Following the Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon setting a new box office record of 7.844 billion yuan, the "hot and hot" trend of the film market continues. According to the real-time data of Lighthouse Professional Edition, the total box office of the Qingming file (April 4-6) in 2024 will be 840 million yuan, setting a new record for the highest box office of the Qingming file in Chinese film history, with a total of 21.0689 million moviegoers and a total of 1.3826 million, which not only meets people's increasingly rich spiritual and cultural needs, but also injects new vitality into spring cultural consumption.
High quality and diversification stimulate market vitality
In 2024, there will be a sufficient supply of Qingming films, with a total of 8 new films released in 3 days, covering different genres such as suspense, comedy, and animation. Among them, the imported Japanese animated film "What kind of life do you want to live" performed the most eye-catching, with a box office of 390 million yuan during the Qingming period, contributing 46.4% of the box office of the market, and refreshing a number of records, becoming the box office champion of Qingming file in Chinese film history, the single-day box office champion of Qingming file in Chinese film history, and the single-day box office champion of Japanese animation in Chinese film history. The cartoon continues director Hayao Miyazaki's consistent healing painting style and philosophical narrative style, satisfying the emotional needs of the audience, and the word-of-mouth effect is still fermenting.
The monster movie "Godzilla vs. King Kong 2: Rise of the Empire", which has been released for a week before the holiday, ranks second at the box office of the Qingming file with a box office of 240 million yuan, contributing about 29% of the box office to the schedule. As a commercial film, the film meets the audience's needs for action, adventure, science fiction and other types of movies, and the "popcorn" attribute is full. It is worth noting that previously, the first part of the series was also selected to be released in the week before Qingming Festival in 2021, and the box office performance reached 299 million yuan, second only to the box office champion of that year.
In addition, the animated film "Kung Fu Panda 4" ranked third with a box office score of 48.31 million yuan, and the domestic films "Grass and Trees in the World" and "Yellow Sparrow is Behind!" focused on hot topics with realistic themes, ranking fourth and fifth at the box office with 44.75 million yuan and 40.21 million yuan respectively.
Chen Jin, a data analyst at Lighthouse Professional Edition, mentioned, "Qingming films meet the diverse viewing needs of audiences, which is an important reason why the total box office of Qingming files can break records this year." Judging from the portraits of ticket-buying users on the first day of the Qingming file, the audience complementarity of the top two films at the box office is more obvious, with 62.9% of the female audience of "What kind of life do you want to live", and 60.1% of the male audience of "Godzilla vs. King Kong 2: Rise of the Empire". In addition, "Grass and Trees" is the favorite for girls, "Big "Anti" Faction has many sinking users, "Kung Fu Panda 4" is the most popular among family audiences, "Let's Shake the Sun Together" focuses on student groups, and the audience composition between different films is quite different, which also intuitively reflects that this year's Qingming films meet the diverse viewing needs of audiences.
While the film genre is diversified, the excellent quality of the film is also the key to breaking the record of the Qingming file. Many films have received high scores of more than 9 points on the ticket-buying platform.
Animated movies are undoubtedly the biggest winners of the Qingming file. Looking back at the Qingming file in recent years, the popularity of animated movies has always been in a high position. From 2021, "Journey to the West: The Reincarnation of the Demon King" became the third place at the box office during the Qingming schedule, to 2022, "Elf Hotel 4: Transformation Adventure" jumped to the first place in the schedule, and then to "Lingbud Journey" and "Super Mario Bros. Movie" in 2023, ranking first and third in the schedule.
Song Lei, director of the Development and Research Department of the China Animation Group, said that the Qingming Festival is not the main schedule of traditional animated films, but a supplementary schedule between the Spring Festival and May Day. Due to the limited distribution space of imported animated films and small and medium-cost domestic animated films in the market, these animated films will choose to enter the market during holidays such as Qingming and Dragon Boat Festival, which have a short holiday time, to meet the audience's viewing needs. In the Chinese animated film market, family-themed works can account for about 30% of the annual share, therefore, "In recent years, family-themed animated films have been very popular, which may be one of the reasons for the excellent box office performance of Qingming animated films." Song Lei said.
