The mainland’s box office during this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival season is extremely lackluster, with a severe shortage of major blockbuster films, leading to what is widely referred to as the “worst Mid-Autumn Festival season ever.” On the first day of its release, “The Red Dress Bride” only managed to bring in a meager 122 yuan in pre-sale ticket revenue.
From September 25th to 27th, more than 10 domestic films were scheduled for release in the mainland during the Mid-Autumn Festival season. However, the pre-sale performance was extremely dismal. Instead, the Hollywood blockbuster “Avengers: Endgame” re-released in the “Ultimate Enjoyment Edition” dominated the mainland market with an absolute advantage, capturing between 60% to 77% of the total pre-sale box office revenue during the Mid-Autumn Festival season.
Even though the Mid-Autumn Festival season in the mainland lasts only three days, it witnessed the simultaneous release of over 10 Chinese films, including titles like “Dunhuang Hero,” “Old Jianghu,” “Silk Clothes,” “Ningzhi Hand,” and “Death Zone Chronicles.” Media reports describe this scenario as a “chain reaction car crash” of overlapping releases, which not only failed to boost the overall market but also resulted in most films being ignored, to the extent that films like “The Red Dress Bride” were forced to be withdrawn even before their scheduled screenings due to low pre-sale numbers.
As of the early hours of September 25th, the cumulative pre-sale and additional screenings revenue for the Mid-Autumn Festival season did not exceed 30 million yuan. The audience’s interest in watching movies was bleak, with almost empty theaters in every cinema where random films were being pre-sold.
Overall, Chinese domestic films exhibited a clear pattern of “low budget, small scale,” highlighting a collective financial constraint faced by film companies. While “Dunhuang Hero” boasted a production cost of 300 million yuan and a star-studded cast, its pre-sale revenue was only a little over 200,000 yuan due to its low-key promotion after being shelved for several years. Films like the Cantonese production realistic-themed “Silk Clothes” with an all-amateur cast, and “Death Zone Chronicles” which was criticized by netizens for being a poorly received low-budget horror film, along with films like “Iron Davini’s Number” were questioned for being slapdash comedy films with lackluster humor.
Market data indicates that audiences are not entirely avoiding watching movies but rather have lost faith in the current movie quality. The average frequency of movie-watching during this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival season dropped by 23% compared to the same period last year, while the “decision-making time for a single movie viewing” significantly increased by 41 seconds. Faced with high ticket prices and uninspiring films, audiences mostly chose to refrain from purchasing tickets after weighing their options repeatedly, resulting in a plethora of empty cinemas due to zero pre-sales.
Chinese media outlet “Sina.com” reported that due to a lack of funding from upstream production companies, nearly zero promotion budgets, and scaled-down film sizes, the entire Mid-Autumn Festival season fell into a vicious cycle of “poor film promotion, empty cinemas, and audiences not watching.”