A season for film market to regain vitality during National Day

A total of 10 films are set to hit Chinese theaters during the National Day film season, the second most lucrative film period of the year after Spring Festival season. The slate spans a diverse range of genres including drama, war, crime, action, disaster, family, adventure, and comedy. 

Chen Jin, a data analyst from Ali Pictures' ticketing platform Beacon, pointed out to the Global Times that this year's lineup is the most abundant in recent years for top films.

As of Wednesday afternoon, pre-sales for the National Day films (including preview screenings) have already surpassed 20 million yuan ($2.84 million), with Tiger Wolf Rabbit, Bureau 749, and The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death currently leading pre-sales, according to ticketing platform Maoyan.

Following a lackluster performance during the summer holiday and Mid-Autumn Festival film periods, all eyes are on whether the National Day film season can turn the tide for China's film industry.

Fu Ruoqing, chairman of the China Film Group Corp, stated at the 2024 semi-annual performance briefing that the main reason for the disappointing performance of the two film seasons was the insufficient attraction of top-tier films, both domestic and foreign language films. The supply of films, in terms of quantity and quality, needs a significant boost. 

In addition, the audience's rapidly evolving demands necessitate a differentiated and diversified transformation.

According to the National Film Administration, the box office for the Mid-Autumn Festival was 389 million yuan, with 9.57 million tickets sold, of which domestic films accounted for 85.35 percent with 332 million yuan. During the three-day festival, only one film, Stand By Me, starring Wang Junkai, crossed the 100 million yuan mark.

The recently concluded summer box office reached 11.639 billion yuan, compared with 20.62 billion yuan during the same period in 2023, although this summer season set a new record for the number of screenings.

Many film critics attributed this poor performance to the absence of top-earning blockbusters this year, ones like last year's Creation of The God: Kingdom of Storms.

Nevertheless, the National Day film season could be a chance to reinvigorate the box office, as it is traditionally seen as a crucial period for the film market. 

Three of the upcoming domestic films may bring new vitality to the market. In particular, films directed by well-known directors and starring popular actors, such as The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death and A Tapestry of A Legendary Land may attract a larger audience.

How the Hollywood's Transformers One, the only imported film for this season, will perform remains to be seen. This film's poor performance in North America has already cast a shadow over its prospects in the Chinese market. 

Looking back at the box-office records of previous National Day seasons, from 2019 to 2021, the box-office scale climbed from 2 billion yuan to 4 billion yuan, mainly due to the concentrated release of mainstream domestic films on the supply side. Over the three years, films that exceeded 1 billion yuan during the National Day season included My People, My Country and The Captain in 2019 , My Hometown in 2020, and The Battle at Lake Changjin in 2021.

After 2022, due to a lack of top content on the supply side, the National Day box office fell back into the range of 1.5 billion to 3 billion yuan. In 2023, the National Day season's box office was 2.735 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 83 percent, mainly due to the simultaneous boost in demand, as well as a longer holiday period (eight days in 2023 compared to seven in 2022).

As the biggest film season in the second half of this year, the National Day season is crucial for the performance of film companies. However, whether it can achieve excellent performance still depends on whether these new films can meet audience's expectations and whether the industry can continue to provide high-quality content.

In summary, although the current film market faces some challenges, the market is expected to recover to some extent with the arrival of the National Day holidays and the industry's active adjustments.