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Interface News reporter | Hu Yujing
Jiemian News Editor | Zhang Youfa

According to the data from Lighthouse Professional Edition, the total box office of the Chinese Valentine's Day in 2024 was 345 million, a slight decline compared with last year and the year before, and the total number of screenings was 456,000, which set a new record for the Chinese Valentine's Day in film history. The movie "White Snake: Floating Life" became the box office champion of this year's Chinese Valentine's Day, and "Catching Dolls" and "Reverse Life" ranked second and third.

On the day of Chinese Valentine's Day, only two new films with box office competitiveness were released, "White Snake: Floating Life" and "Negatives Make Positive". "White Snake: Floating Life" continues the love story of the reincarnated White Snake and A Xuan in "White Snake: Origin". The box office was mainly driven by the brand awareness of the "White Snake" series IP of Light Chaser Animation, with a box office of 90.684 million during the period.

"Negatives Make Positive" was produced by Bad Monkey Films, with Ning Hao as the producer and Zhu Yilong as the co-producer. The film is avant-garde and romantic, mainly relying on Zhu Yilong to drive the audience, but perhaps because of the film's unconventional romantic temperament, which is different from the audience's needs and aesthetics, "Negatives Make Positive" did not squeeze into the top three box office during the Chinese Valentine's Day, earning 38.493 million box office on the day.

The comedy romance film "Her Little Dimples" which was originally scheduled to be released on the Chinese Valentine's Day was withdrawn two days before its release. The film was produced by Light Media and adapted from the novel of the same name by Jiji De Mao on Jinjiang Literature City. However, due to poor pre-sale box office and controversy over the adaptation, it will be re-released at a later date.

"Reverse Life" directed by Xu Zheng was released the day before Chinese Valentine's Day, with a box office of 78.986 million during the period, a reversal of the 38.7 million on the first day of release. The film tells the story of a big factory employee who was laid off and chose to be a takeaway boy. The film was produced by Ruyi Films and others, which is in line with its consistent selection logic of "big mouth" and "strong empathy". Lighthouse Professional Edition predicts a total box office of 466 million.

"Catch the Dolls", which was released on July 16, is still strong. After several rounds of new film releases, it still stands at the forefront. On the day of the Chinese Valentine's Day, the box office was 86.603 million, second only to "White Snake: The Floating Life" released on the same day. The film's attendance rate was 25.7%, the highest among the films released during the same period. "Catch the Dolls" has confirmed the key extension. As of press time, the film's cumulative total box office has exceeded 2.9 billion yuan, and is expected to become the box office champion of this summer season.

Overall, romantic movies failed to become the mainstream of movie-watching during the Chinese Valentine's Day this year. Young audiences preferred animated movies, while middle-aged audiences chose comedies and realistic themes. Data from Lighthouse Professional Edition showed that nearly 60% of the audience who wanted to watch "White Snake: Floating Life" were under 30 years old, while only 20% of the audience of "Catching Dolls" were under 24 years old, and more than 50% of the audience of "Reverse Life" were over 30 years old.

After "Catch the Doll", two films with great publicity and marketing momentum in the early stage, "Under the Alien" and "Decryption", did not continue the market popularity, and the Qixi Festival period also performed poorly. "Under the Alien" had almost no audience interest after the first week. Although the film company and director Wuershan tried to attract young audiences through the "Summer of the Alien" party and multi-regional roadshows, the film failed to replicate the box office myth of "Investiture of the Gods Part 1: Chaoge Fengyun" last year. The current screening rate is only 0.1%, and the box office may eventually settle at around 120 million.

The performance of "Decoding" also fell short of expectations. There was a gap between the audience's expectations for Chen Sicheng's comedy and suspense genres and the relatively serious temperament of "Decoding". On the Chinese Valentine's Day, the film earned 24.113 million yuan at the box office. The film's total box office is expected to be less than 500 million yuan. It may become another film by Chen Sicheng that suffered a box office Waterloo after "Mozart from Outer Space".

Taking into account that the word-of-mouth and popularity fermentation period will bring about a certain delay in movie viewing, the Qixi Festival period in the second half of the summer season is the last opportunity for the last wave of box office-appealing movies to enter the market.

The reputation of the three new films, "White Snake", "Negatives Make Positive" and "Reverse Life", is relatively stable, but overall, it is difficult for them to become films that ignited the market like last year's "Fengshen I: Chaoge Fengyun", "She's Missing" and "30,000 Miles from Chang'an". They can only attract fixed vertical audiences of certain age groups.

White Snake: Floating Life is a traditional adaptation of a folk legend, and the story lacks freshness; Negative Negatives Make Positive has a strong visual style, but it also limits its box office ceiling; The story of Retrograde Life is relatively heavy, which may not match the mood of the audience. Whether these three new films can take the summer box office to a higher level remains to be seen.

Stills from "Negative Negatives Make Positives"

On the day of the Chinese Valentine's Day, the summer box office successfully exceeded 9 billion, which is far from last year's result of 20.6 billion. Considering the lack of major blockbusters released in the next 20 days, it is almost impossible for this year's summer box office to catch up.

It is worth noting that last year's summer season was special. Behind the highest summer season in film history, there was also the impact of destocking and concentrated releases of films after the epidemic, but this year's summer season faces a different situation.

During the Shanghai Film Festival in June this year, Yu Dong, chairman of Bona Film Group, told Interface Entertainment that the film company's capital chain is tight, and there are insufficient films to be put into production in 2023, and the number of blockbusters is insufficient, which has affected this year's summer season. The top priority is to avoid this situation from continuing to affect next year, but judging from the number and scale of films produced by major film companies, the market prospects for next year are still not optimistic.

Next, the summer season will also see the release of films such as "Alien: Reaper", a new film in the classic Hollywood sci-fi thriller IP "Alien" series, "A Dream of Red Mansions: The Golden Marriage" directed by Hu Mei, and "Hedgehog", a new film directed by Gu Changwei.

In addition, the backlogged film "The Wrath of the Titans" is temporarily scheduled for August 23, with the slogan "Shen Teng's first gangster crime performance". Shen Teng may be able to inject another wave of blood into the summer season after "Catch the Doll". "Detective Conan: The Million Dollar Five-pointed Star" is scheduled for a limited release on August 16. The box office of the "Detective Conan" movie in the mainland has been relatively stable in recent years, and it is still expected to win 100 to 200 million yuan in box office.