The 2017 box office battle begins: Spring Festival channels are laid out in advance first

Victory was reported in the first battle. The box office on New Year's Day exceeded 800 million yuan. By 6 pm on the sixth day of the lunar new day, the real-time cumulative box office during the 2017 Spring Festival period had exceeded 3.2 billion yuan, sweeping away the sluggish box office trend since the second half of last year. Part of the reason for the movie box office to have such a "prosperous" opening year should be due to the "opportunity" of various film and television companies seizing channels.

is reported. The box office on New Year's Day exceeded 800 million yuan. By 6 pm on the sixth day of the lunar new day, the real-time cumulative box office during the 2017 Spring Festival period had exceeded 3.2 billion yuan, sweeping away the sluggish box office trend since the second half of last year. Part of the reason for the movie box office to have such a "prosperous" opening year should be due to the "opportunity" of various film and television companies seizing channels.

Statistics

show that as of the fifth day of the Chinese New Year, the cumulative box office of the Spring Festival in 2017 was close to 2.9 billion yuan; compared with the box office results from the first day to the sixth day of the Chinese New Year, the box office results in the six days of the first day of last year totaled 3 billion yuan. At the same time, on the first day of this year, the single-day box office results of 801 million yuan and 21.21 million movie-goers not only exceeded the first day of last year (single-day box office of 640 million yuan), but also set a new single-day box office record again. As a result, in terms of the "Spring Festival Festival" alone, this year's popularity has surpassed that of the same period last year, continuing to maintain the growth momentum of this traditional "golden period" of movie viewing.

According to incomplete statistics, the box office of the Spring Festival in 2013 was 765 million yuan, an increase of 86.5%, of which the film with the largest contribution was "Journey to the West to the Devil" directed by Stephen Chow; in 2014, the Spring Festival festival continued to maintain a high growth rate of 89.5%, with the box office reaching 1.45 billion yuan; in 2015, the box office of the Spring Festival festival was 1.82 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.5%, and the growth rate declined; In 2016, the box office growth rate for the Spring Festival period reached 67%, among which Stephen Chow's "Mermaid" contributed a lot. This year, the same "Journey to the West" with the symbol of "Zhou Xingchi" once again added fuel to the box office during the Spring Festival.

Data from individual films shows that among the many films released on the first day of the Chinese New Year,"Journey to the West","Kung Fu Yoga","A Troubles in the Sky","Waves and Waves" and the animated film "Bear Infested" are without suspense. Ranked in the top five at the box office. Among them, the cumulative real-time box office of "Journey to the West" has exceeded 1.125 billion yuan. It is worth mentioning that under the sign of "Stephen Chow", there are as many as 21 production and distribution companies behind "Journey to the West to the Demon", among which the listed companies involved include China Films, New Culture, Huayi Brothers, Enlight Media, Wanda Cinema Line, Alibaba Pictures, etc.

In addition, Jackie Chan's "Kung Fu Yoga", Wang Baoqiang's "Make a fuss in the Sky", and Han Han's "Wind and Waves" also made their own efforts. Their latest release rates all exceeded 15%, and the cumulative real-time box office was 830 million yuan and 560 million yuan respectively., 395 million yuan.

However, in the face of the boom during the Spring Festival, some market participants said that they should be viewed calmly and should not use this to determine the trend of box office of movies throughout this year. This is because last year's situation is still vivid in my mind. The high growth trend of the Spring Festival in 2016 has not been continued, and the overall box office level in the second quarter has dropped.

So, what exactly did the film market experience in 2016? Why in less than a year, the movie market changed from "stars +IP= high box office" to "500 million box office is very satisfactory"?

In this regard, most film practitioners said that the cycle rate of "big and small years" in the film and television market was particularly obvious last year. 2016 belongs to the "young year" of film and television dramas. Some market participants pointed out that compared with the films in 2015, the overall quality of films in 2016 did decline, but this is also determined by the own attributes of the film and television industry."Good films often require a certain polishing cycle. In 2015, most of the high-box-office films in the year were approved a few years ago, and they were all 'fermented' over time."

