Affected by the recent outbreak of the epidemic in Nanjing, Zhangjiajie, Zhengzhou and other places, the film and television industry, which has just shown signs of recovery in the first half of this year and is about to make its current efforts in the traditional hot summer slots, has once again fallen into a shutdown period, and large-scale closures have struck.
According to data, as of now, more than 3,500 theaters across the country have suspended business, and many new films originally scheduled for summer release, such as "Chosin Lake", "Pipilu and Lusisi's Canned Villain", "Five Splashing Teenagers", etc., have been withdrawn and postponed.
At the beginning of 2020, due to the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, cinemas across the country collectively held a 175-day "long holiday", which is now the second large-scale closure of the film industry.
Large-scale closures and withdrawals are coming
Recently, some Guiyang citizens have reported that the cross-border cinema located in guiyang City's Future Ark has been closed for more than a month from the beginning of July to the present. In recent days, a "notice of closure" has suddenly been posted in front of the gate of the studio.
The announcement of the closure of the business states: Due to the continuous heavy rains since July, coupled with the recent continuous high temperatures... Cross Border Cinemas has decided to suspend business from the morning of July 16, 2021, to inspect and maintain the equipment, and the opening hours are to be determined...
Cross-border Cinemas, known as the largest cinema in Asia with the largest IMAX screen, headquartered in Chongqing, was established in 2017, is a national chain of cinemas, in addition to 1 store in Guiyang, the 12 stores in Chongqing and 1 store in Guangzhou have stopped operating, only a small number of stores in Foshan, Dongguan, Heilongjiang Qiqihar City, Guangdong are still operating.
At present, Chongqing Metropolitan Oriental Plaza Company has applied for the 871096. OC) to carry out bankruptcy reorganization, the court is the Fifth Intermediate People's Court of Chongqing Municipality, and Cross-Boundary Pictures has also received an inquiry letter for the annual report of the SME Equity Transfer Company, requesting written explanations on The Sustainable Operations, Solvency, Other Receivables and Litigation Matters of Cross-Border Pictures.
It is worth noting that the closure of the cross-border film industry is not an isolated case, and the film and television industry generally has a bad life.
Not long ago, due to the rebound of the epidemic, the National Film Administration issued the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Prevention and Control of the Epidemic in Cinemas", requiring cinemas in medium- and high-risk areas to temporarily not be open, and the attendance rate of cinemas in low-risk areas should not be higher than 75%.
Public data show that at present, under the influence of epidemic prevention and control measures, cinemas in Wuxi, Jiangyin, Changzhou and other places have suspended business, more than 3,500 theaters across the country have suspended business, and some areas that have not been closed have also been greatly affected.
At the same time, "Chosin Lake", "Pipilu and Lusisi's Canned Villain", "Five Splashing Teenagers" and many other new films originally scheduled for summer release were officially announced to be withdrawn and postponed.
Among them, "Changjin Lake" is co-directed by Chen Kaige, Xu Ke and Lin Chaoxian, starring Wu Jing and Yi Qianxi, with an investment of 1.3 billion yuan, which is the largest investment scale and production scale of Chinese films so far, with a loss of 150 million yuan for 9 months and a box office expected to reach 5 billion yuan, but in order to cooperate with departments at all levels to do a good job in epidemic prevention, the film has been announced on August 5 to withdraw its file and postpone its release.
"Recently, the domestic epidemic situation is severe and complex, and more and more theaters in cities have been forced to temporarily close due to the needs of epidemic prevention and control. This round of epidemic is another incomparably arduous challenge and test for our film and television industry. Beijing Bona Film Group Co., Ltd., the producer of "Changjin Lake", said in a notice of postponement of the release of movie theaters and audiences across the country.
Some industry analysts told reporters that the postponement of the film is often a helpless move, and the longer the release is delayed, the greater the impact, and even affects the investment and shooting plan of the follow-up project.
The summer box office was dismal
Theaters are suspended, which directly affects box office revenue.
According to Maoyan data, as of August 6, the cumulative box office of the 2021 summer slot (from June 1) reached 5.81 billion yuan, down more than 50% from 12.233 billion yuan in the same period of 2019.
As of a few days ago, only one "Captain China" box office in the summer of 2021 reached 1 billion yuan, and the rest of the films except for the newly released "Fury Case" have not yet had a box office of more than 500 million yuan.