The appeal of the film itself is also the key to determining the box office. The film "What kind of life do you want to live" not only has the honorary blessing of the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film and other awards, but also plays Miyazaki's promotional slogan of "Life Movie, Farewell Work", and was at the top of the popular films on the "want to watch list" in the Qingming file before its release. According to Song Lei, director Hayao Miyazaki's work has never been released in China within a year of its release in Japan, and "What Life Do You Want to Live" is an exception, and the film was basically released at the same time.
In recent years, Hollywood animation brands seem to have performed less strongly in the Chinese film market than they used to be. Animated films imported from China and Japan are gradually showing momentum, the former such as "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage", "Nezha: The Birth of the Demon Boy", "White Snake", "Thirty Thousand Miles of Chang'an", etc., have achieved good box office results;
Small schedules began to be noticed
The performance of this year's film Qingming file has injected a different style into the spring economy and even the film market throughout the year.
Compared with the Spring Festival and May Day files, which have attracted much attention, the Qingming files in the past are often not very popular, the number of new films is limited, and the number of moviegoers and box office results have failed to achieve significant growth. The total box office of the Qingming file in 2023 will be 197 million yuan (1 day holiday), and the total box office of the 2022 Qingming file, which is also a three-day long holiday, is only 120 million yuan, especially in March, which is the traditional off-season of the Chinese mainland film market - at this time, the Spring Festival file has just ended, and there is still more than a month before the next popular May 1st file, and the film market before and after the Qingming Festival often lacks head films to attract audiences.
This year's Qingming file has changed from the dullness of previous years, and many new films of different types and themes are vying to finalize, and the market performance has also continued the "good start" popularity of the Spring Festival file. According to the "March 2024 Entertainment Industry Market Observation" released by Yien Data, the box office of the Chinese mainland film market exceeded 2.7 billion yuan in March 2024, an increase of 46% year-on-year. In addition, according to the data of Lighthouse Professional Edition, the number of moviegoers in March this year also achieved a substantial increase, about 67 million, an increase of 36.7% year-on-year, the attendance rate was 4.9%, an increase of 25% year-on-year, and the average ticket price was 41.64 yuan, a new high in the past ten years.
"The off-season is not light, and the diversified exploration of 'small schedules' by Chinese filmmakers has stimulated the audience's enthusiasm for watching movies. Huangfu Yichuan, a researcher at the China Film Art Research Center and editor-in-chief of the magazine "Contemporary Film", believes that the most intuitive impact of the "movie-watching fever" of the Qingming file is that it has significantly boosted the confidence of the industry. Especially in recent years, the trend of niche in the Chinese film market has become prominent, and some high-reputation and small-cost domestic films have frequently "broken the circle" with sophisticated production and rich themes, and have achieved a "counterattack" on film scheduling, setting off a movie-watching boom. After the Spring Festival, summer and National Day files became "battlegrounds", customized films for different holidays have appeared, and "small schedules" have become the best choice for some small and medium-cost domestic films.
Huangfu Yichuan pointed out that the key to continuing the enthusiasm for film consumption and cultivating normalized consumption throughout the year is to increase the supply of high-quality content. In other words, whether it is a large schedule or a small schedule, it will ultimately depend on the content to win. It is necessary to aim at consumer demand, create more types, more specifications, and higher quality films, optimize the ecology of the film market, and cultivate the audience's viewing habits.
Up to now, 12 films have been officially announced for May Day in 2024, "Peacekeeping Anti-riot Team", "Spy Playing House Codename: White", "Howl's Moving Castle", "Journey Through the Moon", and "There Is No Thing That Can't Be Solved by a Hot Pot" are among the top five on the "Want to Watch List" of Taobao tickets. Under the premise that this year's Spring Festival and Qingming files have refreshed the box office records of the same period in Chinese film history, the performance of the upcoming "May Day" is particularly worth paying attention to.
Source: Financial Times client
Reporter: Li Danlin
Editor: Yang Jingyi
Email: [email protected]