According to Maoyan Professional Edition data, as of 17:00 yesterday, the total box office for the 2024 Spring Festival exceeded 8 billion, with a total of 162 million visitors and a total of 3.836 million screenings, completely breaking the Spring Festival record in Chinese film history. However, some people are happy and others are worried. This year's Spring Festival stalls are unevenly hot and cold, and there is a rare "tide of withdrawals". Four movies have been withdrawn one after another, which is jokingly called "the first year of withdrawal" by netizens.
On the first day of the Lunar New Year in 2024, a total of seven movies were released, and another one, "Breaking War", was released on February 16 (the seventh day of the Lunar New Year). The popularity of the eight Spring Festival movies was basically eclipsed by "Hot" Covered by "Flying Life 2", "Article 20" and "Bear Infested·Reversal of Time and Space".
On the evening of February 14, Fang Lianrui Pictures, the main producer of "Let's Shake the Sun Together," announced that the film will be screened on February 15, the last day, and will subsequently be withdrawn from the Spring Festival schedule. This film is adapted from the documentary article "The Most Utilitarian Marriage Deal, the Most Emotional Eternal Promise". It tells the story of two seriously ill young people who made a brave "life and death agreement" to overcome the gloom of fate and finally see the sunshine of life. This film is the final chapter of director Han Yan's life trilogy. The previous two works are "Get Out, Mr. Tumor" and "Send You a Little Red Flower". Director Han Yan is good at facing the ultimate proposition of life based on cold philosophical thinking. "Let's Shake the Sun Together" allows people to see a bright color in the darkness, love and cherishment in pain. The film has moved countless viewers and has a good reputation. Douban scored 7.9 points. However, due to the heavy subject matter, the film is not suitable for The audience is not attractive enough. Finally, the film crew announced that the film would be rescheduled for release on March 30. According to the professional version of Maoyan data, the film’s box office during the Spring Festival was a total of 96.25 million.
On February 16, two more movies announced their withdrawal. First, the animated movie "Huang Pi: The God of Wealth Cat descends from the sky" announced at around 20 o'clock that "see you later, see you in the world." Later, at 23:00, "Mr. Red Carpet" became the third film to be withdrawn from the Spring Festival schedule. The producer Huanxi Premiere issued a statement announcing that "Mr. Red Carpet" has withdrawn from the Spring Festival schedule and will reschedule to meet the audience. The movie "Mr. Red Carpet" tells the story of superstar Liu Weichi who, in order to win the title of Best Actor, teamed up with the director played by Ning Hao to create a rural-themed movie, but unexpectedly triggered a series of hilarious and absurd events. This film is the first time Ning Hao and Andy Lau have worked together as directors and actors in 17 years since they met in the movie "Crazy Stone".
On the first day of its release on February 10, "Mr. Red Carpet" still accounted for 8.5% of the film schedule, but the proportion of back-scheduled films continued to decline. By February 16, it accounted for only 1.5% of the film schedule. A statement from the producer said, ""Mr. Red Carpet" is a minimalist absurd comedy, a work that becomes complete because of its communication with the audience. Thank you to the audience who have watched this film and look forward to us At a more appropriate time, I can meet you who is willing to complete this work with us. It is never too late to communicate. Let’s chat another day.” The film's Douban score is 6.8. Some viewers believe that Ning Hao's authoriality and high-end sense are the strengths of the film, but this has also resulted in "unpopularity" and the tone is inconsistent with the Spring Festival release. Data shows that the cumulative box office of "Mr. Red Carpet" during the Spring Festival was 83.58 million, failing to exceed 100 million.
On February 17, the movie "Bajie: Under the Canopy" announced that it would withdraw from this year's Spring Festival and postponed its release. The film's cumulative box office was only 3.29 million.
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Only when the schedule is related to the market and the audience can the audience recognize it and win.
Four of the eight Spring Festival films have been announced to be withdrawn and then released at selected dates. This phenomenon is also unprecedented. Yin Hong, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University, believes that the schedule has both market logic and audience psychology. Only by taking the audience seriously and studying the audience can we win with audience approval. Zhu Yuqing, founder of Juyinghui, believes that the supply of Spring Festival stalls requires stronger competitiveness and more precise positioning.
Judging from the excellent performance of "Hot", "Ride 2", "Article 20" and "Bear Bears", they are not only of high quality, but also capture the main appeal of the core movie viewing during the Spring Festival. The "Chinese Movie Audience Satisfaction Survey·2024 Spring Festival Movie Survey Results" shows that during this year's Spring Festival movies, on the one hand, films such as "It's Hot", "Flying Life 2" and "Article 20" are based on family comedy elements. It is highly in line with the movie-watching atmosphere during the schedule. On the other hand, it realizes the care and thinking about the fate and growth of society and individuals, and is rooted in reality and warms the audience. At the same time, these high-quality contents highlight the professional, pure and sincere creative style, which has been highly recognized by the audience.
Can films that have been withdrawn be "successfully counterattacked" at a more suitable schedule? Industry insiders said that withdrawal itself is a helpless move unless time can be exchanged for space to obtain a better release opportunity for this film. The Spring Festival holiday is the time when the number of moviegoers is the largest every year. If movies are withdrawn and released on other dates, the competition may be less intense and the film schedule will increase, but the number of moviegoers will not have the gathering effect of the Spring Festival movie.
The Spring Festival movie cancellation incident that remains in the minds of the public is the 2023 movie "China Ping Pong: The Last Strike." The film can be described as a sports-themed work. It was released on January 24, 2023, the third day of the Lunar New Year. After receiving a box office of 40 million, it was urgently withdrawn from the Spring Festival schedule and adjusted to a small-scale screening starting from the fifth day of the Lunar New Year. It will be released again on the 17th. After the re-release, the performance of "China Ping Pong: Jedi Strikes Back" was still poor. On February 17, the day the film was released again, it only received a single-day box office of 8.3 million. The final cumulative box office of the film was 100 million.
However, some people in the industry believe that the withdrawal of several films during the Spring Festival has provided a buffer and pavement for subsequent releases, hoping to bring a glimmer of hope to the films.
This article/reporter Xiao Yang
Coordinator/Liu Jianghua