Spring Festival 2024 Breaks Box Office Records, But Uneven Popularity Among Films
Our reporter Li Haoyue
The Spring Festival of 2024 has proven to be a historic one for moviegoers and box office numbers, with a total of four films setting new records. However, the success has not been evenly distributed among all the films released during this period.
According to Beacon data, as of February 26, the total box office revenue for the four Spring Festival movies, “Hot”, “Flying Life 2”, “Article 20”, and “Bear Infested: Reverse Time and Space”, has reached 10.29 billion yuan. This accounts for close to 19% of the total box office revenue for the entire year of 2023.
On the other hand, films like “Mr. Red Carpet”, “Let’s Shake the Sun Together”, “Bajie: The Lower Realm of the Canopy”, and “Huang Pi: The God of Wealth” failed to perform well at the box office and were withdrawn. Only “Let’s Shake the Sun Together” has been given a new release date, scheduled for March 30.
President of Central Film Investment and President of Mianyang Film Association, Wang Zheng, explained that blockbuster movies are typically released during major holidays like the Spring Festival, leading to fierce competition among films. The limited screening space in theaters also contributes to this competition, affecting the supply and demand dynamics.
Wang Zheng emphasized the importance of quality and publicity in a competitive schedule. The withdrawn films, “Mr. Red Carpet” and “Let’s Shake the Sun Together”, have received ratings on Douban, with the former scoring 6.8 and the latter 7.9. The animated films, “Bajie: The Lower Realm of the Canopy” and “Huang Pi: The God of Wealth”, did not receive enough ratings for a score.
The high production costs and box office revenue targets add pressure to film producers, as seen in the case of “Mr. Red Carpet”. Song Lei, director of the development and research department of China Animation Group, pointed out that the success of “Bear Infested IP” has reference value for children’s animated and family movies, but cannot be easily replicated.
As the Spring Festival comes to a close, the film industry is reflecting on the lessons learned from this competitive period. Only time will tell which movies will ultimately come out on top in the battle for box office success.
(Editor: Wen Jing)