During the Spring Festival, the five armies fought fiercely and finally achieved a win-win situation. Ticket compensation and service fees are not a good medicine

Ticket replacement has indeed created a prosperous market situation to a certain extent, but the choice of viewers during this year's Spring Festival seems to be more rational. It is not difficult to see from the box office curve that the pre-sale advantage of "Journey to the West to the Demon" and "Make a fuss about India" only lasted for a day or two. With the huge divergence of word of mouth, the schedule of these two films began to decline. On the contrary,"Kung Fu Yoga" and "Wind and Waves", which had poor pre-sales results, began to decline and rise.

.

The fierce battle between the five armies finally achieved a

win-win seven-day Spring Festival holiday, activating the long-silent China film market. According to preliminary statistics, the total box office of the Spring Festival in 2017 reached 3.353 billion yuan, once again setting a new record and also winning a "good start" for this year's film market. However, it is worth noting that this wave of box office growth is not unrelated to the large number of ticket subsidies during the Spring Festival. It also includes a newly included service fee of 203 million yuan. These factors have made box office growth slightly less confident.

According to incomplete statistics, the box office of the Spring Festival in 2013 was 765 million yuan, an increase of 86.5%. The film with the largest contribution was "Journey to the West to the Devil" directed by Stephen Chow; in 2014, the Spring 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 was 1.82 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.5%; In 2016, the box office growth rate of the Spring Festival period reached 67%, breaking the 3 billion mark for the first time. Stephen Chow's "Mermaid" was the biggest winner. The growth rate for this year's Spring Festival is about 10%, the lowest in history.

Stephen Chow has continued his strong position in the Spring Festival during the past few years. This year, the cumulative box office of "Journey to the West", which he and Director Tsui Hark jointly presented, reached 1.154 billion yuan. It is the only film in the Spring Festival that has exceeded 1 billion yuan. It will undoubtedly become the overlord of this year's Spring Festival. It is worth mentioning that "Journey to the West" won a box office of 349 million yuan on its first day of release on New Year's Day, surpassing the box office score of 346 million yuan won by "Speed and Passion 7" on April 12, 2015., setting a new record for the highest single-day box office in the mainland.

Directed by Tang Jili and starring Jackie Chan,"Kung Fu Yoga" won the runner-up during the Spring Festival with a total of 872 million yuan. Wang Baoqiang's director's debut "Making a fuss in India" won 572 million yuan and became the runner-up during the Spring Festival box office. Han Han's "Wind and Waves" and the domestic animation "Bear Infested" ranked fourth and fifth with 413 million and 298 million respectively. It is not difficult to see that compared with last year's Spring Festival season where the market pattern of "Mermaid" was dominated, this year's Spring Festival season showed a trend of "fierce fighting between the five armies". Different types of films have achieved success in the market, achieving a rare win-win situation.

Observing that behind the

counterattack is the secret war of word-of-mouth,

the Spring Festival season's ability to attract money has exceeded that of the Lunar New Year season in recent years and has proved to be the most valuable season, so the competition is particularly fierce. All five competitive new films are scheduled to premiere on the same day as the first day of the New Year. Although a win-win situation was ultimately achieved, it was quite dramatic to look back on the seven days of secret battle at the box office. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, the box office rankings of the five new films are "Journey to the West to Conquering the Demon","Making a fuss in the Sky","Kung Fu Yoga","Waves and Waves" and "Bears Infested·Fantasy Space"; On the second day of the Lunar New Year,"Kung Fu Yoga" overtook "Making a fuss in the Sky" in a single day; on the fourth day of the Lunar New Year,"Kung Fu Yoga" continued to counterattack, and the single-day box office had surpassed "Journey to the West to the Demon". On the same day," Waves and" Waves" also overtook" Making a fuss in the Sky". This ranking lasted until the last day of the Spring Festival.

The reason why "Kung Fu Yoga" and "Wind and Waves" were able to stage a counterattack battle in just seven days and change the pattern of the Spring Festival season was mainly due to the efforts of word of mouth. Originally, due to Han Han's literary temperament,"Ride and Waves" was not favored by the Spring Festival stalls, but the Douban score of 6.9 made it the word-of-mouth champion in the Spring Festival stalls, and the box office also rose all the way until the fifth day of the Chinese New Year became the national attendance champion for the Spring Festival stalls. Following the holidays,"Ride and Ride the Waves", which is suitable for the tastes of young literary and artistic people and white-collar workers, is also expected to continue to counterattack. Han Han also appeared in Shanghai Studios the day before yesterday to thank him and said on Weibo: "Because we were busy producing in the early stage," Wind and Waves "was not able to do a single roadshow. Starting today, the creators and I will meet with the audience and thank you for the votes. Maybe in a certain scene, when the movie ends and the lights come on, you will see me and the actors appear. Please leave a message and let me know which city you want us to come to."

