This year, there are ten new films scheduled for the National Day file, covering science fiction, war, crime, action, disaster, song and dance, etc. At first glance, the genre is very diverse, and the audience should have plenty of choice. However, after the new films were released one after another, the National Day file once again fell into the controversy of word-of-mouth and box office. "749 Bureau", which was pinned on high hopes at first, has been on the hot search many times because of the poor reputation of the movie and the response of director Lu Chuan; On the third day of the schedule, the two new films "In and Out of Peace" and "Pipiru and Lu Xixi's 309 Dark Room" announced their withdrawal halfway; The popular IP character Zhang Beijing played by Ge You was not bought by the audience in the new film "Hot Good Guy", and director Ning Hao once again faced a crisis of word-of-mouth and box office after "Mr. Red Carpet"; Jackie Chan and Andy Lau, two well-known Hong Kong stars, seem to have lost their former box office appeal judging from the performance of their two new works.
Judging from the feedback from all parties, this year's National Day file failed to meet the audience's expectations. Nandu reporters will make a review based on the data of this year's National Day file, analyze the shortcomings at the same time, and not ignore the progress, objectively make evaluations and summarize experience, which is a top priority.
Overall performance
The total box office of the National Day stalls is inferior to last year
Guangdong won the "first ticket warehouse" of the National Day file
According to the statistics of the National Film Administration, the national box office of the 2024 National Day file (October 1 to 7, 2024) will be 2.104 billion yuan, the number of moviegoers will be 52.09 million, and the average ticket price will be 40.3 yuan. Among them, the box office of domestic films was 2.017 billion yuan, accounting for 95.87%. Guangdong led the box office of various provinces and cities with nearly 250 million yuan. "Volunteers: The Battle for Survival" became the box office champion with more than 800 million yuan.
The box office performance of 2.104 billion yuan in this year's National Day file is lower than the industry expectation before the screening, and the result is in the middle of the total box office in the past ten years. It is half less than in 2019 (4.466 billion yuan) and 2021 (4.389 billion yuan), and more than 600 million less than in the same period last year. Compared with the past 5 years, this year's National Day box office is only better than 2022, which is affected by the epidemic in the same period.
In terms of single-day box office, the daily box office on the first day of the schedule (October 1) was the highest, exceeding 490 million yuan, surpassing the 430 million yuan on the first day of the National Day holiday last year. According to the observation statistics of Nandu reporters, as of 12:20 on October 3, the box office of this year's National Day stalls officially exceeded 1 billion yuan, which was faster than the same period last year.
In terms of specific provinces and cities, Guangdong's National Day box office results lead the country and continue to sit firmly in the "first box office". The data shows that in the 2024 National Day film market, Guangdong Province has consolidated its position as the "No. 1 box office" with a total box office of nearly 250 million yuan. The single-day box office of Guangdong Province reached 55.87 million yuan, which not only surpassed the box office results of the same day last year, but also made it rank first in the single-day box office, moviegoers and screenings nationwide. The two first-tier cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen are firmly at the top of the city's box office list with their respective box office revenues of more than 60 million yuan. Behind this data, it further confirms Guangdong's central role and influence in the development of the film market that year, and also reveals Guangdong's strong resilience and leading position in the Chinese film industry.
It is worth mentioning that the average ticket price of this year's National Day stalls has been reduced to 40.7 yuan, refreshing the lowest price in the past four years. Industry insiders generally believe that the move is a price adjustment in response to the relatively sluggish film market, in order to attract more audiences with lower ticket prices.
There is also a new phenomenon in this year's National Day file: the aging of theater audiences. According to the observation of the film industry that self-media people are brittle, the age distribution of ticket buyers for this year's National Day stalls accounts for 1/4 of those over 40 years old, the highest proportion in the past five years. The proportion of teenagers and 20-24 years old is only 16.5%, indicating that the new generation of audiences has not been effectively cultivated, and many young people usually do not go to the cinema to watch movies, which is a relatively big hidden danger for the film industry.
In the face of young people who have more choices in entertainment methods, going to the theater is just one of the many entertainments. How to attract them to the cinema again is an important issue in the current Chinese film market.
Word-of-mouth performance
The average Douban score is less than 6 points
For two consecutive years, there has been no National Day dark horse of more than 1 billion
There are a total of 10 new films in this year's National Day file, including 8 live-action films and 2 animated films, all of which are domestic films. The main theme movie "Volunteers: The Battle of Survival" became the box office champion of this year's National Day file with 805 million yuan. According to statistics, a total of five films exceeded 100 million yuan at the box office during the period, which was the most in the same period of the previous year.
