Holiday boosts box office with revenue, audiences

Boosted by demand for holiday entertainment, China's box office saw a surge in moviegoers during the three-day Dragon Boat Festival, which coincided with International Children's Day.

Thirteen new movies were released to compete in the lucrative market, driving the holiday box office to 457 million yuan ($63.4 million), surpassing the 383 million yuan earned during the same period last year, according to showbiz information tracker Maoyan Pro.

Topping the festival charts was Hollywood star Tom Cruise's latest action outing, Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, the eighth installment in the 30-year-old franchise — one of the world's most iconic superspy series, deeply etched in the minds of a generation of Chinese moviegoers. With screenings on more than 25 percent of domestic cinema screens, the film grossed 228 million yuan, accounting for 50 percent of the national box office during the holiday period.

Currently holding a score of 7.7 out of 10 on popular review aggregator Douban, the high-octane action film — featuring jaw-dropping stunts such as Cruise's Ethan Hunt diving into a sunken submarine — has sparked nostalgia, with some fans viewing it as a tribute to the golden age of big-budget, action-packed blockbusters.

As International Children's Day is traditionally a popular time for family outings to the cinema, two animated movies claimed the second and third spots on the holiday ticket-sale chart: Japanese anime film Doraemon: Nobita's Art World Tales and the Chinese directorial debut Endless Journey of Love by creative duo Yu Ao and Zhou Tienan.

Interestingly, both films revolve around time-manipulating themes.

The Doraemon film, the latest and 44th installment in the franchise, follows the titular robotic cat and his human friends as they embark on a new adventure in a 13th-century European castle, while Endless Journey of Love recounts the romance between an assassin and a girl from a fishing village. The two films earned over 67 million and 63 million yuan, respectively.

Disney's live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch, which retells the heartwarming story of a lonely Hawaiian girl who befriends a runaway alien, was the fourth highest-grossing film during the holiday. Premiering a week before the festival, the film — not included in the new release list — has brought in 130 million yuan since its debut on May 23.

Lai Li, a veteran analyst with Maoyan Pro, said the country grossed more than 200 million yuan on Sunday, making it the highest-grossing International Children's Day in five years and marking the first time in 84 sluggish days that the overall market's single-day revenue had reached this threshold again.

"The market performance during the festival was excitingly beyond expectations, showing that enduring franchises, which have built fan bases over decades, play a pivotal role in the market's rebound," Lai said.

Rao Shuguang, president of the China Film Critics Association, agreed that the market's recovery signals that hard-core films still have the power to attract audiences back to theaters. He said the festival served as a confidence booster for the domestic industry, which has experienced a slowdown due to a shortage of appealing tentpole films since Spring Festival. Only the runaway hit Ne Zha 2 has been an exception, drawing many fans to watch it multiple times.

"The next box office season, which overlaps with Dragon Boat Festival, is the summer vacation — a highly anticipated and fiercely competitive period. Summer also serves as a key indicator for predicting market trends for the rest of the year," Rao explained.

The summer season typically runs from June to August. So far, 54 new films have been announced for release during the summer.

The most anticipated titles span a wide variety of genres, from the World War II-set epic Dongji Island, based on the true story of Chinese fishermen rescuing British prisoners of war from a sinking Japanese cargo liner in 1942, to The Litchi Road, a Tang Dynasty (618-907) era comedy adapted from author Ma Boyong's best-selling novel of the same name.

"With Chinese filmmakers' efforts to readjust and adapt to changes in the market and audience preferences, the Chinese film industry is increasingly likely to achieve its long-standing goal of high-quality, sustainable development," Rao said.

xufan@chinadaily.com.cn