the performance of the whole year, film promotion and distribution has become a new highlight of the industry in 2023, especially in terms of attracting young audiences and triggering social topics, short video platforms have become an indispensable channel for film promotion.

According to the report, on the Weibo platform, the communication of creators in front of and behind the scenes, media matrix, KOLs in multiple fields and interested in "tap water" and other types of users can help increase the popularity of movies; Douyin has strong social attributes, and films can reflect social issues through secondary creation and new viewing angles, arouse group resonance, and achieve "breaking the circle"; on station B, films can be widely disseminated through in-depth interpretation, interesting conversations, and memes; on the Xiaohongshu platform, emotional resonance becomes a "circle-breaking" of films As an original content platform, Zhihu's knowledge content about "video content disassembly" is more popular with users.

The reporter learned from the Lighthouse Research Institute that the top ten movies with cumulative views of Douyin movie topics in 2023 are "All or Nothing", "Fengshen Part 1", "Disappearing Her", "In the Octagonal Cage", "Predecessor 4: Early Marriage", "Traffic Earth 2", "Man Jianghong", "Warm", "Solid as a Rock", "Hello, Li Kele". Among them, "The Wandering Earth 2", "Disappearing Her", "Fengshen Part 1", "In the Octagonal Cage", "Solid as a Rock" and "All or Nothing" are all among the top ten in the 2023 box office list.

The reporter noticed that most of the domestic films released in 2023 have registered official accounts on Douyin, and basically start to release relevant trailers, tidbits and other content a month or even earlier before the release. However, only a few films have attracted great attention before and after the release, and at the same time, the audience's "tap water" publicity has become a major focus of film publicity in 2023.

"In fact, from the perspective of publicity, the promotion and distribution of films in 2023 is still basically in a cautious state, and the marketing budgets of most companies have not increased significantly compared with the beginning of 2022, and have even decreased. In this context, publishers and promoters will explore more cost-effective channels and methods, and the high maturity of short video platforms makes it easier to reach potential ticket buyers, making it possible to 'expand with small amounts'. The above-mentioned cinema company said, "However, when short videos become the standard, the future film publicity and distribution will test the operational ability of practitioners." ”

(Editor: Zhang Jingchao Proofreader: Yan Jingning)