China National Day Box Office Falls Short of Last Year

Box office in China over the country’s crucial National Day holiday season fell by 23% according to Maoyan, a leading movie ticketing platform.

Gross nationwide revenues ran at approximately RMB300 million ($42.5 million) per day from Tuesday last week to Monday, adding up to RMB2.10 billion ($297 million), Maoyan Research Institute said. Some 52 million tickets were sold in the seven-day period.

Leading the pack was the war film “The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death,” which clinched the top spot at the box office with RMB805 million ($114 million). The film saw significantly higher ticket purchases for multiple viewers than other films, indicating a strong appeal to families.

The crime film “Tiger Wolf Rabbit” secured second place with RMB359 million ($50.8 million), closely followed by the sci-fi film “Bureau 749” at RMB356 million ($50.4 million). Jackie Chan’s action-comedy “Panda Plan” ranked fourth with RMB215 million ($30.5 million). The fifth place was “High Forces,” starring Andy Lau, with a cumulative box office of over RMB170 million ($24.1 million). “High Forces” performed best among the top five films in major metropolises.

China’s overall box office performance has in recent years become increasingly seasonal and more heavily dependent on Lunar New Year, the summer season, National Day and other shorter public holidays like Dragon Boat Day and marketing-led promotions, such as Valentines’ Day and Chinese Valentine’s Day. So, this year’s slumping National Day week, means that there is little chance of the overall down-trend for this year being reversed.

Year-to-date box office is already $1 billion shy of 2023 figures at this point last year. Then running total of $5.17 billion (RMB36.7 billion) is down more than 22% compared with $6.69 billion (RMB47.5 billion) at the same time last year.

Despite the box office tumble, Maoyan suggests that there are some bright spots. A record-tying five films each grossed over RMB100 million ($14.5 million) for the second consecutive year. Also, the first day of the holiday, exceeded RMB494 million ($70 million), the highest single-day box office during the National Day season in the past three years.

And Maoyan says that its data on viewing frequency shows a gradual return of moderate and frequent moviegoers over the past three years. That might suggest that the cinema-going habit is becoming stronger.