The Chinese authorities have allocated hundreds of millions of yuan in subsidies to boost movie market consumption, while various regions have issued movie consumption vouchers in different forms. However, many of the government’s policies aimed at stimulating the recovery of the movie market have not only failed to promote revenue growth in the film and television industry but have also become a “star chasing tool” for many celebrity fans.
According to a recent report by the “Lanzhou Evening News,” in order to promote year-end and New Year’s movie market consumption, the Chinese Film Bureau launched the “National Movie Consumer Season for New Year’s Day and Spring Festival” on December 9th. In addition, four institutions including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China will invest hundreds of millions of RMB to provide movie consumption subsidies through forms such as discounted ticket purchases and lottery viewing.
The report stated that the Chinese Film Bureau will also guide local film authorities to carry out various activities to attract audiences to cinemas.
Information from the Dama App shows that currently, 10 provinces in China are implementing local movie subsidies.
However, according to a report by the “Daily Economic News” on the 27th, movie consumption vouchers have become a “star chasing tool” for celebrity fans.
According to the Chinese movie ticketing platform Maoyan, on December 19th, several cinemas in Shanghai that were originally ranked beyond the top 200 suddenly rose to the top of the regional box office within one day, with 99% of the box office coming from the film “The Lone Star Plan,” starring Wang Yuan and Zhang Xueying.
It is worth noting that on December 19th, although these cinemas sold many movie tickets, the actual number of people who went to the cinemas to watch the movies was very few. According to investigations, celebrity fans used movie consumption vouchers to purchase a large number of movie tickets.
An employee of a cinema revealed that most of these orders were not actually used for watching movies, with 80% of the orders being “empty” orders. “Probably only about a dozen people actually went to the cinema to watch the movie.”
On social platforms such as Weibo and Xiaohongshu, some netizens even posted strategies and tutorials on how to “harvest wool” using movie consumption vouchers distributed in various regions. By changing location settings, users can collect movie consumption vouchers distributed in various regions and purchase movie tickets at local cinemas for extremely low prices or even for free.
Apart from Shanghai, other regions distributing movie consumption vouchers such as Anhui and Henan are also involved, and some strategies even share ways to bypass the geographical restrictions of voucher usage.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, China’s annual box office continued to rise, reaching its peak in 2019. Restrictions on gatherings during the pandemic led to a decrease in ticket sales, and the industry’s recovery over the past two years has been below expectations.
In the third quarter of this year, the profit situation in the Chinese film and television industry is also not optimistic, with only 7 listed companies maintaining positive net profits. Among these profitable companies, those achieving year-on-year growth are few and far between.
Wanda Film admitted in its announcement that in the third quarter of 2024, the national box office was 10.86 billion yuan, a 43.8% decrease compared to the same period in 2023; and the number of viewers was 265 million, a 43.3% decrease compared to the same period in 2023.
According to data released by Maoyan on December 25th, box office income on Christmas Eve in China plummeted to the lowest point in at least 13 years.