"Kung Fu Yoga" is a dark horse during the Spring Festival. Compared with the large-scale publicity of "Journey to the West to the Demon" and "Make a fuss in the Sky", as well as the controversy over the theme song of "Wind and Waves","Kung Fu Yoga" appears to be the most unknown among several new films. Although the label of "Jackie Chan" is clear, it is not very new. Especially since Jackie Chan released two new films in succession last year, the audience seems to have become a little aesthetic tired of him. However, family fun and adventure themes finally made "Kung Fu Yoga" stand out during the Spring Festival. The story of the film spans Iceland, Dubai, India and other places. After reading and commenting,"I feel that watching this movie during the Spring Festival has helped save me 30,000 yuan for travel tickets":"It's a lot of fun to laugh about it, and it's a pleasure to play. Traveling around the world with your eyes, my family is very happy to watch it." Some viewers commented,"I usually want to take my parents to the movies, but I am always rejected. This Chinese New Year, my father volunteered to watch Jackie Chan."

In contrast,"Journey to the West to the Demon" and "Making a fuss in India", which were originally favored by the industry, seem to lack stamina. The score of "Journey to the West to Conquering Demons" is only 5.7 points, which is far lower than the 7.1 points of "Journey to the West to Conquering Demons". Many commentators believe that the special effects of the film are excellent, but the story line is obviously weak. Various familiar routines make Stephen Chow suspect of "selling feelings." The film critic "Peach Tao Movies" criticized: "The comedy is rotten and repeated, and the affectionate theme of repetition is really tired of watching too much. There seems to be nothing left except displaying the evil tastes and visual wonders amplified by special effects." "Making a fuss in India" was at the bottom with a score of 3.9, and was directly pointed out by the audience as a "vulgar comedy.""It still feels like it's imitating the elements of Lost in Thailand, but it just seems that it's pretentious and boring."

Fast review

ticket subsidies and service fees are not good medicines.

During the crazy Spring Festival, the once-disappeared "ticket subsidies" are making a comeback. The so-called "ticket subsidy" refers to the price difference subsidy paid by film companies or e-commerce platforms to give discounts to low-priced tickets to cinemas to attract audiences at low prices. To some extent, the boost in box office in 2015 and the decline in box office in 2016 are closely related to the intensity of ticket compensation. Some media disclosed that during the Spring Festival this year, ticketing platforms have agreed on detailed "ticket compensation policies" with theaters. Only when pre-sales and film scheduling meet the standards can they enjoy the "ticket compensation" of the film company first. The film company uses this method to lock in a large number of films in advance before the release of the film, which provides a great boost to the box office.

During this Spring Festival, multiple e-commerce platforms once again launched ultra-low-priced promotions of "14.9 yuan to watch movies" and even 8.8 yuan and 6.6 yuan. This also caused many films to become popular before they were released. The pre-sale performance of "Journey to the West" even reached 176 million yuan, setting the highest pre-sale box office record in China film history. The pre-sales of "Making a fuss in India" have also reached more than 40 million.

Ticket replacement has indeed created a prosperous market situation to a certain extent, but the choice of viewers during this year's Spring Festival seems to be more rational. It is not difficult to see from the box office curve that the pre-sale advantage of "Journey to the West to the Demon" and "Make a fuss about India" only lasted for a day or two. With the huge divergence of word of mouth, the schedule of these two films began to decline. On the contrary,"Kung Fu Yoga" and "Wind and Waves", which had poor pre-sales results, began to decline and rise. It can be seen that low prices are no longer the most important reason for audiences to choose films. Without excellent quality guarantees, no matter how low the ticket price is, the audience's desire to watch movies will not be enhanced. The "bubble" of ticket compensation during the Spring Festival quickly burst, which once again reminded film practitioners that instead of marketing hard, it is better to make a good movie in a down-to-earth manner.

On the other hand, behind the gratifying box office during the Spring Festival, there is also an injection of "service fees". Compared with previous years, the box office statistics method for the Spring Festival this year has undergone major changes, with service fees included in the box office for the first time. According to statistics, the seven-day service fee for the Spring Festival period reaches 203 million yuan. That is to say, if the service fee is eliminated, the actual box office growth for the Spring Festival period this year is only 100 million yuan more than last year.

The so-called "service fee" refers to the online sales service fee charged to viewers when purchasing tickets online. If viewers carefully look at the movie ticket in their hands, they can discover its existence. Usually, the service fee for a ticket ranges from 2 yuan to 5 yuan.

It is worth mentioning that although the service fee is included in the box office statistics, this part of the fee does not participate in the box office account and does not need to pay special funds for the film, so it is regarded as a "water injection" box office. Industry insiders pointed out that in addition to making the box office data better, this kind of statistical method does not yet see any favorable impact.

Editor: yvette