The Zhitong Finance App learned that Everbright Securities released a research report saying that the total box office for the 2024 New Year's Day (December 30, 2023 to January 1, 2024) exceeded 1.5 billion yuan, setting a new New Year's Day box office record in Chinese film history. The bank used the moviegoers' ticket price method to forecast the 2024 box office, and calculated that the 2024 box office was conservatively estimated at 54.93 billion yuan, the neutral estimate was 58.88 billion yuan, and the optimistic estimate was 63.01 billion yuan. The bank believes that a good start to the New Year's Day program lays the foundation for 2024 film and television restoration. It is recommended to focus on the Spring Festival reserve film filing process: the films currently scheduled include “The Bear Came Out” and “Mr. Red Carpet” (Happy Media (01003)). The remaining films that are expected to be scheduled include “Hot and Hot”, “Article 20” (Light Media (300251.SZ)), “Flying Spike Life 2” (Bona Pictures (001330.SZ)), “Legend” (Bona Pictures), “Dunye” (Bona Pictures), and “Legend” (Dunye) “Brilliant Heroes” (100291.SZ)

The main views of Everbright Securities are as follows:

Incidents:

The total box office of the 2024 New Year's Day program (December 30, 2023 to January 1, 2024) surpassed 1.5 billion yuan, setting a new New Year's Day box office record in Chinese film history. “One Twinkle, One Shining Star” and “The Annual Meeting Can't Be Stopped!” “Golden Finger”, “Stealth”, and “Don't Disturb Me 3” ranked in the top five in the schedule box office list. The schedule grossed 610 million, 230 million, 220 million, 170 million, and 54.64 million yuan respectively.

The New Year's Day box office got off to a “good start”

The total box office for the 2024 New Year's Day program (December 30, 2023 to January 1, 2024) reached 1,533 billion yuan, surpassing the 1.3 billion yuan box office performance of the 2021 New Year's Day program. Among them, the New Year's Eve (12.31) movie market was very popular, with a single-day box office of 732 million yuan. 1) Looking at volume and price breakdown: According to Lighthouse Pro, the number of New Year's Day movie viewers reached 36.61 million in 2024, an increase of 7% compared to the same period in 2021. The average ticket price decreased compared to the same period last year, but increased 3.8 yuan to 41.9 yuan over the same period in 2021. 2) Looking at specific films: The box office winner during the period was “One Twinkle, One Shining Star” (which surpassed 600 million yuan in the box office during the period, and the box office concentration reached 39.7%). The film was based on the series of the same name (iQiyi's first breakout drama). The film remained extremely popular in pre-release. In particular, the “Snow Field” special screening event launched at 13:14 on December 30, sparked a wave of ticket grabbing tickets. The total pre-sale box office of the film reached 366 million yuan, making it 175 million in China The first-day pre-sale box office winner for the first day of the historic romance movie. Top 3 movies in the schedule (“One Twinkle, One Twinkle, One Star”, “The Annual Meeting Can't Be Stopped!” “Golden Finger”) had a box office concentration of 69.2% (82.6% for the same period in 2021), and the comedy “Can't Stop the Annual Meeting!” Douban scored 8.1 points, and word of mouth continued to ferment, hitting the top of the box office on January 1. Furthermore, some of the films released in the early stages have come out of a strong box-office long-tail curve.

Preliminary restoration of both supply and demand sides of the 2023 movie market

According to the “2023 China Film Market Annual Inventory Report”, the comprehensive box office in 2023 reached 54.915 billion yuan, an increase of 82.6% over the previous year, and recovered to 85% in 2019. The number of moviegoers increased 60% compared to the 2020-2022 average. Upstream supply has recovered, and both supply indicators have picked up, and domestic films have picked up. In 2023, the box office for domestic films was 46.05 billion yuan, accounting for 84% of the box office for 4 consecutive years. In 2023, the mainland China film market had 12,723 cinemas, and the number of screens continued to lead the global film market. The single-screen box office was 640,000, the number of high-yield cinemas of 12,700 theaters rebounded, the number of cinemas with an annual box office of less than 5 million dropped, and the cinema output structure was healthier.

The 2024 film market is expected to continue to recover

The bank used the moviegoers' ticket price method to forecast the 2024 box office, and calculated that the 2024 box office was conservatively estimated at 54.93 billion yuan, the neutral estimate was 58.88 billion yuan, and the optimistic estimate was 63.01 billion yuan. The bank believes that a good start to the New Year's Day program lays the foundation for 2024 film and television restoration. It is recommended to focus on the Spring Festival reserve film filing process: the films currently scheduled include “The Bear Came” (Huaqiang Fang Te) and “Mr. Red Carpet” (Happy Media). The remaining films that are expected to be scheduled include “Hot and Hot Hot” (Xinli Media), “Article 20” (Light Media), “Flying Spike Life 2” (Bona Pictures), “Legend” (Bona Pictures), and “Dunhuang Heroes” (100 Thousand Thousand Years)).

Risk warning: Film development process and risk of changes in important film schedules; increased risk of industry competition; risk of film release falling short of expectations; risk of regulatory policy risks.