In the first five months of 2019, China's box office and cinema attendance declined compared with the same period last year, according to Maoyan data. Among them, the box office of the film totaled 24.941 billion yuan, down 6.35% from the same period last year; the number of moviegoers was 689 million, a decrease of 100 million over the same period last year.

In fact, there are early signs of a decline in the box office of Chinese films this year. According to Maoyan, the total box office of mainland films exceeded 20 billion yuan on April 13 this year, but it has been nearly two weeks behind last year's break of 20 billion yuan. In the first quarter of this year, the box office of Chinese films was 18.614 billion yuan, down 1.608 billion yuan from the same period last year. Since the beginning of 19 years, the number of moviegoers in China's film market has declined except for a 3.5% increase in February compared with the same period last year.

It is worth noting that this is the first negative growth in the box office of a Chinese film in the first five months in nine years. However, according to Wei Pengju, dean of the School of Culture and Media of the Central University of Finance and Economics, the decline in the box office of Chinese films in the first five months is not necessarily a bad thing, and it is an excellent "cooling-off period" for the industry.

The box office of "Fairy fight" fell as a whole during the Spring Festival.

This year's Spring Festival Golden week can be called the "fiercest version" of the Spring Festival in history: after many years of absence, Ning Hao returned to the big screen with the "Crazy" series "Crazy Aliens". In addition to Huang Bo, there is also "Uncle Teng" Shen Teng; Han Han's annual new film "Flying Life" is based on his most familiar car racing; wandering the Earth is China's first science fiction film adapted from Liu Cixin's novel. And Stephen Chow's "the King of the New Comedy", "Zhou Xingchi" is enough, not to mention the selling point of the "King of Comedy"; even the animated film "Piggy Peggy" has been scanned all over the social circle with a short video from a year ago.

With such intensive and anticipated film rehearsals, this year's Spring Festival is known as "immortal fight", so audiences have to sit in the cinema to see how the gods exert their power.

As a result, the fight between Immortals and Immortals finally made the Spring Festival box office a hit. The box office of this year's Spring Festival grossed 5.84 billion yuan, up from 5.694 billion yuan last year. The box office for the whole of February also reached 11.107 billion yuan, setting a new record for a single month in global film history. According to the total box office so far, three of the top five films this year are from the Spring Festival.

But even so, from the annual perspective, in terms of box office results, the number of high-grossing films this year has declined compared with previous years.

Apart from February, compare the rest of this year horizontally with the same period last year: in January last year, there were two highly topical films, "ex 3: goodbye to your ex" and "No questions about the West and East". Although the highest-grossing "bumblebee" grossed 1.15 billion at the box office, but the topic was far inferior; in March this year, there were few popular films except "Captain Marvel". In the recent Dragon Boat Festival, "X-Men: black Phoenix" and "chasing the Dragon Ⅱ" also performed poorly at the box office. So far this year, apart from the hustle and bustle of the Spring Festival, there is only one impressive film left.

However, it can also reflect the changes in the general film aesthetics of the Chinese audience. Wei Pengju said that from the current situation, the role of traditional marketing methods in improving the box office performance is more and more limited, and the film's box office results rely more on the word-of-mouth of the audience. The decline in the box office in the first five months of this year was mainly due to the low quality of the films during the period.

This argument can be confirmed by the final box office results of the Spring Festival. In the contest of the eight Immortals crossing the sea, what finally stands out is the "wandering Earth" with the lowest publicity and audience expectations. At the end of the holiday, the box office of the film was driven by the recommendation of "tap water" from audiences who had seen the film before. in the end, the film grossed 4.65 billion yuan at the box office, ranking second at the box office in China.

Behind this, the factor that determines the public praise of the audience is still the content of the film. From this point of view, wandering the Earth is worthy of such a position in terms of special effects, story structure and concept.

What are the companies worth paying attention to during the summer vacation?

Wei Pengju also said that there had been some investment bubbles in China's film and television industry. For the current industry, the decline in box office performance can give the industry a moderate cooling-off period, which is "definitely good" and will be conducive to the reasonable placement of China's film market.

