Pre-sale exceeds 500 million, and the three strong and one bear compete for hegemony! Can the Spring Festival file break 7 billion？

Special feature of 1905 film network The bell in the Year of the Loong is about to ring, and the pre-sale of the Spring Festival stalls in 2024 has also entered the sprint countdown. The total box office of the pre-sale has broken 500 million. Have you bought the movie tickets?

Han Han X Shen Teng’s new work Pegasus 2, Jia Ling’s new film YOLO and Zhang Yimou’s Article 20 ranked in the top three. The performance of "National Animation IP" and "Boonie Bears: Time Twist" exceeded expectations, ranking fourth with over 90 million box office, and its strength should not be underestimated.

At the same time, the total box office exceeded 100 million the day after the opening of the pre-sale of Spring Festival stalls, which took 31 hours, setting the fastest record of "breaking 100 million" in the pre-sale of Spring Festival stalls in the past three years. This also makes the market have high hopes for the overall performance of the Spring Festival in 2024, which is expected to hit the 7 billion mark and create new achievements.

The top three go hand in hand, the comedy animation is in full swing, and the publicity and marketing are different. What is behind the pre-sale war of the Spring Festival file?

"three strong and one bear" fierce battle

Different from the common "dual-core drive" in the Spring Festival stalls in previous years, this year’s "Pegasus 2" and YOLO’s "Article 20" show a pattern of "three points in the world" from the early stage of pre-sale.

Among them, the top two competitions are more anxious, and they have been leading alternately since the first day. Both of them have pre-sold more than 100 million yuan, and the box office difference is only about one million. The proportion of films scheduled on the opening day of the two films is also very close, accounting for 26.4% and 27% respectively, which is a certain gap from the 19.8% of Article 20.

The national animation IP "Bear Appears" series has always been known as the "explosive dividing line". This time, it made efforts ahead of schedule in the pre-sale stage, and won the first single-day pre-sale increase for five consecutive days, with a box office of over 90 million yuan, which almost matched the third place "Article 20" and became a mysterious force that cannot be ignored.

This is the seventh time that the "Bear Infested" series has fought for the Spring Festival file. With the popularity of IP, stable quality and family viewing advantages, it has become a "hard currency" for the Spring Festival file. The box office also rose from the fifth place in the 2017 schedule to the third place in the 2023 schedule.

This year, on the premise of no ticket replacement, the pre-sale stage has doubled compared with last year, which makes people have high hopes for the final box office of Boonie Bears: Time Twist, which is expected to hit the 2 billion mark and create a series of new records.

In addition to the "three strong and one bear", the other two live-action movies "The Movie Emperor" and "Viva La Vida" have a mediocre pre-sale performance, both of which are in the order of 20 million to 30 million, so we can only hope to rely on word of mouth and topics to achieve counterattack in the later stage.

At the end of the ranking, there are two animations, The Lower Bound of the Eight Rings and Huang Qi: The Cat from Heaven, with only 232,000 and 64,000 pre-sales.

The ranking of pre-sale is not equal to the final box office and ranking. In the past, the Spring Festival stalls have also staged a good show of counterattack and overtaking many times. Who will win the top spot in the three blockbusters "Pegasus 2" and "Article 20" by YOLO, and how many box office "bears" will be decided by word of mouth after the release.

"Comedy+"Playing the Difference Card

From the perspective of theme types, the three head films and The Movie Emperor all focus on comedy types, and Viva La Vida also extracts comedy elements in its publicity, making comedy the first key word in the 2024 Spring Festival. Behind the comedy cluster, how to play different cards in content and marketing has become the key to box office success.

Judging from the materials released at present, Pegasus 2 and YOLO are similar, both of which combine comedy with sports themes, highlighting the theme of blood and inspiration.

"Pegasus 2" wants to see a high proportion of men in the portrait, and also focuses on IP feelings and comedy lineup in the publicity. As the only live-action movie that premiered before the festival, the shocking racing scene has gained a lot of praise and is expected to become the visual effect "shoulder handle" of this year’s Spring Festival file.

YOLO is more favored by women, whether it is starring Jia Ling, Zhang Xiaofei, Andy and other women, or female topics related to movies have been frequently searched.

In order to leave the contrast and surprise of Jia Ling’s slimming to the last moment, the film also boldly chose a relatively "post-position" propaganda strategy, releasing related materials on the first day of the New Year’s Day and holding the premiere ceremony on the third day, which was unique in the previous marketing of the Spring Festival stalls and successfully filled the audience’s expectations.

