The summer season is in its final sprint, and movie vouchers are also in full swing
2024-08-16
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Chao News Client Reporter Shen Tingyu
As the longest and most lively period in the Chinese film market, every summer season is a carnival for Chinese films.
Currently, the 2024 summer season has entered its final sprint. According to the data from Lighthouse Professional Edition, as of the evening of August 16, this year's summer box office exceeded 9.7 billion (including pre-sale box office), which is still a certain distance from last year's performance. However, in the remaining two weeks, the speed of new film releases has not slowed down. This weekend alone, 12 movies will be released, with a wide variety of both Chinese and foreign movies. At the same time, the competent authorities are also further promoting enthusiasm for watching movies through measures such as the distribution of movie consumption vouchers.
Lighthouse Professional Data
What are the characteristics of this year's summer season? How can movie vouchers boost the market?
01
Many films are still being released
"Catch the Doll", "Silent Killer", "A Small Shop at the Edge of the Cloud", "White Snake: A Floating Life", "Despicable Me 4"... This summer, from domestic masterpieces to imported blockbusters, from hilarious comedies to criminal investigation suspense, from Chinese animation to new literary works, all kinds of distinctive films have chosen to meet the audience in the summer season. Data shows that 136 films have been released or scheduled for release in this summer season, and more than 30 films are waiting to be released in late August.
Poster of "Catch the Doll". Source: Douban
"Every week, new Chinese and foreign films of different types are released, which shows that the Chinese film market is gradually maturing and opening up." Industry insiders said that among them are films such as "Catch the Dolls" and "The Silent Killer", as well as cutting-edge attempts such as "Falling into Earthly Dust" and "Safe Evacuation from the 21st Century", all of which have received a certain degree of recognition and recommendation, indicating that the audience has more understanding and affirmation of the diversity of current creations, which is an encouragement to filmmakers trying to break through.
"White Snake: Floating Life" poster. Image source: Douban
In addition, this summer season has also seen a surge of "national trends". "White Snake: Floating Life" recreates the classic legend, "A Dream of Red Mansions: A Golden Marriage" interprets the "youth version of the Red Mansion", "The Umbrella Girl" showcases Taizhou embroidery, Yue songs and other intangible cultural heritage skills, and "Daocang" is praised for its Peking Opera heritage. These films integrate traditional culture into film creation and use film technology to make intangible cultural heritage and classics "live", which fully reflects cultural confidence.
It can be seen that during the summer vacation coinciding with the Olympics, many cinemas are actively creating new spaces for film and cultural life.
"Cinema + Olympics" is the first cross-border cooperation this summer. During the Olympic Games, the live broadcast of the event covered more than 800 cinemas across the country. As of August 12, the total box office of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games live broadcast in cinemas of CCTV reached 2.442 million. Among them, the number of people who went to the cinema to watch the Olympics in Zhejiang ranked first in the country with a proportion of 14.5%.
Relevant staff of Zhejiang Film Times Cinema·West Lake Cultural Plaza said that during the Olympic Games, the cinema would arrange an Olympic-related competition every day, such as table tennis competitions, and the attendance rate could reach 80% to 90%, close to full. If there is a chance to obtain authorization in the future, they will continue to try to show other content to break everyone's traditional impression of cinemas.
02
Movie vouchers continue to help
The summer season is not over yet. During this period, Zhejiang and many other places have successively introduced a series of preferential movie-watching measures to continuously release consumption potential and drive the film market to continue to heat up.
On August 2, the State Film Administration launched the 2024 National Film Benefit Consumer Season, which will benefit moviegoers across the country by carrying out a variety of promotional activities that integrate online and offline and run through multiple scenarios. This consumption season runs from August to October, covering major movie seasons such as summer vacation, Mid-Autumn Festival, and National Day, with a total investment of more than 300 million yuan in movie viewing subsidies.
As early as mid-July, Zhejiang Province has also launched the 2024 Zhejiang Province Film Consumption Voucher Distribution Campaign, with a total distribution of more than 28 million yuan, including three discounts such as receiving discount coupons, instant discounts on ticket purchases, and payment discounts. Audiences can use multiple discounts when purchasing summer movies, and a movie ticket can be saved by up to 40 yuan.
The three preferential subsidies have helped Zhejiang audiences enjoy the discounts on movie viewing. "I remind my family to go to Chao News to grab movie coupons every Friday. I watched "Catch the Dolls" and "The Decryptor" before and saved a lot of money." Ms. Jiang, a resident of Hangzhou, said that she plans to grab them again this weekend.
Image source: Miu Movie
The substantial discounts have stimulated more people's enthusiasm for watching movies. The reporter learned that the first weekend of the issuance of Zhejiang movie consumption coupons was very popular. Audiences received a total of 63,482 movie consumption coupons through Tao Piaopiao, Z Shijie and Chao News, and 39,455 were redeemed. The box office and number of moviegoers in Zhejiang Province also increased significantly compared with the same period in 2023.
"The issuance of movie vouchers this time has four major characteristics: wide fundraising channels, large funding amount, focusing on weekends, and online and offline synchronization. Unredeemed coupons will flow back to the fund pool, and the activity will last until June 30 next year." A relevant person in charge of the Film Department of the Provincial Party Committee Propaganda Department said that this is the fourth time Zhejiang has issued movie vouchers. The 25 million yuan movie vouchers issued in 2023 drove Zhejiang's movie box office to 128 million yuan and benefited 3.2 million moviegoers. This time, we also hope to drive more people to the cinema and truly feel that "watching movies on weekends is more exciting in Zhejiang", and to help the prosperity and development of the film market with practical actions.
03
Looking forward to a new round of growth
Of course, we should also see that this year's summer season is slightly "bland" compared to last year in terms of film quality and social response.
As of August 16, only "Catching Dolls" and "Silent Killing" have grossed over 1 billion yuan, and only "Catching Dolls" has grossed over 3 billion yuan. In contrast, last year, "All or Nothing" and "Gone Girl" both grossed over 3 billion yuan, and "Fengshen Part 1: Chaoge Fengyun", "Octagonal Cage", "30,000 Miles from Chang'an" and other films also grossed over 2 billion yuan.
Many netizens said that although the dullness of this year's summer season was partly due to the "Olympic diversion", the more critical factor was the quality of the films themselves. There was a shortage of films with market appeal, and the publicity and marketing strategies failed to work, resulting in low audience participation, which in turn affected the overall box office.
Poster of "Silent Killing", source: Douban
Some industry insiders also told reporters that the explosion of last year's summer movie season may be related to the "clearance of inventory" after the epidemic, and the audience's "revenge viewing consumption", plus many blockbusters have achieved "personal relevance" to the audience. Looking at the performance of this year's summer movie season, it is actually a revelation for the subsequent development of the Chinese film market. It reminds relevant industry personnel that the film market is becoming increasingly competitive, and the audience's viewing choices are more diverse. The film industry needs to continue to innovate and break through to meet the audience's growing aesthetic needs. Producers should also pay more attention to the innovation and depth of the film content, and change the publicity and distribution strategy to further increase the film's popularity and influence.
Although the current summer box office is still far behind last year, we should also see the positive side. The Chinese film market still has huge potential and vitality. In the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day, new films such as "Avengers", "Crisis Flight", "Only Green", and "Safe Entry and Exit" have been scheduled, and "The Wandering Earth 2" will be re-screened. We look forward to it ushering in new growth.
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