This year's May Day holiday has a cumulative box office of 1.525 billion yuan, second only to the peak year of 2021, the same as 2019, and tied for second in history. Interestingly, this year's May Day file continues some of the characteristics reflected in this year's Spring Festival file: the overall quality of all films is average, the box office table exceeds expectations, and some do not meet expectations. The strength of animation is strong, and it has become a force that cannot be ignored during the schedule. The regional characteristics of box office distribution are obvious, and audiences in the north and south have their own preferences. It's a pity that some of the negative features of the Spring Festival file have also continued, such as the "wind of withdrawal" of the Spring Festival file has also blown to the May 1st file, and a total of 3 films have been withdrawn from the May 1st file, including "There is no hot pot that can't be solved" starring popular actress Yang Mi.
Ms. Liu, a staff member of Jinan Wanda Cinema, once expressed her worries about this year's May Day before the holiday, "This worry mainly comes from two aspects - the first is that the number and types of films in this year's May Day are relatively rich, but there is a lack of certain head films." The second is that we are worried that most people will choose to travel during the May Day holiday, and may not choose to go to the cinema. But the final performance of this year's May Day proves that even if there is a lack of seeds, dark horses, and quality, entertainment consumption is still the 'just need' of citizens' holiday consumption after all, and people will still pay for movies."
One of the characteristics of this year's May Day is that it does not rely on a film to dominate the box office, and the reason why it can achieve the second box office result in history is that it relies on the "accumulation of small amounts" of each film.
A reporter from Jinan Times New Yellow River found through inquiries that the champions of the May Day file in the past few years were: 514 million yuan at the box office of "Unfamiliar with Life" in 2023, 512 million yuan for "Your Wedding" in 2021, 1.222 billion yuan for "Avengers 4: Endgame" in 2019, and 645 million yuan for "Later Us" in 2018. This year's May Day did not exceed these films, but the top five box office during the period, the box office performance showed an even decreasing curve from high to low: the box office champion was won by the military action film "Peacekeeping Anti-riot Team" (405 million yuan), the runner-up was the comedy "The End of the Road" (390 million yuan), the third place was the crime action film "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City" (252 million yuan), and the fourth and fifth were two Japanese cartoons, 196 million yuan "Spy Playing House Code: White" and 102 million yuan " Howl's Moving Castle.
The quality of several domestic films is relatively average, and most of them remain at about 6 points on Douban. The box office champion "Peacekeeping Anti-riot Team" and the runner-up "The End of the Road Spend Money", both of which are not particularly good in quality. "The overall feel of "Peacekeeping Anti-riot Team" is very similar to "King of the Sky" and other main theme films. The title of "Spending Money at the End of the Road" is a homophonic stalk, and the movie borrows the sentence in Xiao Shenyang's "Not Bad Money" that "the most painful thing in life is that people die and money is not spent", and uses this sentence as the driving force behind the development of the story, the actor spends money desperately and squanders until he learns that the misdiagnosis is reversed", said Ms. Li, a fan of the movie.
But the market performance of these two films is surprising: the former broke through the 400 million yuan mark during the period, and the latter also won nearly 400 million yuan at the box office, and the two films together created a box office of more than 800 million yuan+ during the period. Huang Jingyu, Wang Yibo and other popular male protagonists have added a certain box office appeal to "Peacekeeping Anti-riot Team", and the advantage of "Spending Money at the End of the Road" is that it is the only genre advantage of comedy films in the schedule, which also proves the rigid demand attribute of entertainment during the holidays, and comedies are the audience's first choice for watching movies on holidays.
If the box office performance of the above two films exceeded expectations, contributing a total of 50%+ share of the entire market, then there are two films that fall short of expectations.
One of them is "A Trip Through the Moon", which was at the bottom of all the live-action movies released on May Day. The movie "Journey Through the Moon" is adapted from Chi Zijian's novel "Walking on the Moonlight", which tells a story like "Maggie's Gift", that is, a long-distance couple who coincidentally went both ways on the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, but ended up diverging. In fact, "Journey Through the Moon" is a good quality one in the schedule, with a score of 6.8 on Douban, which can be regarded as a domestic romance film with a high reputation in recent years. However, there are some problems with the film, for example, this film revolves around the story of the Mid-Autumn Festival reunion of husband and wife, when Zhang Zifeng and Hu Xianxu say "Happy Mid-Autumn Festival" on the big screen, the audience will also feel that this film is more suitable for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Due to various reasons, as the only romance film during the May Day holiday, "Journey Through the Moon" did not meet expectations, and the film only achieved a box office of 37.6 million yuan during the period, becoming a "little transparent" in this May Day file, which is regrettable.