Zhang Yimou’s new film "Article 20" has a distinct realistic background. It discusses the dilemma of emotion and law behind self-defense related cases in the form of comedy, and the propaganda also makes the comedy effect and practical significance parallel.

In addition, the cast of the film is also very strong, including popular stars such as Zhao Liying and Liu Yaowen, as well as powerful actors such as Lei Jiayin, Mary, Zhang Yi and Gao Ye, all of which have brought a lot of enthusiasm to the promotion and marketing.

The Movie Emperor, which was co-produced by Ning Hao and Andy Lau, has more personality. In addition to the routine operation of amplifying the Andy Lau superstar effect, the early publicity also directly produced the "three noes" declaration of "no gossip, no hilarity and no family fun".

As an absurd comedy that satirizes all kinds of entertainment circles boldly, "The Movie Emperor" is relatively small and has a certain threshold for watching movies. However, if the quality is excellent, it is still possible to achieve a counterattack in the later stage, which can be compared with "Crowd" starring Andy Lau in the Spring Festival in 2021.

Although "Viva La Vida" tells an anti-cancer story, it also consciously highlights comedy elements and CP sense in the early publicity and short video marketing, with tears in the main laugh.

In addition, the film also boldly carried out nationwide business viewing, which is enough to show that it has certain confidence in quality. In addition, this year’s "Valentine’s Day" (February 14) happens to be the fifth day of the Lunar New Year. This love movie with genre differentiation advantages is expected to exert its strength in the later stage.

The cluster of comedy types and the lack of heavy industry visual effect blockbusters are the remarkable characteristics of this year’s Spring Festival file, but it is slightly one-sided to "underestimate" the box office performance.

Hi, Mom’s "Man Jiang Hong" and other explosions in previous years are enough to prove that non-heavy industry blockbusters can also achieve good results in the Spring Festival. In addition, the popularity of realistic themes in recent years also gives us reason to keep looking forward to these "comedy+reality" works with different styles.

Roll up the ticket and make up the content.

"The movie ticket of 19.9 yuan is back!" Large-scale "ticket replenishment" has reappeared in the rivers and lakes, and all large-scale parties have shown their magical powers and worked together to "knock down" the price, which has become a major feature of this year’s Spring Festival pre-sale.

On the first day of pre-sale, not only can all cities in China buy the movie tickets for the Spring Festival at a low price of 19.9, but "Viva La Vida" even achieved a record low price of less than that of 1 yuan in some cities.

The data shows that the average ticket price on the first day of pre-sale of the Spring Festival in 2024 is only in 49 yuan, which is much lower than that in 5 yuan last year. The overall average ticket price is 50.3 yuan, which is also lower than last year in 2 yuan.

The impact of large-scale "ticket replenishment" on the box office growth rate on the first day of pre-sale is immediate. In 2024, the first day of pre-sale of Spring Festival stalls exceeded 70 million, nearly 20% higher than the same period last year. In the long run, the "parity" strategy is undoubtedly conducive to attracting more viewers to enter the cinema many times.

At the same time, the pulling effect of the head live broadcast room on the pre-sale box office has also appeared. According to the analysis of Lighthouse Professional Edition, on the evening of February 6th, the box office of Pegasus 2 and Article 20 increased by 9.51 million at 20-22 o’clock, and it is estimated that the additional growth of the two films will reach more than 6 million, which is mainly influenced by the goods brought by Dong Yuhui in Tik Tok. Under the dual effects of the popularity of the live broadcast room and the ticket supplement of 19.9 yuan, a large number of viewers directly placed orders and issued tickets.

Prior to this, the major film creators of the Spring Festival file also took turns to be guest movie channels, Weibo films and the live broadcast room of Tik Tok’s head anchor, which produced a large number of explosive content. It is enough to see that nowadays, when choosing live broadcast cooperation, in addition to the strength of selling tickets with goods, what is more fancy is the effective output of content.

It is true that the growth rate of pre-sale of Spring Festival stalls has obviously slowed down after the ticket subsidy has weakened, which is also closely related to the fact that the audience’s decision to purchase tickets is generally backward and tends to make movie choices according to the word-of-mouth of the film. To put it bluntly, the popularity and achievements of pre-sale are only the starting point, and quality and word-of-mouth can determine the upper limit of box office and the growth curve.

Although the pre-sale of the Spring Festival file has entered the countdown, the Spring Festival file war in 2024 has just begun. Whether the box office of "the most Changchun festival in history" can break through the 7 billion mark or even reach a new high depends on the collective quality of new films!