Observer Network News (Wen/Hu Yujing Editor/Zhuang Yi) 2022 is about to start spring, and the spring of film companies seems to be not far away.
Recently, a number of film companies have released 2021 performance forecasts, turning losses into profits and reducing losses. Among them, Wanda Film reversed the 2020 big loss of 6.853 billion yuan and successfully made a profit, and Chinese films also successfully turned around.
However, some film companies are still mired in losses. For example, Huayi Brothers continued to sell assets in 2021 and struggled to maintain book profits, but the non-recurring profit and loss in 2021 was as high as 961 million yuan, and the loss after deducting non-recurring profits was still more than 900 million.
Although Beijing Culture bet on the 5.4 billion yuan box office of the 2021 Spring Festival "Hello, Li Huanying", it failed to transfer the investment right to Ruyi Pictures before the release of the film, and finally reduced its loss in 2021, but did not get rid of the continuous huge loss state that began in 2019.
Bona Pictures, which was delisted from the US stock market, is a special existence. Its listing plan to restart A-shares has not yet been approved, but only two "Chosin Lake" series controlled by its main investment have reached the box office of tens of billions, and the main theme of the main theme is the limelight.
China Film Wanda turned around the loss, and the light found another way out
In 2021, under the background of the normalization of epidemic prevention and control, the domestic film market continued to pick up. According to the data released by the National Film Administration, the total box office of the national film in 2021 was 47.258 billion yuan, which has recovered to 74% before the epidemic; the number of urban cinema viewers was 1.167 billion, more than double that of 2020.
In this context, China Film has successfully turned around its losses, with a net profit attributable to listed shareholders expected to be 205 million to 275 million yuan in 2021, compared with a net loss of 556 million yuan in 2020.
In addition to the stability of the epidemic, the wide-netting strategy of winning by volume is also an important reason for China Film to turn around losses.In the case of the continuation of the overseas epidemic and the lack of imported blockbusters, as a veteran state-owned film company, 2021 China Film closely followed the main theme and created films such as "My Father and Me", "On the Cliff" and "Embracing You Through Winter".
In addition, China Film has also participated in the distribution and introduction of imported films with decent box office performance, such as "Fast and Furious 9", "Godzilla vs. King Kong" and "Out of Control Player", and "Chosin Lake", "Detective Chinatown 3" and "Hello, Lee Huanying" and other phenomenal box office films have China Film as the main producer or distributor.
"My Father and Me" controlled by China Film
China Film 2021 performance forecast said that in 2021, the company produced and put on the market 24 films of various types, with a cumulative box office of 23.960 billion yuan, accounting for 60.01% of the total box office of domestic films in the same period. Compared with 2020 and 2019, it has increased by 27% and 42% respectively. In terms of distribution, the company released a total of 711 films, achieving a box office of 32.896 billion yuan, accounting for 76.74% of the total national box office in the same period.
Wanda Film,000, which also turned around, is expected to have a net profit of 90 million to 130 million yuan in 2021, but its net profit after deducting non-profit is only 10 million to 30 million.
The fancy self-help of the past year has been exchanged for a turnaround in the performance of Wanda Films.In 2021, Wanda Film opened mergers and acquisitions, and as of December 31, 2021, the company has 790 theaters open in China, and the cumulative market share of its theaters in 2021 is 15.3%, which is significantly higher than in previous years.
In addition, Wanda has also made a number of new businesses around the cinema space, including its own new tea drink "Wancha", immersive live entertainment "Jurassic World: Special Film Exhibition", theater cross-talk, drama, script killing and concert and other performance activities, to increase the frequency of theater rental and increase non-box office revenue.
Source: Guiyang Wanda Cinema official Weibo
The successive releases of reserve content have released some of Wanda's operating pressures.The main investment control of the film "Detective Chinatown 3" box office revenue of 4.52 billion yuan, "Manslaughter 2" box office of 1.121 billion yuan, ranked 3rd and 10th in the total box office list of films in 2021, supporting the box office revenue of Wanda Film.
In addition, the full resumption of business in the fourth quarter of 2021 for Australian cinema lines has also brought a positive side to Wanda Film.In 2021, Wanda's subsidiary Australia originally had a full-year box office of 740 million yuan, and the loss margin was significantly narrower than that in 2020.
