From June 6st to August 1st, the summer of 8, which spans three months, officially kicks off. Like the Spring Festival file, the summer file is also one of the core schedules of the annual film market, and it is a "must-compete place" for major filmmakers.

Maoyan Professional Edition shows that as of June 6, 9 films have been announced for release in the summer this year, including a number of blockbuster films. With abundant content supply, where will the summer market go this year?

"From the perspective of summer scheduled films and pending films, we predict that the box office in the summer of 2023 will be around 140 billion yuan to 150 billion yuan." Cheng Fei, CEO of Tuopu Consulting, told the Securities Times · e company reporter.

75 films have been finalized

Summer is usually one of the most content-rich throughout the year. According to Maoyan Professional Edition data, as of June 6, 9 films have been released in the summer of 2023. In the previous summer of 75, 2019 and 2021, 2022, 123 and 127 films were released respectively.

However, this year's summer file has just kicked off, and the number of subsequent films is expected to further increase. Summer has always been a focus on key films, and up to now, this year's summer lineup has been quite luxurious.

"Starting" is the comedy "Super Family" produced by Happy Twist. This key film, originally scheduled for the 2022 Spring Festival, was postponed due to the inability to complete all the production work on schedule.

In April this year, the film party announced that it will be set for July 4, becoming a very competitive film in this summer. On the Maoyan platform, the number of "want to see" the film has reached 7,21, ranking first in the summer film.

In addition, medium-sized films such as "Disappearing Her", "Drug Sweep 3: People in the World", "Assassination Storm" and "In the Octagon Cage", which will be released this summer, are also popular on major platforms.

This year's summer imported and co-produced film lineup is also quite rich. In early June, films such as "Sky City", "Doraemon: Nobita and the Sky" and "Spider-Man: Across the Universe" have been released one after another. Next, films such as "Transformers: Rise of the Power Warriors", "The Flash" and "Crazy Element City" will also be released in the near future.

And "Megalodon 2: The Abyss" starring Jason Statham and Wu Jing has also been announced to be set for August 8, and the box office of the previous series released in 4 exceeded 2018 billion yuan.

Industry insiders are optimistic about these videos

In the first five months of this year, the phenomenon of disconnection of waist films in the film market was obvious. After the Spring Festival, there is only 5 film with a box office of more than 10 billion yuan, "The Road to Life is Not Familiar". Which or what kind of films are most likely to drive the market up this summer?

Cheng Fei believes that movies with high popularity, high reputation and big IP that can drive the market, such as "Manjiang Red" and "The Wandering Earth 2" in this year's Spring Festival, such films have a high start, and the box office trend after the screening is strong, which can boost the market. "For example, this summer's "Megalodon 2" and "Fengshen " are expected to drive the broader market up."

Well-known film blogger Winter also told reporters that from the perspective of investment amount, main creative lineup, etc., the box office of "Fengsheng", "Super Family" and co-production "Megalodon" in the summer is expected to be relatively high.

"From the perspective of the benign development of the whole industry, the films that can currently drive the market are the main theme, carry forward the feelings of home and country, and can resonate and empathize with the audience; The second is action/family comedy, love and other films that can make the audience happy, happy physical and mental, and enhance feelings; In addition, it is also necessary to introduce foreign high-quality films to make up for the gap in the cold schedule and ensure that good films are released every weekend. Film blogger Akai told reporters.

"Whether it is upstream film dealers or downstream theater screeners, they are fully prepared to meet the summer season, but the current market is weak, and the audience chooses to be rational and no longer impulsively buy tickets in advance." In response to this, although the distributor will also take some measures, the final box office depends on the quality of the film itself. Akai said.

The summer box office is expected to hit 150 billion?

The reason why the summer file is valued by the film side is mainly because of the box office performance. In 2018 and 2019, the summer box office accounted for 28.6% and 27.7% of the total box office of that year, respectively. In 2022, the annual box office will be about 300 billion yuan, and the summer file will reach 91.4 billion yuan, accounting for 30.5%.

The summer file is still the most likely to produce blockbuster movies in addition to the Spring Festival file. Judging from the situation in recent years, the two popular movies "I Am Not the God of Medicine" and "The Richest Man in Xihong City" in 2018, and the third-place movie "Walking on the Moon Alone" in 2022 are all released in the summer.