"Volunteers: The Battle for Survival" is the second work in the Volunteer Army series, written and directed by well-known director Chen Kaige. Nandu reporters found that this is the fourth work of Chen Kaige released on the National Day since 2019.
In 2019, "My Motherland and Me", which he served as the chief director, received nearly 2 billion yuan at the box office on the National Day and achieved a high reputation. Two years later, "Changjin Lake", co-directed by Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark and Lin Chaoxian, received more than 3.2 billion yuan at the box office during the period, and finally became the box office champion of the National Day file in the history of Chinese films. Chen Kaige, who received the dividends of the main theme movie, continued to shoot "Volunteers: Heroes Attack", but only collected nearly 500 million yuan at the box office. As a sequel, "Volunteers: The Battle of Survival", focusing on the Tieyuan Resistance Battle from the perspective of the Li family, the narrative and characters are more concentrated than the first part, with more details and more escalated war scenes, plus the popular artist Zhu Yilong officially played the first protagonist in the sequel, so that the sequel to "Volunteers" won more sinking audiences than the first work.
However, although "Volunteers: Battle for Survival" is this year's National Day box office, the result of 805 million yuan is a relatively inconspicuous year among the box office champions in the past 10 years. According to the data, the box office of "Volunteers: Survival" is the lowest in the past five years, and it is more than 70 million yuan lower than last year's champion "Rock Solid". "Changjin Lake" is the highest-grossing National Day movie in history, with a box office of more than 3.2 billion yuan, followed by "My Motherland and Me" and "My Hometown and Me", both close to 2 billion yuan. The total box office of the National Day stalls in 2022 will be less than 1.5 billion yuan, but the champion "Ten Thousand Miles Home" is outstanding, winning 1.025 billion yuan at the box office.
The box office of "Volunteers: Survival Battle" and "Rock Solid" are both less than 900 million yuan, which also marks that there have been no films with a box office of more than 1 billion yuan in the National Day file for two consecutive years. Of the remaining 8 films other than "Volunteers: The Battle for Survival", two broke 300 million yuan, one broke 200 million yuan, and one broke 100 million yuan. Chen Kaige's "Volunteers: The Battle for Survival" is more than 500 million at the box office higher than the second place, and the box office accounts for nearly 40%.
On the Douban word-of-mouth list, "Only This Green", adapted from the song and dance poetry drama of the same name, ranked first with 8 points, and "Volunteers: Battle for Survival" followed with 7.2 points. "Road to Fire", "Crisis Route", "Panda Plan", etc. are all around 6.3 points. "749 Bureau" has a Douban score of 4.2 points, becoming the lowest-rated new film in the National Day file. And "New Big Head Son and Little Head Dad" and "Pipiru and Luxisi's 309 Dark Room" have not shown ratings so far. Statistics of the new films that have shown their ratings show that the average score of the new films on Douban this year's National Day file is less than 6 points. A large part of the reason for the cold box office in this schedule is that the quality of the film is not up to par.
Negative effects
The word-of-mouth crisis of "749 Bureau".
16 films have been withdrawn this year
The average score of this year's new National Day films on Douban is less than 6 points, in addition to the low score of most films, another reason is that the 4.2 score of "749 Bureau" has dragged its feet. As a science fiction film that has been in preparation for eight years, it has assembled a group of stars and an international-level special effects team, and on the eve of its release, many viewers really want to see it. The film became the daily box office champion on the first day of release, and won a box office result of more than 170 million yuan. However, while the movie was a hit, it also received a torrent of bad reviews.
"749 Rounds" fell from 5 points to 4.2 points.
In the face of bad reviews, Lu Chuan, the director of this film, shouted at netizens on Weibo, so that netizens' bad reviews came at him. This gaffe was regarded as a provocation by netizens, which attracted more negative comments to the movie, and also caused Lu Chuan himself to suffer a round of cyberbullying.
Some viewers think that Lu Chuan is to blame, but some industry insiders, such as producer Guan Yadi, posted on Weibo that it is okay to criticize the movie, but it is inappropriate to use intimidating words to face the filmmaker.