However, despite the box office, new business and multi-line revenue increase of Australian cinema lines, due to the repeated epidemic and the insufficient supply of imported films, Wanda Film has not yet completed its performance commitment in 2021.That is, the promised net profit of Wanda Film in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 promised by Wang Jianlin and Wanda Group was not less than 763 million yuan, 888 million yuan, 1.069 billion yuan and 1.274 billion yuan respectively.
Unlike Wanda and China Film, Guangguang Media did not bet on the blockbuster last year, and the overall volume of films such as "Surging Crowds", "Tomorrow Will Be Fine", "Five Splashing Teenagers" released last year was small, and the color strip house that created "Nezha's Devil Boy Descending" and "Jiang Ziya" has not been released, and there is a lack of blockbusters. In 2021, Light Media expects a net profit of 170 million to 220 million, down more than 60% from a 235 million profit in 2020.
"Crowds"
Revenue from web dramas, artist agency businesses and investments is the main reason why Ray remains profitable.Guangguang announced that the company's web drama business has developed rapidly, and a number of projects have made substantial progress. Among them, dramas such as "Mountain River Pillow" and "Spring Feast" have reached cooperation with relevant video platforms, and confirmed the investment income of TV dramas/web dramas such as "Shan He Yueming", "Genting Tiangong", "Cannot Look Directly" and other projects, and the profit of TV drama/web drama business has increased compared with the same period last year.
In addition, the profit of artist agency and other businesses increased by 150% compared with 2020, and some investment companies performed well, and the investment income of participating companies recognized according to the proportion of investment and accounted for according to the equity method increased significantly compared with the same period last year. At the same time, the cash dividends received by the company from the participating companies increased significantly compared with the same period of the previous year, effectively increasing the company's cash reserves.
Beiwen and Huayi are difficult to get out of the mud
Despite the industry's recovery, some film companies that have accumulated shortcomings have not ushered in a revision of performance.
Beijing culture, which is absent from the 2022 Spring Festival stall, is already entangled in trivial matters, and it is difficult to talk about profitability.Since April 2020, former vice chairman Lou Xiaoxi reported that Beijing Culture was suspected of financial fraud on Weibo, and executives Song Ge and Zhang Yunlong were suspected of disclosing important information in violation of the law, and Many other crimes were initiated, And Beijing Culture has been deeply involved in the "performance bath" controversy. At the end of 2020, the CSRC opened an investigation into it, and then its stock abbreviation became "ST Beiwen".
In April 2021, Zheng Shuang's "Ghost of a Woman" again pulled Beijing culture into the "yin and yang contract" storm, the contradiction between shareholders and management "infighting" became public, and the tug-of-war between the two sides ended with the investigation of the CSRC, in August 2021, the CSRC planned to impose administrative penalties on Beijing Culture and 17 parties such as Chairman Song Ge and Director Zhang Yunlong in accordance with the law, and adopted securities market ban measures against then vice chairman Lou Xiaoxi, and Beijing Culture was able to re-elect the board of directors.
Zheng Shuang starred in "The Ghost of Qiannu"
However, judging from this performance forecast, the high-level re-election has not brought a "new" performance to Beijing culture.Its performance forecast shows that the net loss attributable to shareholders of listed companies in 2021 was 95 million to 140 million yuan, and the net loss after deducting non-profit was 96 million to 141 million yuan, compared with a net loss of 790 million yuan in the same period last year.
In fact, Beijing Culture bet on the box office champion "Hello, Li Huanying" in last year's Spring Festival slot, and it was the main investment control, and it had completely flipped capital. However, due to the fact that Beijing Culture signed a guarantee agreement with Ruyi Pictures (Hengteng Network) before the release of the film, and resold a larger share of the investment rights to Ruyi Pictures, which ranked second producer, Beijing Culture finally achieved only about 120 million yuan in this 5.414 billion box office film.
The Huayi brothers, who have also not yet come out of the quagmire of losses, are still actively saving themselves and returning blood.In the past year, Huayi Brothers disposed of a number of investment equity in the fields of live entertainment, music, and games, and in the first three quarters alone, it earned more than 800 million yuan.
Huayi Brothers said in the performance preview that the company has integrated and adjusted the resources of the live entertainment sector, introduced high-quality partners, and further focused on the asset-light model with content operation as the core.