The summer season also produced a number of annual box office champions. For example, "Wolf Warrior 2017" in 2, "Nezha: The Devil Child Descends" in 2019, and "Yahian" in 2020, three summer films are the box office champions of the year.

At present, 20 of the top 5 films in domestic film history are released for the summer. The rest are 9 Spring Festival files, 4 National Day files, and 2 other schedules. It can be seen that the appeal of the summer box office.

This year is the first complete summer file after the adjustment of the epidemic prevention and control policy, and on the basis of the relatively weak box office in the early stage, the industry has higher expectations for this year's summer file.

Cheng Fei told reporters that the market in May this year was 5.34 billion yuan, a gap of 1 million yuan from 2019 before the epidemic, and the main problem was that there was a certain decline in the supply of waist films.

"From the perspective of summer films and films to be finalized, we predict that the box office in the summer of 23 will be around 140 billion yuan to 150 billion." Cheng Fei said that this year's films generally start with a low box office, but films with a good reputation can go long-tail curve. For example, the recently released "Life Road is Unfamiliar", "Keep You Safe", "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" and so on.

"The summer season spans three months, and there is plenty of time to follow the long-tail trend, so we are optimistic about this year's summer season." Cheng Fei said.

Winter believes that on the one hand, the audience's viewing habits have yet to be restored, and it may be difficult for the market to quickly return to the pre-epidemic state; In addition, there is still a gap between this year's content supply and 2018 and 2019. "This year's summer box office may normally be 120 billion yuan to 130 billion yuan, and if it is better, it may hit 150 billion yuan."

"There is still market potential, and we hope to sell a little more. Films such as "In the Octagon Cage" and "Heat" have potential, but the box office is not particularly stable, and no film will definitely sell for two or three billion, and the uncertainty factor is relatively large. Winter said.

Some securities companies mentioned in the research report that the summer file, as a large capacity period, has a high contribution to the annual box office, and there is room for further growth in the box office in the summer of 2023.

However, considering that the content supply and audience viewing habits are still recovering, the number of head films and box office scale may be difficult to reach the pre-epidemic level, and the total box office of the schedule may be between 2022.83 billion yuan in 2019 and 153.<> billion yuan in <>.

The film was popular before it was released

From the perspective of producers, in this year's summer films, there are also listed film and television companies including China Film, Shanghai Film, Hengdian Film and Television, Light Media, etc. The highest expectations for this year's summer season may be Beijing Culture.

On June 6, "The First Part of Fengshen Production" produced by Beijing Culture and other countries announced that it would be set for July 6. This film, which has been filed for approval in September 7, is the first part of the "Fengshen Trilogy" promoted by Beijing Culture and is highly anticipated by the market.

In March 2017, Beijing Culture announced that it planned to cooperate with Dongyang Changsheng Tian Film and Television and Century Changsheng Tian Film on the film project "Fengshen ".

The "Fengshen Trilogy" is directed by Wu Ershan, and the shooting period is tentatively scheduled for July 2018-June 7. "Fengshen I" is tentatively scheduled to be released in the summer of 2019, "Fengshen II" is tentatively scheduled to be released in the summer of 6, and "Fengshen III" is tentatively scheduled to be released in the summer of 2020. Beijing Culture said that the company's investment in the three films was no more than 2021.2022 billion yuan, and the investment ratio was not more than 13% and not less than 70%.

In the following years, the "Fengshen Trilogy" continued to advance as the most important film and television investment project in Beijing culture, but the release time of its first work was repeatedly postponed.

In April 2021, in order to diversify investment risks and alleviate liquidity pressure, Beijing Culture transferred 4% of the shares of each of the 1-3 parts of "Fengsheng", with a transfer price of 25 million yuan and a cumulative return of 2 million yuan.

With the release of the summer file of "The First Part of Fengsheng", Beijing culture that has been invested for many years is also expected to usher in a harvest period. On June 6, after the news of the finalization of "The First Part of Fengsheng", Beijing Culture rose for two consecutive trading days.

According to Beijing Culture's 2022 annual report, the second and third parts of the "Fengshen Trilogy" are already in the post-production process, but the release schedule is in a pending state. (Company E)