On the other hand, the dullness of last year's box office can simply be attributed to the era of "bad movies making money". Audiences are becoming increasingly picky about their tastes, and they are increasingly learning to selectively "pay" only for good movies.

Just as each production company was working hard to strengthen the content production of the film, in July 2016,"Rock Tibetan Mastiff", which claimed to have embodied six years of hard work by the original author, became box office cannon fodder, which made people surprised. There are different opinions on the reasons for this movie's box office failure, but the most concentrated one is the two words-"scheduling." There are rumors that this film was "blocked" by Wanda Theater. In response to this statement, the producer said: "The film layout is indeed a little short." As a result, the dispute between "content" and "channels" has begun to emerge.

Since then, in November 2016, the box office dispute caused by the scheduling problem of "I am Not Pan Jinlian" further highlighted the contradiction between "content" and "channels". Its director Feng Xiaogang's shouting from afar directly exposed the problem of resource imbalance between upstream and downstream of the film and television industry chain. In this regard, some market participants pointed out that this situation should not be simply attributed to a "personal grudge" between companies, but an inevitable experience that "Huayi Men" and "Wanda Men" have been experiencing since the development of the film industry. stage is a natural result of the market development process.

The layout of "channels" opened in advance

In 2017, various film and television production companies seemed to have long sensed the changes in the market and unanimously embarked on the road of laying out "channels".

On January 17, Contemporary Oriental issued a series of announcements stating that it had reached cooperation with a number of companies. One of them is to increase the number of theater and theater assets. According to the cooperation framework agreement signed between Contemporary Oriental and Zhujiang Pictures, the company will form a strategic partnership with Zhujiang Pictures. Contemporary Oriental plans to make theater project mergers and acquisitions, investment, development and construction as one of its development strategic priorities in the next three to five years. In addition to jointly establishing a cinema investment management company, Contemporary Oriental will also jointly develop and build the Hongge Theater Line with Zhujiang Pictures to build it into a characteristic theater line.

Since the transformation of a cultural company, Contemporary Oriental has continued to take action in film and television theaters. Hongge Theater Line is the result of Contemporary Oriental's acquisition of a 51% stake in digital cinema operator Beijing Huacai Tiandi Technology Development Co., Ltd. in June 2016. In addition, Contemporary Oriental also previously acquired a 30% stake in China Broadcasting Theater; last year, it signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with Microfilm Times to lay out online ticketing, theater marketing and other fields.

Compared with contemporary Orient, which is firmly optimistic about the movie terminal market, as one of the protagonists in the "Pan Jinlian" box office turmoil, Huayi Brothers once "hit a wall" on the "channel" side. Because of this, their subsequent role in the film downstream industry chain is more eye-catching.

On January 10, the New Third Board Company Dadi Cinema disclosed that Huayi Brothers planned to participate in its non-public offering. Dadi Cinema's stock issuance plan shows that the company plans to issue no more than 2.85 million shares to specific targets at an issue price of 83 yuan per share, and the total amount of funds raised is expected to not exceed 237 million yuan. Among them, Huayi Brothers plans to subscribe for 950,000 shares for 78.85 million yuan. It is reported that the fundraising of Dadi Cinema will be invested in new cinema projects, cooperation and mergers and acquisitions related to the investment field of cinema projects, etc. Previously, Wang Zhonglei, executive president of Huayi Brothers, once said that layout of theaters will be one of the company's future priorities. Therefore, this participation in the fixed increase in Dadi Cinema can be regarded as Huayi Brothers 'increase in the assets of theaters and theaters.

Huayi Brothers wants to make up for the "shortcomings" of its cinemas, while Wanda Cinema maintains its consistent "buy, buy" style. Data recently disclosed by Wanda Group showed that last year, Wanda added 677 new studios and 6788 new screens worldwide, including 154 new studios and 1391 screens in China. In terms of cinema mergers and acquisitions, in overseas markets, Wanda acquired Carmike Cinema in the United States and European Oudian Cinema last year; in the domestic market, after Wanda Cinema won Shimao Cinema at the end of 2015, it successively acquired three studios operating companies in Dalian Aona, Guangdong Houpin and Chifeng Big Dipper in 2016. Wanda Cinema said: "By acquiring the above theater assets, it will further increase urban coverage, improve theater layout and enhance regional advantages, expand the company's business scale, increase market share, and consolidate its market share and leading position in the theater industry."