Compared with the summer program from 2017 to 2019, the 2021 summer film lacks such a super hit as "Wolf Warrior 2" and "Nezha", and the 1 billion Hollywood commercial films such as Spider-Man and Megalodon disappear, and even the waist movies of 500 million to 1 billion homes have not disappeared.
Cat's eye information shows that in the next month, there are about 25 new films will be released, including Wang Zhi, Clara starring in "Deep Love", Wan Xi starring in "Rabbit Violence", Wang Keru starring in "My Youth Has You", etc., but from the perspective of genre, starring lineup, behind-the-scenes team, the box office appeal of these new films is mostly flat, and some media even predict that before the National Day, no new film will be able to break the box office of 100 million yuan. In this way, August, which was once a box office boom, may become the coldest month at the box office this year.
From the perspective of the total annual box office, as of August 7, the total box office of the mainland market in 2021 just exceeded 31.5 billion, and in 2019, it has broken through the 40 billion mark.
The industry is sluggish, and the enthusiasm of capital for film and television tracks is also very cold. It is reported that as of August 9, the number of investments that occurred in the film and television track this year did not exceed 5 times, and the investment amount did not exceed 100 million yuan.
Some investors said that at present, except for film companies, external funds will hardly invest in film projects, because there are too many uncontrollable risks, and China has not established a film completion insurance system. The problem of financing difficulties for film companies has not been solved, which has led to the entire industry on the slow track.
"Since the second half of 2018, there has been a major change in the attitude of capital towards the film and television industry, resulting in a sharp reduction in investment in the entire industry. For example, in terms of equity investment, almost few companies can get equity investment in the early stage of their establishment or during their operations. Investment in the project itself has also been drastically reduced, resulting in many projects being unable to start. It's basically a lockdown policy, and we don't have any new companies going public in our industry and no way to raise funds. Directly causing some enterprises and listed film and television companies to have financial problems. During this year's Shanghai Film Festival, Wang Changtian, chairman of Guangguang Media, said.
In the first half of the year, the industry just gradually recovered
It is lamentable that after last year's cold winter, in the first half of this year, the film and television industry has just shown signs of recovery.
At present, a number of listed companies in the film and television industry have issued first-half performance forecasts, and many of them have pre-increased net profits in the first half of the year.
Jinyi Film and Television (002905) is expected to lose 65 million yuan – 76 million yuan in the first half of this year, a loss of 314 million yuan in the same period last year, the company said that in the first half of 2021, thanks to the continuous improvement of the domestic epidemic prevention and control situation, the film market gradually recovered, but the overall market is still affected by the supply of films, especially imported films affected by the overseas epidemic, march, April, June, the mainland box office market did not exceed 3 billion to set a new low in the history of the past 5 years, The second quarter box office was only 52.28% of the first quarter box office.
Wanda Film (002739) expects to achieve a net profit of 620 million yuan to 680 million yuan in the first half of this year, compared with a loss of 1.567 billion yuan in the same period last year. The company said that in the first half of 2021, with the normalization of domestic epidemic control and the improvement of the global epidemic trend, the Chinese film market continued to recover steadily, and the global film industry is gradually picking up.
In the first half of 2021, the film "Detective Chinatown 3", which was mainly invested and controlled by the subsidiary Wanda Film and Television Media Co., Ltd., was released in the Spring Festival file, achieving a total box office of 4.52 billion yuan in China; at the same time, the dramas "Trumpeter in Place", "Mother is Waiting for You" and "Wild Goose Return to the West Window Moon" invested and produced by the subsidiary Zhejiang Dongyang New Media Eslite Culture Media Co., Ltd. were broadcast successively, so the performance of Wanda Film's film and television investment production and distribution business in the first half of the year increased significantly compared with the same period last year.
Wanda Film and Television said that as of June 27, 2021, the total box office nationwide was 24.91 billion yuan (excluding service fees), the number of moviegoers was 680 million, the company achieved a box office of 3.53 billion yuan, and the number of moviegoers was 91.25 million, with an increase higher than the domestic market. The cumulative market share of the company's theaters (including franchises) from January to June was 15%, maintaining a relatively significant increase. In 2020, the company's domestic theaters affected by the epidemic were suspended from January 23, 2020 to July 20, 2020, and the operating performance showed a large loss, so the company's domestic theater business performance turned into a profit during the reporting period.
