Although the Spring Festival holiday has passed, the enthusiasm for the "longest Spring Festival stall" in history continues.
It's just that the "longest" here is not simply used to describe the "stamina" of the 2023 Spring Festival file. From the objective data point of view, these films this year have also greatly improved the previous average data in terms of single-piece length:
"The Wandering Earth 2", which is still leading the single-day box office list, has a single film length of 173 minutes, which is not only 48 minutes longer than the previous film, but also the longest film in the same period in recent years. No wonder the most popular and practical movie viewing guide during the film's hit show is: If you must go to the bathroom, Liu Peiqiang is your only chance to peel the apple.
The film lengths of "Man Jianghong" and "No Name" released at the same time also reached 159 minutes and 128 minutes respectively, which also brought the average length of the six films in the Spring Festival file in 2023 to 129.5 minutes, an increase of more than 20 minutes compared with 2022.
And the recent "ultra-long" new films are not limited to them: "Avatar: The Way of Water", which won the championship of the Lunar New Year file in 2022 and the New Year's Day file in 2023, has a length of 192 minutes; the recently released Marvel work "Black Panther 2" ", the film length is also 161 minutes.
When more and more "feature films" appear, will the audience gradually "adapt well"? Will the increase in film length have an impact on the box office of the schedule and the number of moviegoers? Is there a "limit" to the length of a film?
What changes has the "longest Spring Festival file" brought about with an average film length of 130 minutes?
The box office of the 2023 Spring Festival stalls finally reported over 6.75 billion, a year-on-year increase of over 10%, and the number of moviegoers also surpassed the same period last year with 129 million. Corresponding to this is the decline in the total number of film screenings: in 2022, the total number of screenings during the Spring Festival period will reach 3.14 million, while this year, this figure will be 2.665 million.
"This is the most intuitive impact (increased film length)." Yu Chao, deputy general manager of the Capital Cinema, said in an interview with 1905 Film Network that as one of the most important schedules of the year, all theaters will prepare in advance during the Spring Festival. For the preparation work, strive to make full use of business hours, and maximize the number of screenings with the most reasonable screening and inter-session time.
"Maximizing the number of shows means an increase in reception capacity and total reception, just like the turnover rate of restaurants," and the concentrated appearance of "ultra-long" films in the prime time period this year has indeed brought greater impact to the theater's film schedule. pressure and increased competition.
Based on the normal business hours of commercial complexes where most theaters are located, the 2-hour (inclusive) length films that can be screened in a single hall in a day are about 6-7 shows. It may generally be 4 shows, and some theaters may be able to arrange 5 shows.” Manager Yu gave us an example to calculate: “If there are a lot of films lasting two hours or longer, it will definitely have an impact on the final arrangement of the total number of shows. Assuming Comparing 7 games and 5 games (in a single day), the difference between the two is already 40%.”
For theaters, how to use limited shelves to fully display products and attract more audiences to buy tickets is always the first issue to consider. "Emperor UA Film City Shanghai Regional Manager Chen Min revealed that during the Spring Festival, the "ultra-long" films mainly brought about the pressure on film scheduling and turnover. In the case of non-hot schedules and a small number of films in the same period, the film length is 3 Hours + or otherwise doesn't make much difference.
However, the increase in the length of a single film and the decrease in the number of screenings for the Spring Festival this year did not make the theaters too worried. On the one hand, through market adjustments, the ticket prices have increased accordingly. On the other hand, the high topicality and high quality of the films during the Spring Festival that just passed also drove the increase in the number of moviegoers. According to the public data of the ticketing platform, the total number of movie viewers in the 2023 schedule will increase by 13% year-on-year, and the average number of moviegoers per game will increase by more than 30%. This change also successfully made up for the impact of the reduction in the number of games.
Yu Chao said that from the current point of view, the "ultra-long" film has not yet formed a mainstream trend. At the same time, "super-long" works in each schedule are usually "head movies" with higher quality and attention, and the limited screening does not conflict with the ticket purchase needs of most audiences. This is why the overall box office data for the Spring Festival this year has not been affected too much.
"At the same time, the audience will only choose one movie. Some movies may be short and have more screenings, but their content is not as attractive to the audience as long films, so even if there is room for more screenings, it is meaningless. ( After all) the number of moviegoers and attendance will be different.”
2 hours, 3 hours...Is there a "limit" in the audience's viewing choices?
In order to understand the audience's attitude towards "extremely long" films, we recently launched a poll on the official blog of the 1905 film website. Nearly 20% of the netizens who participated in the voting said that a 3-hour movie is their "limit". If the length of the movie continues to increase, they may have concerns when buying tickets, or need to set a "intermission" time; 12% The audience thinks that the length of theater movies can be appropriately compressed, for example, within 120 minutes is more suitable.
The vast majority of the surveyed viewers said that they don't mind the length of the film, but the premise is that the content of the film is excellent and the subject matter is attractive enough.
In the past, most movies were about 120 minutes long, partly because of the limitation of the "film" medium. Psychological tests have also shown that movies about 2 hours can better focus the audience's attention. But now, with the development of the film industry, digital media has solved the limitation on film length, and the gradual development of audience viewing habits has also further helped filmmakers release their creative "space" to a certain extent.
Movie fan Xiaowei watched "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Unnamed" in the TOP3 film lengths during the Spring Festival this year. She also bought tickets for "Avatar 2" and "Black Panther 2" immediately. "When I saw a duration of about 180 minutes, my first reaction would be to shrink back, but if it is a movie or a big IP that I want to watch, I will definitely watch it in the end. It's just that the decision process may be slower Normally, a movie of about 120 minutes is much longer, because it feels like watching a movie of about 180 minutes will basically fill up the day, and you need to make a good formation." She said frankly.
But Xiaowei also said that in fact, the "entanglement" of the 3-hour movie only exists in the step of choosing the number of scenes before watching the movie. "When you really look at it, as long as the movie is exciting enough, you don't actually feel that the 180 hours is difficult."
Movie fans have similar thoughts one by one. During the Spring Festival, she watched the movies "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Man Jianghong". Although the two films are considerable in length, the excellent special effects of the former and the reverse plot setting of the latter made her feel that "time flies very fast." ". But after watching "Black Panther 2" after the Spring Festival, Yiyi was a little disappointed: "Actually, it's not as long as "The Wandering Earth 2", but I secretly swiped my phone many times in the middle."
However, Yiyi believes that 3 hours or so may be the "threshold" for many people to watch movies. "If it is 4 hours, I may feel that it is too long when I hear this number."
In this regard, Chen Min, Regional Manager of Emperor UA Cinemas Shanghai, revealed that the theater also envisages that the duration of the film will continue to increase, and will open up a plan for intermission for the audience.
Yu Chao, deputy general manager of the Capital Cinema, believes that as the length of the film increases, the pressure will still be more between the film announcement and the producer. Launch the product and help the project stand in theaters."
As for the audience, the theater can also continue to help the audience make earlier plans for viewing time by optimizing film scheduling and pre-sales: "For example, the pre-sales on our ticket purchase platform will be many days in advance, and now the ticket purchase platform also Marking the start and end times of the film can help viewers plan for follow-up.”
The length of the film will not affect the audience's choice. In this multi-party dialogue, we finally gained this mainstream view. I believe that in the future, good content will continue to break the "limit".