On January 11 this year, Wanda Cinema released its 2016 operating briefing. Data shows that in 2016, Wanda Cinema achieved operating income of 11.1 billion yuan, an increase of 39%, of which box office revenue was 7.6 billion yuan, an increase of 21%; non-box office revenue was 3.8 billion yuan, accounting for 34% of operating income, an increase of 101%. According to official statistics, the national box office in 2016 was 45.712 billion yuan, an increase of 3.73%. Simply estimated, Wanda Cinema's box office revenue last year was approximately 16.63% of the national box office. It can be seen that although the overall domestic box office level last year fell short of expectations, driven by the continuous expansion of external mergers and acquisitions, Wanda Cinema has achieved "over-level" performance.

In addition, in October last year, after going public, state-owned film company China Films also quickly launched a theater layout, acquiring a 70% stake in Dalian Huachen for 553 million yuan, while the latter's theaters basically cover major cities in Northeast China.

In addition to laying out traditional theater ports, due to the penetration of the Internet into people's lifestyles, online movie ticketing platforms have also become one of the main channels for viewers to purchase tickets. Relevant statistics show that in 2015, the size of my country's movie online ticketing market was approximately 28.96 billion yuan, with a market penetration rate of approximately 65.7%; in 2016, this proportion increased to 74.7%. In addition to professional third-party ticketing platforms, major domestic theaters have also launched their own online ticketing software. For example, Wanda Cinema has launched the mobile ticketing app "Wanda Film", and Dadi Cinema has launched the app "Dadi Cinema". In this context, laying out online ticketing has become another way for film and television companies to increase their "channels".

This is the case with Light Media. As a veteran film and television production company, Enlight Media has always adhered to the development philosophy of "content is king". However, as the film and television industry continues to develop, the industry structure continues to adjust. From Internet companies joining the battle, to the first echelon facing reshuffle and the rising of new companies, to the return of film and television stocks, everything is changing. In this context, in May 2016, Enlight Media announced that it would jointly join its controlling shareholder Enlight Holdings to acquire a 57.4% controlling stake in Cat's Eye for a total of approximately 4.783 billion yuan, thereby obtaining the latter's online user base and online movie business resources. Enlight Media said that through the above cooperation, the company's voice and competitive advantages in the fields of film and television drama production and publicity will be further enhanced, its cooperative relationship with theaters and online playback platforms will be further strengthened, and its connection with theater terminals will be further enhanced.

Why are "channels" so important? Some institutional research reports pointed out that although it is true that "high-quality content is the foundation", theater channels have certain advantages in the terminal distribution of film and television dramas. For example, strong "channels" can improve the layout of works of affiliated companies to a certain extent. Take the movie "I am Not Pan Jinlian" as an example. Although the film claims to be squeezed by Wanda Theater Lines, its guarantee company's Yaolai International Studios has provided more than 80% of the movie schedule on multiple viewing days. It can be said to spare no effort to "promote" my own films. On the other hand, the rich resources in theaters and theaters will be conducive to the first round of screenings of films. Under the current "three-day tour" market for domestic films, this will bring a positive positive cycle to the film and be conducive to the box office. accumulation.

At the same time, compared with the United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea, etc., there is still much room for improvement in the concentration of the domestic theater sector, and leading companies will continue to increase their market share. Relevant statistics show that the current market share of the top ten theaters in China is about 66%, and the market share of the top four theaters is about 40%. While the market share of the top four theaters in North America is 60%. The market share of leading theaters in South Korea exceeds 90%. In this regard, experts believe that there is still much room for the integration of domestic cinema resources. From this point of view, the 2017 movie box office battle has long begun in last year's "channel" battle, and the final result remains to be decided by the market and the audience.

Editor: yvette