China's film market has entered the 5.0 era. How far can the Lunar New year festival take the box office?

with less than a month to go before 2018, the annual box office of Chinese films broke through the 50 billion yuan mark a week ago, officially announcing that China's film market has entered the 5 era, a step closer to 6 yuan (60 billion yuan). However, this 5 era has come with a bit of ups and downs, from the cold spell at the beginning of the year to the rapid development of the summer vacation, now it is the New year's turn to perform. Judging from the cinema's schedule, there are a variety of films to be released during the Lunar New year holiday in December this year, ranging from big producers such as "the Legend of the Devil Cat" to award-winning art films such as "the Old Beast." there are not only traditional comedy films such as "the Devil Bell", but also unique imported films such as "Paddington Bear", "fireworks", "Dark hour" and so on. On the other hand, the number of new films released during the Lunar New year holiday in December is particularly crowded. as many as 14 Chinese and foreign new films will be released in December alone, and nearly 10 new films will be released on December 10.

strong > counterattack / strong >

in recent years, China's film market has been growing at an average annual rate of about 30%, until last year (2016) suddenly came to a sudden stop. Because the 2015 film box office ended with a perfect result of 44 billion yuan, the industry is generally expected to exceed 50 billion yuan in 2016, resulting in a revenue of only 45.7 billion yuan that year, an increase of 3.73 percent over the previous year. For a while, there has been a steady stream of comments about the development of China's film market entering a bottleneck period and going through a long-term low-speed development, and the expectation of the market in the film industry also tends to be pessimistic. However, since the beginning of this year, the Chinese film market has first suppressed and then risen, put on a good show of counterattack, and made the most powerful response to all kinds of questions.

the Spring Festival season at the beginning of this year's film market is relatively bleak. It took six more days to break the 10 billion yuan mark than last year. From March to May, a "late spring cold" intensified the worries of the mainland film market, and the box office remained depressed. Fortunately, after the release of the summer domestic film "Wolf Warriors 2", the box office quickly picked up, and finally the single film grossed 5.58 billion yuan, which greatly aroused the enthusiasm of the audience and enhanced the audience's confidence in domestic films. Then, the domestic comedy "Iron fist of Shame" took over Wolf Warriors 2 on National Day and continued to make great strides at the box office, breaking the 2 billion yuan mark and currently ranking second at the annual box office.

according to data, as of 06:57 on November 20, a week ago, the annual box office of Chinese films reached 50 billion yuan, breaking the 50 billion yuan mark for the first time in 324 days, and the number of moviegoers reached 1.448 billion, an increase of 19 percent over the same period last year. Domestic films grossed 26.2 billion yuan, accounting for 52.4 percent. 82 Chinese and foreign films have grossed more than 100 million at the box office, of which 13 have grossed more than 1 billion.

after China's film market enters the 5.0th era, can the next December New year's festival repeat the popularity of the summer "Wolf Warriors 2" and bring the box office into the 6.0th era? Cinema insiders pointed out that although more than 50 new Chinese and foreign films such as "Legend of the Devil Cat", "Fanghua", "Qimen Dun Jia" and "Devil Bell" will be released in December, it is not realistic to win nearly 10 billion at the box office in a short period of 33 days. In the previous two natural years, the box office in December was about 4 billion yuan, and there are not always phenomenal films like Wolf Warriors 2, so it is objectively estimated that this year's box office will close at 55 billion yuan.

strong > quality is the key / strong >

although the box office of this year's film is unlikely to soar to 60 billion yuan in the next time, the whole film market shows a healthy development trend with quality as the core, which is more gratifying than achieving high box office. In the process of box office growth in 2015, Little fresh Meat + Big IP once became the standard to get high box office. As a result, under the influence of capital eager for quick success and quick profit, a number of money-making works with poor word-of-mouth were produced, the quality was inverted with the box office, and the reputation of domestic films was tarnished.

this situation has been reversed this year. According to the "Chinese Movie audience satisfaction Survey" conducted by the China Film Archive and Yien, audience satisfaction has remained above 80 points in all periods that have ended in 2017, including 80.9 for Spring Festival and 81.9 for Spring Festival. 82 points for May 1, 85.7 for summer holidays and 83.5 for National Day stalls. This year, two high-grossing domestic films, Wolf Warriors 2, received a rating of 7.3 on Douban and the Iron fist of shyness scored 7.2, both of which were recognized by the audience. In sharp contrast, the works of so-called large IP+ actors such as "three generations, three generations and Ten Mile Peach Blossom" and "the Legend of mackerel beads" encountered a Waterloo at the box office. This shows that the audience's demand for film quality is increasing day by day, and the money-making strategy based on the "fan economy" is gradually failing. Audiences are no longer willing to pay for low-quality films.

A similar situation occurs in imported blockbusters. Hollywood blockbusters such as Fast and Furious 8, Spider-Man: the return of Heroes and Justice League are not as brave as they were at the box office. On the contrary, the imported films with amazing performances on the market this year are two different works-India's Wrestling! Dad "and Thailand's" Genius Gunners "show that domestic audiences are no longer following others, but pay more attention to the quality of the film.

Yin Hong, a professor at Tsinghua University, pointed out that the role of audience word-of-mouth in promoting the film box office is becoming more and more obvious, which is the most significant change in China's film market in recent years. "the expansion of the scale of China's film market is no longer driven by the construction of cinemas and the increase in the number of screens. Audiences have higher and higher requirements for the artistic and industrial level of the film, and whether the film is good-looking and good reputation is becoming more and more important to the decision-making of watching movies." The upcoming Lunar New year war will also be a box office battle in which content quality is king.

Edit: mary