The asset-light strategy of divesting the business brought Huayi a weak profit. Its performance forecast said that the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies in 2021 was 22.52 million to 33.71 million, a turnaround from 2020.
This turnaround is particularly critical for Huayi Brothers.According to the Rules Governing the Listing of Stocks on the Growth Enterprise Market of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (Revised in 2020) and the Notice on Issuance, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange will implement other risk warnings for listed companies whose net profit before and after deduction of non-recurring gains and losses in the last three fiscal years is negative, and whose audit reports in the most recent year show that there is uncertainty about the company's ability to continue to operate.
In short, although the turnaround is weak, it may exempt Huayi Brothers from the risk of being warned in the stock market.But Huayi's crisis obviously does not stop there, due to the non-recurring profit and loss of up to 961 million yuan, Huayi Brothers is expected to have a net loss of 927 million to 938 million yuan after deducting non-profit, which has been the fourth consecutive year that Huayi Brothers has negative net profit after deducting non-recurring profit.
In addition, in the performance forecast, Huayi Brothers also said that the company will make an asset impairment provision for some assets. In this regard, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange has issued a letter of concern, asking it to explain the specific circumstances of deducting large non-recurring gains and losses in 2021, as well as the provision for impairment of long-term equity investments, goodwill and the impairment test process.
Bona Pictures, thinking of danger in times of peace
Standing at the end of the Spring Festival, Bona Pictures is the protagonist of many film companies. Only two "Chosin Lake" series, the total box office has approached 10 billion.
According to Jiang Defu, CEO of Bona Group, the investment scale of "Chosin Lake" (two parts) is 200 million US dollars (about 1.3 billion yuan), and the total box office is 9.352 billion yuan. According to Bona's prospectus, the theater party first deducts the special business tax of 3.3% of the box office and the special fund for the film industry, deducts the share of the box office (that is, the theater) and then gives it to the theater line. The cinema side deducts the corresponding service fee and then gives huaxia film and China Film digital, and the two deduct the corresponding distribution service fee to the publicity company. After deducting 10% to 15% of the commission and the prepaid distribution fee, the rest is the box office revenue that the producer can get.
Among them, Bona Pictures, as the main investment controller of the two films, can share the majority of the revenue in multiple producers, but there is no clear data on how much revenue the specific "Chosin Lake" series can bring to Bona.
Douban score of "Chosin Lake No. Pratunam Bridge"
Since Bona Pictures released "Red Sea Action" in the Spring Festival file in 2018 and won the first place in the box office list of that year, Bona Pictures has determined the route of creating closely around the theme of the main theme, and has successively launched films such as "Captain China", "Hero of Fire", "Decisive Moment", "Emergency Rescue" and so on, and the excellent creative team and excellent film quality have stabilized the reputation of Bona's main theme, and "Changjin Lake" has finally pushed this stability to the peak.
But on the way back to the market, the boost that "Chosin Lake" brings to Bona is still unclear.In November 2020, Bona Pictures successfully passed the meeting after nearly 3 hours of defense, inquiry and deliberation, but it has been nearly a year and a half since then, and has not yet obtained the IPO approval issued by the CSRC, while companies such as China Porcelain Electronics that passed the meeting in the same period were approved for listing early.
However, due to the impact of the epidemic in 2020, Bona Pictures' revenue was 2.127 billion yuan, down 31.73% from 2019, and net profit was 176 million yuan, down 44.03% from 2019.
The sharp decline in performance during the IPO reporting period became the biggest obstacle to Bona's return to A listing. In addition, in terms of film creation, the main theme market is not entirely Boehner's world.Chinese Films, Shanghai Films, and Tencent Pictures have all intervened through films such as "My Motherland and Me", "My Father and Me", and "1921", and due to the homogenization of historical war themes, it is even more difficult for Bona to open up audience groups in the unheated film market.
For the bottleneck of the main theme film, Yu Dong, chairman of Bona Pictures, said in an interview with the Beijing News and the first financial and economic media that the development of the main theme film has entered a broader track, and its upper limit is still higher, which is the need and inevitability of the times. In the homogeneous competition, Bona will upgrade the picture, special effects and experience, create more phenomenal representative works, and lead the development direction.
With the normalization of epidemic control and control, some companies have ushered in a turnaround, but for Huayi and Beiwen, which have accumulated deep drawbacks, spring has not really arrived.
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