Huace Film & Television (300133) also expects to achieve a total net profit of 206 million yuan to 236 million yuan in the first half of this year, an increase of 40%-60% year-on-year, compared with 147 million yuan in the same period last year. The company said that in the first half of 2021, the company continued to adhere to the coordinated development of TV dramas and movies in the content business, and achieved eye-catching results. TV drama projects started 7, 8 green, 6 forensics, 13 premieres, the company's main revenue in the second quarter of the TV drama projects "Our New Era", "8090", "Moonlight Variations", "The Day That Became You", "Top Secret Mission", the film project "Detective Conan: Crimson Projectball" and artist brokerage, content marketing, international business, copyright business and other ecological business income, operating net cash flow continued to be positive.
In addition, Huanrui Century (000892) expects the company to achieve a net profit of 10 million yuan in the first half of this year, compared with a loss of 122 million yuan in the same period last year. The company said that during the reporting period, the company continued to deepen its layout around the creation of a content production and artist brokerage platform, and various businesses steadily advanced. The company's film and television drama sales revenue and artist brokerage income increased compared with the same period last year, sales expenses decreased compared with the same period of the previous year, and the company's net profit achieved a turnaround.
In the first half of the year, Huanrui Century's main film and television dramas (including non-executive production dramas) included "Ten Years of Wen Ruyan", "South Wind Knows My Intentions", "YaoXiang Legend", "Agarwood Like Crumbs", etc.; the film and television dramas that obtained distribution licenses or online record numbers were "Rights and Profits", "Dream Awakening Chang'an" and "Genting Heavenly Palace".
Next year or back to growth
Yang Xiaodong, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, pointed out that the film and television industry had three characteristics in the first half of the year:
First, the competitiveness of domestic films has become stronger. In the first half of 2021, the number of domestic films released in the domestic film market was 202, and the box office revenue was 22.3 billion yuan, accounting for 63% and 81% of the number of domestic premieres and box office revenues, respectively, which was related to the decline in the number of imported films.
Second, the demand for online movies has increased. With the popularization of new technologies such as 5G, the technological changes brought about will provide new impetus for the transformation of the film industry. New formats such as "cloud screening" that have emerged during the epidemic have brought new opportunities to the online online film and television industry, and people's demand for online movies will increase.
Third, the red main theme movie has a good reputation. Around the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Party and other major events, a number of film works with good reputation and box office, such as "On the Cliff", have been launched.
"From the perspective of cultural form, the number of film and television works with mainstream culture and traditional cultural themes surged in the first half of this year, and they were out of the circle. Among them, the main theme of film and television works such as "The Age of Awakening" continues to trigger a wave of viewing. Xu Liyong, a researcher at the headquarters of cultural and tourism institutions stationed abroad of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, believes.
Liu Zhenfei, a researcher at Maoyan, pointed out that based on the overall performance in the first half of the year, the Chinese film market showed three major trends of box office concentration to the slot, box office concentration to the head, and domestic films to maintain a high proportion.
For the trend of the film and television industry in the second half of the year and the future prospects of the industry, industry insiders generally believe that due to the capriciousness of the new crown epidemic, the follow-up development is still unclear, so the cold winter of the film and television industry may last for a long time.
Recently, Wanda Film executives accepted the centralized investigation of the institution and said that the impact of the epidemic on the industry is the two aspects of the impact on the theater end and the production end, last year due to the epidemic, the theater was closed for nearly half a year, and the impact on the film and television production end is also synchronous, so the problem of film supply will be digested sooner or later in the next 1-2 years.
Wanda Film executives believe that the epidemic has also brought a positive promotion and impact to the industry, through last year's epidemic and this year's recovery, there has been a cooling down at the end of theater construction, and some inefficient theaters are also eliminated. This year, it is more obvious that although more than 500 theaters opened in the first half of the year, there were also more than 360 theaters closed, a net increase of about 200, the survival of the fittest is good for the industry, and the production has also shuffled, so the current industry has gone through the trough and shuffle of the epidemic, and from the theater end and the production end are conducive to the long-term development of the industry.
"We are confident that the industry will return to growth in the coming year after tomorrow with the popularity of vaccines." Wanda Film executives said.
In Yang Xiaodong's view, on the one hand, it is necessary to give play to the main force of policy dividends China's film market continues to pick up, especially we should give full play to the guiding role of China's film special funds, optimize the support structure, and help the film market recover. On the other hand, we must pay attention to content production. In the future, the film and television industry will no longer be a single film and television drama production, but will truly realize operation and innovation around IP, and the discourse power of high-quality content parties will be enhanced, helping the industry to complete transformation and upgrading.