Is the Spring Festival still a good time to make money?

　　China News Service, Beijing, February 23 (Reporter Zhang Xi) The 2024 Spring Festival has come to an end.

　　If I had to use one word to describe this year's performance, it would undoubtedly be "magic."

　　On the one hand, there is a record box office performance of 8.016 billion (from February 10 to 17, 2024), on the other hand, four movies have been withdrawn one after another, and on-screen filming has triggered many discussions.

　　Under the Matthew Effect, many practitioners have begun to think: Is the Spring Festival still a good time to make money?

  Source of Spring Festival data and images: National Film Administration official website

Is withdrawing the best option?

　　After watching "Mr. Red Carpet" in advance, many media and theater owners have reached a consensus: the movie is good but has a certain threshold. It has no hilarious scenes and is more of a cold satire. It is not very suitable for family-friendly Spring Festival movies.

　　Sure enough, 6 days after its release, "Mr. Red Carpet" announced its withdrawal, saying, "We look forward to meeting you at a more appropriate time who is willing to complete this work with us."

In fact, this is the second time the film has changed its schedule. The original release date was November 17, 2023.

　　In addition to "Mr. Red Carpet", "Let's Shake the Sun Together", "Huang Pi: The God of Wealth Cat from Heaven" and "Bajie: Under the Canopy" have also been withdrawn.

　　There were only 8 movies in total during the Spring Festival, and 4 of them were withdrawn at once. Some netizens joked: This is really the first year of withdrawal!

  "Mr. Red Carpet" officially announced its withdrawal

　　Sino-Singapore Entertainment noticed that Huanxi Media, the producer of "Mr. Red Carpet", disclosed in its 2023 semi-annual report that the total cost of filming the film was 260 million yuan, of which Ning Hao's director's fee was HK$30 million, which was included in the total filming cost. Within the fee.

Taking into account subsequent expenses such as marketing expenses and theater box office sharing, the box office of "Mr. Red Carpet" is far from achieving return on investment.

　　Ironically, the highlight moment recorded by a certain ticketing platform for "Mr. Red Carpet" was that the box office exceeded 80 million in 6 days.

At the same time, Jia Ling's "Hot and Spicy" had a box office of 2.6 billion.

　　In comparison, "Let's Shake the Sun Together", "Huang Pi: The God of Wealth Cat Descends from the Sky" and "Bajie: Under the Canopy" were even more dismal at the box office.

  "Let's Shake the Sun Together" poster

　　"It's a waste of time and money." A senior film promoter said bluntly in an interview with Sino-Singapore Entertainment that this means that all the early publicity, including road shows and early advertising, will be in vain, and the estimated box office will not be certain when it is released again. good.

"Ordinary viewers originally knew about this film, but did not care whether it was withdrawn, but once they saw it was no longer available, they stopped watching it."

　　Last year during the Spring Festival, "China's Ping Pong: The Last Strikes" experienced the same situation. After the Spring Festival pre-release, it was announced that "there were major errors in the publicity and distribution work" and postponed its release for one month. One month later, the box office was finally set at 100 million yuan, and The "jedi counterattack" was not realized.

Does it have to be funny?

　　For a long time, the Spring Festival schedule has been a must-have for all film studios.

　　After the Spring Festival this year, this view began to change. After all, it is either "celebrating the festival" or "surviving the tribulation".

　　Judging from big data, "is it funny or not" is a major factor in attracting audiences to buy tickets during the Spring Festival.

　　As a result, everything began to become formulaic. Even if a lot of comedy elements were not added during creation, the publicity and distribution had to keep up.

　　When attending the event, Lei Jiayin revealed that Zhang Yimou would count the number of laughs when filming "Article 20" and concluded that there were more laughs than last year's "Man Jiang Hong"; "Let's Shake the Sun Together", which is obviously a tragic theme, was released during the press release Marketing is funny.

  Ma Li bore most of the laughs in "Article 20".

　　According to Sun Jiashan, an associate researcher at the Central Academy of Culture and Tourism Management, this is due to the special attributes of the Spring Festival stalls.

"The Spring Festival focuses on the festive atmosphere of family fun, and the content of the film must be consistent with the nature of the schedule." He believes that "Let's Shake the Sun Together", as Han Yan's life trilogy, is actually more suitable for the summer release.

　　As for "Mr. Red Carpet", which has been marketed as funny and humorous from the beginning, it is actually just an art film with a strong authorial style disguised as a "comedy blockbuster".

　　"Family Spring Festival has become a new folk custom for the public to watch movies. The threshold for watching this movie is too high, and many viewers are unable to understand the director's artistic concept." Sun Jiashan told Sino-Singapore Entertainment that whether a movie is funny or not is not actually a matter of whether it is funny or not. The only criterion for success is that when the film studio chooses a specific schedule, it still needs to consider whether the film content matches the attributes of the schedule.

Is the Spring Festival still a good time?

　　Apparently, still.

　　Among the major periods every year, the Spring Festival period and the National Day period are the most valued. After all, they are not as long as the summer period. Compared with the Dragon Boat Festival, Qingming Festival, etc., there will be a few more national holidays.

　　Although the Spring Festival stalls have their own atmospheric attributes, Sino-Singapore Entertainment reviewed comparisons in the past three years: the box office of the Spring Festival stalls in 2021 was 7.843 billion, and the box office of the National Day stalls was 4.389 billion; the box office of the Spring Festival stalls in 2022 was 6.04 billion, and the box office of the National Day stalls was 1.499 billion; The box office for the Spring Festival in 2023 was 6.766 billion and the National Day box office was 2.736 billion.

  Data source: Lighthouse Professional Edition (China-Singapore Entertainment Cartography)

　　It can be seen that the consumption power of the Spring Festival movie market is still far ahead.

Sun Jiashan also pointed out that watching the Spring Festival Gala and watching movies on New Year's Eve have become the New Year customs of the contemporary Spring Festival.

　　In fact, any schedule has the Matthew Effect and the 80-20 rule. If the film studio wants to avoid becoming cannon fodder, it needs to know more about the needs of the audience and the characteristics of the schedule before setting the schedule.

　　After all, the market is cruel. Although the Spring Festival sales are good, don’t leave it to chance.

(over)