And "There is No Thing That Can't Be Solved by a Hot Pot" starring Yang Mi, Yu Qian and other stars is undoubtedly the most frustrating one in the schedule. In recent years, a number of films that tell stories in confined small spaces have been loved by the audience, such as "Rise to Fame", which is also a suspense reasoning genre, with a box office of 926 million yuan, and the low-budget comedy "I Still Think You're the Best" has become the mainland box office champion of imported romance films in 2022. In comparison, "There is No Thing That Can't Be Solved by a Hot Pot" has a combination of top actor Yang Mi and the popular Yu Qian, plus keywords such as Sichuan hot pot, Sichuan opera, and script killing, which was originally very attractive. However, the suspense of the film is set up a lot, the suspense is unveiled and the suspense is not too reasonable, and the comedy elements are not too much, and the whole gives people a sense of mystery and scribbled intention.
Since the official opening of the May 1st file, due to poor quality, its scheduling space has been continuously eroded, and the film finally announced on May 5: "Since the release of our movie "There is No Thing That Can't Be Solved by a Hot Pot" (hereinafter referred to as 'Hot Pot'), due to various environmental factors, the film has not met with more audiences. I would like to thank the friends who have worked hard to improve the film schedule, and sincerely apologize to the audience who want to watch the "hot pot" but have no chance to meet each other! After carefully studying and judging the current situation, in order to meet the needs of more audiences, our "hot pot" will be withdrawn on May 6 (the cinema that has already opened can continue to be screened) and see you again on a later date. ”
And this is not the first time that "There is No Thing That Can't Be Solved by a Hot Pot" has withdrawn. At first, the film was scheduled to be released on January 13, 2024, and at the same time, there were the hit movie "The Annual Meeting Can't Stop" and the popular movie "Goldfinger".
Such a "riotous operation" inevitably reminds people of the "withdrawal tide" of this year's Spring Festival file - among the 8 new films, "Let's Shake the Sun Together", "Huang Pi: The God of Wealth Cat Descends from the Sky", "Mr. Red Carpet", and "The Nether of the Canopy of the Eight Rings" 4 announced their withdrawal. After the re-release of "Mr. Red Carpet" on March 15, the box office was still sluggish, and the final box office was only 94.22 million yuan. "Let's Shake the Sun Together" has a good box office after its re-release on March 30, and the current box office has reached 275 million yuan, but it is still not as good as director Han Yan's previous works. The two cartoons have not yet been released.
The May 1st file continued the trend of withdrawing the Spring Festival file: the domestic cartoon "Xiaoqian" was announced to be withdrawn on April 23 after a small-scale screening. The domestic police and bandit action film "Rescue in the Angry Sea" also announced its withdrawal before the release without any publicity. In addition, "Hot Pot", which was released for 5 days on May 5, was withdrawn, and 3 domestic films were withdrawn on May 1st.
Some netizens joked that it is worthy of being the "first year of withdrawal", and it is wise to take the 36 plans to go ahead, and to withdraw if you can't beat it. There are also many people in the industry, such as Dong Wenxin, manager of Jinan Paragon Cinema, who generally believes that the effect after the re-release will not be too ideal, "The overall performance of "Hot Pot" may be worse next time, and it is really not as good as the release before the Spring Festival."
In this year's May Day file, domestic films did not perform very well, but the second-echelon films "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City", "Spy Playing Codename: White" and "Howl's Moving Castle" performed well in the market, exceeding expectations.
Film critic Feng Xiaoqiang said, "The first thing I watched on May Day this year was the Hong Kong action movie "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City", which felt average, but I didn't expect it to be the best one in the entire schedule." Hong Kong film "Old Drama Bone" Louis Koo and Sammo Hung's "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City" opened early to release word-of-mouth, and won the love of some audiences with its original Hong Kong film style and fist-to-flesh action scenes. After the film was released, it won a box office of 253 million yuan during the period, which can be called a dark horse in this year's May Day.
Especially according to the distribution map of the box office champions in the national provinces provided by Lighthouse Professional Edition, the regional color of this year's May Day head film is obvious - "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City", which has a strong Hong Kong flavor, has not only gained good popularity and box office in the Cantonese-speaking region, but also covered almost all provinces south of the Yangtze River in the middle and late stages of the schedule. And audiences in northern provinces such as Shandong prefer "Spending Money at the End of the Road" and "Peacekeeping Anti-riot Team".
The Japanese animated films "Spy Playing House Codename: White" and "Howl's Moving Castle", which both took the lead in "starting" on April 30, also went hand in hand, and the two films ranked fourth and fifth at the box office with 195 million yuan and 100 million yuan respectively. "Spy Playing House Codename: White" is the first big movie of the IP, and Generation Z does not hesitate to pay for it. Hayao Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle" was "20 years late" before meeting the Chinese audience, which not only gained many young fans, but also awakened the enthusiasm of the older generation of fans.
Proofreader: Gao Xin Reporter: Xing Yuan Editor: Xing Yuan