At the end of 2021, “Spider-Man: No Home”, which garnered $1.8 billion at the box office, injected a boost into the Hollywood film market, which has been weak for more than two years, showing the market power of good content and strong IP.
Under the epidemic, not only the once glorious North American cinema market has been hit hard, but the global film industry is also facing challenges. The mainland Chinese film market has embarked on the road of recovery after the cold winter in the first half of 2020, surpassing the North American market for two consecutive years and becoming the world‘s largest ticket warehouse. But behind the surpassing rankings, it is still inevitable that the absolute value of the box office will fall. In 2021, the annual box office in mainland China is 47.258 billion yuan, which is still a big gap from 64.266 billion yuan in 2019.
According to Maoyan Professional Edition data, as of March 10, the box-office revenue of the Chinese film market in March was only 380 million yuan. Zhu Yuqing, director of the Investment and Financing Special Fund of the China Film Foundation, said in an interview with the “Daily Economic News” reporter, “Now, there are about 10,000 theaters with a daily box office of less than 300 yuan, and even the daily water and electricity bills are not enough. This year For the second time, the box office in a single day is less than 20 million.” The current market downturn is not only a manifestation of the aftermath of the Spring Festival, but also a reflection of the market downturn this year.
In contrast, Hollywood’s road to recovery has ushered in “Batman” after “Spider-Man”. “The New Batman” has a global box office of over 1.5 billion yuan in its first week of release. If the domestic film market wants to get out of the downturn, it also urgently needs a rescue masterpiece.
“The New Batman” movie poster image source: Douban
There is still a shortage of bad films in this important schedule this year, which cannot support the market and hurt the market
According to Maoyan Professional Edition data, in 2021, the national box office for the whole year will be 47.258 billion yuan, and the domestic film box office will be 39.927 billion yuan, accounting for 84.49% of the total box office.
Data shows that in 2021, the total domestic production of films will be 740, and the number of moviegoers in urban theaters will reach 1.167 billion. There are 10 films with a box office break of 1 billion. Except for “Fast and Furious 9” and “Godzilla vs. King Kong”, the rest are domestic films. Looking back at the pre-epidemic period from 2016 to 2019, domestic films accounted for 58.33%, 53.84%, 62.15%, and 64.07% of the box office, respectively. After the epidemic, the proportion of domestic films expanded rapidly, and the number of imported films on the big screen became less and less.
According to every reporter’s statistics, since 2020, the number of Hollywood blockbusters released in mainland China has shown a significant downward trend. So far in 2022, only three imported films have made it to the screen.
Image source: Drawing by reporter Zhu Peng
It can be seen that in 2020, when the global film production has plummeted, in order to maintain the theater market that has opened up in the second half of the year, the theaters in mainland China have re-screened many Hollywood films with good reputation. The box office of other films has exceeded 100 million yuan, especially “Avatar”, which will be re-released in March 2021 after 11 years, can still win nearly 400 million box office, showing the long-term gold attraction of high-quality super blockbusters.
In the next year or so, only 10 Hollywood blockbusters have been released in mainland China. But at the same time, the production of domestic films is still lower than before the epidemic, especially after entering 2022, the phenomenon of “lack of films” is becoming more and more obvious. For a market with huge theater resources and audience capacity, “lack of films” is undoubtedly dangerous.
Zhu Yuqing told the reporter: “This year’s film shortage is very serious. Last year, it was because there were still some stocks, but this year, there are no films at all. And I can’t see any good films at present. Key schedules like the May 1st schedule are all I can’t see the film. So the market situation is very severe. In the past two days, some people are also counting the box office. There are about 10,000 theaters whose daily box office is less than 300 yuan, and even the daily water and electricity bills are not enough. “
In addition, the schedule effect is gradually becoming a predicament in the current Chinese mainland film market. It seems that once the schedule is out of the schedule, the audience will lose the motivation to enter the theater. Taking the most recent Valentine’s Day as an example, the box office revenue on that day was nearly 530 million yuan. In the following three days, the single-day box office continued to decline until it fell below the 100 million yuan mark.
According to Maoyan Professional Edition data, as of March 11, the total box office in mainland China in 2022 is about 13.4 billion yuan. The three schedules of New Year’s Day, Spring Festival and Valentine’s Day contributed a total of 7.587 billion yuan in box office in 11 days, accounting for nearly 60%. Off-schedule box office performance is worrying.
Outside the schedule, the movie market needs to think about how the “three noes” movies without traffic, IP, and big stars rely on quality to draw audiences into the theater. Zhu Yuqing believes that good films are still needed. “There are many movies with hundreds of thousands of box office in the market. Strictly speaking, they are not movies at all, but the original Internet giants. Such bad movies not only cannot support the market, but also spoil the audience’s appetite. The harm to the movie market is very deadly.”
For the second time this year, the national single-day box office is less than 20 million
According to the data of Maoyan Professional Edition, on March 9th and 10th, the national single-day box office was 18.565 million yuan and 17.0155 million yuan respectively, hitting a record low single-day box office in the Chinese mainland film market in 2022. This is also the second single-day box office this year. less than 20 million.
And exactly ten years ago, on March 9, 2012 (Friday), the national single-day box office had reached 26.634 million yuan. According to Maoyan Professional Edition data, on March 9, a total of 48,184 screens nationwide generated box office, with a total of 299,000 screenings, with an average of 395.72 yuan per screen, and the number of moviegoers dropped by 59.78% compared with the previous day. On the weekend when “The New Batman” was released in North America, the Chinese mainland market did not have a single-day box office of more than 100 million yuan from Friday to Sunday.
When domestic films are hard to come by and the attraction of theaters to audiences is weakened, increasing the introduction of films is also a major measure to stimulate the film market. However, during the two years of repeated epidemics, Hollywood movies have been absent from the Chinese mainland market for various reasons.
However, in the next two months, there will be a batch of Hollywood blockbusters landing in mainland China. In addition to “The New Batman”, “Uncharted”, “Moonfall”, “Hotel Elf 4” and the IP series “Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Mystery” have all been finalized.
“Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore Mystery” movie poster image source: Douban
Zhu Yuqing believes that the increase in the introduction of films is definitely good for the market. “Like “The New Batman”, the audience has expectations. Secondly, the audience also needs imported films, which can also diversify the film market in mainland China.”
As the first superhero blockbuster to be introduced to mainland China this year, the film grossed US$134 million in its first week in North America, making it the runner-up at the North American box office during the epidemic, second only to the US$260 million of “Spider-Man: Homeless Heroes”. As of 15:00 on March 11, the film has grossed $288 million at the global box office. “The New Batman”, which has made a good start in the North American market, may bring a “catfish effect” to the currently sluggish mainland theater market.
An industry insider who did not want to be named told the reporter that the current shortage of films on the supply side of film content is also caused by many factors. “First of all, the economic environment is not good, and the film lacks investment, which is fatal. The second is the review process. The cycle of reporting, project approval, and review of the film is very long. Many films first wait for the shooting license, otherwise they will not be able to start. Then wait for the supply license, otherwise it will not be released. The whole process management is actually quite confusing. The market behavior still has to be handed over to the market, and the relevant departments need to do a good job of service.”
“If you want to get out of the market downturn, you must have a sufficient supply of blockbuster films, so there are voices calling for opening the channel for film approval and relaxing film censorship. If the content supply problem is not solved, I am afraid that more than half of the theaters will not be able to persist. That would have devastating consequences for the film’s infrastructure,” the industry source said.
