Special feature of 1905 film network With the blessing of excellent films at home and abroad, the mainland film market in China delivered a satisfactory answer sheet in the first half of 2023.
According to the statistics of Cat’s Eye Professional Edition, as of 21: 00 on June 30th, the box office of China mainland film market in the first half of the year has reached 26.23 billion yuan, up more than 50% compared with 17.18 billion yuan last year. This also shows that after three years of epidemic, with the joint support of the audience and filmmakers, the China film market is still full of vitality.
The splendid Spring Festival file made the mainland film market welcome a good start in 2023. On the last day of the first month in 2023, the total box office of cinema films in China exceeded 10 billion, setting a record of breaking 10 billion at the fastest annual box office in China film history, and also becoming the best box office achievement in China film history in January.
The Dragon Boat Festival, which created the second best performance in the history of the same period, is the icing on the cake for the first half of the mainland film market in 2023. As of June 30th, thanks to the new Dragon Boat Festival film, the box office on weekdays has exceeded 200 million for five consecutive days.
Policy support+explosions frequently achieved 26.2 billion box office.
Domestic movies still play the role of the main box office.
In the first half of 2023, the overall box office exceeded 26.1 billion yuan, exceeding industry expectations. This has also greatly boosted the morale of filmmakers and increased the market’s confidence in the future development of China’s film industry.
He Yu, a data analyst at Cat’s Eye Research Institute, believes that there are two main reasons why the market can achieve such results: First, thanks to the strong support of the national policy for the film industry after the market is liberalized.
On the film supply side, six films in the Spring Festival in 2023 cover 11 themes to meet the needs of audiences of all ages. From February to June after the Spring Festival, a large number of domestic and imported new films continued to be supplied steadily, effectively pulling movie users back to the cinema.
According to the statistics of big data of Cat’s Eye Platform, the number of people watching movies and the frequency of watching movies during the big period in 2023 (from Spring Festival to May 1st, from May 1st to Dragon Boat Festival) have obviously increased compared with the same period in 2021. In addition to the supply, the pre-screening announcement period has also been greatly extended, which provides more time for the film to spread information to the public, which is conducive to maximizing the popularity of the film before screening and achieving higher box office.
In addition, on May 23rd, the policy of the Ministry of Finance and the State Film Bureau to exempt the special funds for the development of the national film industry in stages is also of great benefit to the development of the film industry in China at this stage. The exemption period from May 1, 2023 to October 31, 2023, covering the two prime periods of summer and National Day, will stimulate more new films to enter the market during this period and further promote the prosperity and development of the domestic film market.
Secondly, in the first half of this year, the overall quality of the film was high, with frequent explosions.
According to the cat’s eye score, in the first half of 2023, there were as many as 40 films with the audience’s ticket purchase score ≥9, exceeding 37 films in 2022. A number of excellent films have been released one after another, accelerating the recovery of the film market.
The Spring Festival file and the "dual-core drive" helped the Spring Festival file in 2023 to achieve the second best performance in the history of the total box office. In 2023, the "520" file set a record for the single-day box office of "520" in China film history with 332 million yuan.
In addition, the May 1st stall, the Dark Horse "Disappeared She" in the Dragon Boat Festival stall, etc., are also applauded and popular. Japanese animation "Journey to the Bell Bud" ranks first and second in the box office of Japanese movies in the history of China Mainland with its IP and high-quality content.
In the first half of 2023, China mainland film market, domestic films still played the role of the main box office.
According to statistics, in the first half of 2023, there were 30 movies with box office exceeding 100 million. Among them, there are 18 domestic films and 12 imported films. Among these 30 works, compared with domestic films, the imported films are mainly superhero films and animated films.
It is worth mentioning that in the first half of 2023, five films that broke the box office of 1 billion were all domestic films, with a total box office of 12.821 billion yuan. Among them, the cumulative box office of the new films "Man Jiang Hong" and "Wandering Earth 2" in the Spring Festival in 2023 exceeded 4 billion yuan.
In the first half of 2023, five films broke 1 billion.
Comedy and suspense works are more likely to explode.
The mainstream audience is getting older.
In the first half of 2023, domestic films containing comedy and suspense elements are more likely to explode.
This year’s Spring Festival, the script "Man Jiang Hong" with strong style, skillfully integrated comedy and suspense elements, and dedicated a Rashomon drama to the audience. In the end, the cumulative box office of the film reached 4.544 billion yuan, which not only created a new high in the box office of the director’s career, but also temporarily ranked as the single box office champion in the mainland film market in 2023.
The pure comedy Unfamiliar in Life released on May 1st has benefited from the double advantages of genre advantages and relaxed competitive environment, and the cumulative box office has reached 1.183 billion yuan. The box office success of the film fully shows that comedy is still just needed by the market. This film is also the second film with a box office of over one billion after 2018 in the May 1st file of China Film History.
At present, The Disappeared She, which is being shown, is full of suspense elements, and the cumulative box office has exceeded 1.8 billion yuan. The film is based on real events, which is highly topical in society and has broken circles.
In addition, the age range of the main audience in the market is quietly changing, showing an upward trend.
At the opening forum of the 25th Shanghai International Film Festival held in Jin Jue in early June, Fu Ruoqing, chairman of China Film Group, said frankly that "from the start of film industrialization in China to now, the mainstream audience has grown up by about 20 years, and with the entry of new audiences, they have a greater demand for empathy and resonance in movies, so localized stories are more popular." The group resonance caused by domestic films such as "She Disappeared" makes the works more realistic.
"Midnight box office sells very well! Why is it a midnight show? That is, when the old people and children are asleep, the couple will go out to see a movie. " For the growth of the mainstream audience’s age, the chairman of Bona Film is also deeply touched. Yu Dong believes that the main consumers of movies are mostly middle-aged, and they value the level of film storytelling more.
In the first half of 2023, the film market in China has closed beyond expectations. With the blessing of new films in July, the mainland film market started optimistically in the second half, and the summer file in 2023 is also expected to return to the era of 10 billion box office.