Recently, in an exclusive interview with CCTV News, Lu Chuan responded to how he views the controversy of the movie "749 Bureau" on the Internet: "Actually, I think it's a good thing that a movie can trigger discussions, it's not a crime." It has flaws, and if I give me another two to three months, I can fix all these flaws. In his view, industrial films are done for the market and the audience, so it is necessary to respect every need of the audience, so as to inspire creators to improve or recreate. In the end, he said: "Thank you to all the audience who bought tickets to enter the theater, it is our duty to do a good job in the next movie." ”
It is reported that "749 Bureau" has fallen into a financial crisis since its launch. As soon as the film was filmed, investors withdrew their investments. Faced with this situation, Lu Chuan insisted on the filming of "749 Bureau" while raising funds. Even in the later stage, he did not hesitate to take on commercials, participate in variety shows, shoot dramas, and work hard to make money and raise money, just to complete that unfinished dream. The word-of-mouth and box office of "749 Bureau" suffered a Waterloo, in addition to the problems of director Lu Chuan himself, there are also many unknown uncontrollable factors. It is rumored that the production cost of "749 Bureau" is as high as 600 million yuan, and the current box office results of nearly 400 million yuan, according to the "triple return to cost" in the film industry (the box office needs to be three times the cost to pay back), the film is still a long way from returning to the cost and even making a profit.
At present, due to the poor reputation and box office of "749 Bureau", the film schedule has been greatly reduced, and if it chooses to withdraw and release it again at a later date, it will face greater risks. This year's National Day file has two movies "In and Out of Peace" and the cartoon "Pipiru and Lu Xixi's 309 Dark Room" Due to poor box office, they chose to withdraw on the third day of the schedule, namely "In and Out of Peace" and the cartoon "Pipiru and Lu Xixi's 309 Dark Room". 16 movies have been withdrawn this year, which seems to once again confirm the ridicule that this year is the "first year of withdrawal".
Withdrawing the file unexpectedly will make the filmmaker, theaters, audiences and other parties very troubled. For theaters, the withdrawal of films will cause refund troubles and disrupted film schedules; For the filmmaker, the publicity and distribution costs before the withdrawal will not be recovered, and additional expenses will be required to change the file, and whether it will be profitable in the end is a greater unknown; And for the audience, it will also affect their viewing plans. This is not conducive to the development of the mainland film market.
Looking to the future
After the National Day file
What other movies are available?
According to the experience of previous years, there will be a round of film shortage after the National Day, but in October this year, there will be a number of interesting new films that will be released one after another. Domestic films, such as the domestic films "Kidnapping Game", "Old Gun" and "Qiao Yan's Heart", have a considerable number of people who want to watch them. As for the introduction films, there will be two heavyweight introduction films "Joker 2: Double Delusion" and "Venom 3: The Last Dance" scheduled for October. According to Beacon data, the number of people who want to watch "Joker 2" and "Venom 3" is 25-29 years old, accounting for the most, both as high as about 34%. Although the current proportion of Hollywood films in China's box office is decreasing, and it is difficult to reproduce the era when Hollywood films often exceeded 1 billion yuan at the box office in China, they are still an important way to supplement the source of films in the Chinese film market. The box office of "Alien: Death Ship" of nearly 800 million yuan gave a blood loss to the weak film market in mid-to-late August.
In addition, there are a number of classic film re-releases: from October 11 this year, the entire Harry Potter series will be re-screened in Chinese mainland theaters in 2D/CINITY/IMAX/Dolby Cinema versions at a weekly frequency. According to the film self-media "Movie Winter": "The first and second parts of the "Harry Potter" series will be released in about 3,600 studios across the country. In addition, designated cinemas cannot register for cinemas that are not on the list. And the 4K restored director's cut version of "This Killer Is Not Too Cold", which will be re-screened on November 1, I believe it will also face similar problems, and there will not be too many theaters that choose to participate in the re-screening, and the audience needs to pay attention to the schedule of nearby theaters in advance.
There is less than a quarter left until the end of 2024. At present, the total box office of China's film market is about 36.8 billion yuan, and there is still a long way to go to catch up with last year's 55 billion yuan, or even recover to more than 60 billion yuan before the epidemic. In the last quarter of this year, in addition to looking forward to more box office top movies, we are also looking forward to more waist movies. A healthy industrial income structure should be a spindle, and over-expecting a box office dark horse is actually a zero-sum game that encourages winner-take-all in disguise. In order to build a spindle industrial income structure, the participation of every member of the film industry is required.
Written by: Nandu reporter Liu Yifan Chen Zeran
Drafting: American editor Gandan