After calming down, from June to August, after the end of the college entrance examination, another peak season for the film industry, the summer holiday, has quietly arrived. According to Cat's Eye statistics, a total of 95 films have been released during the summer holidays from June to August this year, of which 71 have been officially announced. At this time last year, "I am not the God of Medicine" was not only popular throughout the summer, letting audiences know that China could also make good enough commercial films with social themes, and even promoted social progress to some extent. Which films will be popular this year? Which industries will benefit from it?

Doraemon: Nobita's Adventure to the Moon has been painted in two of the more anticipated animations in the summer, but it has grossed only 130 million yuan at the box office since its release on the 17th. Another film to be released on the 21st of this month is MiyazakiHayao's classic animation "Thousand and thousand fathom", which should not be introduced too much. After Doraemon's feelings are gone and the movie hits the street at the box office, the author thinks that MiyazakiHayao and "Thousand and thousand fathom" should be very difficult to hit the street again. After all, the emotional factor of "Thousand" is much bigger than that of the annual "Doraemon" movies. Both animated films were introduced by Chinese films (600977.SH, the only company where Chinese mainland has the right to import films). In addition to these two cartoons, Spider-Man is also an imported film expected by audiences during the summer vacation.

In addition, Guan Hu's new film "eight hundred" will also be released on July 5. The prototype of the film story is taken from the history of the 524th regiment of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army "800 strong Men" clinging to the Sixing warehouse in Shanghai during the Battle of Shanghai in 1937. The film is also the first film in Chinese film history to be shot with a digital IMAX camera.

Behind the film are Huayi Brothers Film Co., Ltd. (300027.SZ) and Beijing Seven Impressions Culture Media Co., Ltd., and the joint producers are Tencent Film Culture Communication Co., Ltd. And Beijing Light Film Co., Ltd.

However, it is worth noting that "800" could not be shown at the Shanghai International Film Festival for technical reasons. It is not clear whether it will affect the normal release of the film next month. There are rumors that the release of "800" will be postponed, and it is even said that "800" will not be released.

However, so far, there has been no official public news that the film "800" can not be released as scheduled. For Huayi, whether "800" can be released normally in the summer; if it can be released, whether word-of-mouth will explode will have an important impact on whether the company can reverse its recent poor performance.

On the 17th, due to the impact that "800" may not be released as scheduled, Huayi Brothers shares approached the limit at the beginning of trading, then the decline narrowed to close at 5.35 yuan, still falling 7.76%.

In addition to "eight hundred", another investment film directed by Tian Yusheng, "Great wishes", will also be released in the summer. Another summer blockbuster, Shanghai Fortress, focuses on science fiction and is adapted from a novel of the same name, with a reported production cost of 300 million. The producers of the film include Chinese Film, Tencent Film and so on.

From the cat's eyes marked to see the largest number of films, in addition to the above-mentioned films, "Young you", "Spider-Man: hero Expedition" and "Anti-Drug 2: battle between Heaven and Earth" are also at the top of the list. Among them, the producers of "Young you" include 01896.HK and Youku, which is directed by Zeng Guoxiang (also directed by "July and Anson"), starring Zhou Dongyu and Yi Qianxi, while "scan Gambling 2" is produced by Maoyan, Yindu and Shengge Media.

In addition, "Galaxy cram School" produced by 300251.SZ (I am looking forward to another cooperative film about the death of Deng Chaoyu and Bai Mei), Beijing Culture (000802.SZ) has "Dance Elephant" and "Ma GE is a City" will also be released in the summer.

As for the cinema sector, the beneficiary stocks include Wanda Film (002739.SZ), Shanghai Film (601595.SH) and so on.

Galaxy Securities Research newspaper analysis, in this year's summer program of more attention in the film, domestic films accounted for the majority. All the participating companies behind the concerned films include Light Media, Huayi Brothers, BABA Pictures, Tencent Pictures, Letv Pictures, Bona Pictures and other well-known companies. Among them, Huayi Brothers and Light Media (one for a film and one for a film) are more involved in this summer, and the performance of both companies deserves more attention this summer.