The pre-sale of movies for the 2025 Spring Festival officially started on January 19, and the first day of pre-sale broke multiple records, making a good start for this year's Spring Festival. According to the data from Lighthouse Professional Edition, as of 23:59 on January 19, the total pre-sale box office for the 2025 Spring Festival (January 28-February 4) reached 180 million.
Among them, The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Greatest Hero took the lead with a box office of over 80 million yuan, while Ne Zha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King and Detective Chinatown 1900 started a tug-of-war in pre-sale, with Ne Zha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King taking the lead and earning 30 million yuan on the first day of pre-sale. The three films are currently ranked in the top three of the pre-sale box office list, showing strong market appeal.
Data source: Lighthouse Professional Edition
The pre-sale of "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" is far ahead of "Nezha" in terms of the screening schedule
The hot pre-sale of this year's Spring Festival is due to the combined effect of multiple factors. The first is the attraction of the super lineup. The 2025 Spring Festival can be said to be the most luxurious lineup in recent years. Whether it is the adaptation of classic IP, the sequel of fantasy epic, or the new chapter of suspense comedy, it provides rich choices for audiences of different ages and preferences.
As the "leader" in the pre-sale stage of the Spring Festival, the performance of "The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Greatest Hero" is not surprising. In addition to the popularity of Jin Yong's classic IP, which covers audiences of all ages, fans of the film's leading actor Xiao Zhan have long been eager for their idol's performance in the Spring Festival. Since the news of the pre-sale came out, various ticket purchase strategies have emerged on social media. After the ticket opening gun was fired, the pre-sale exceeded 10 million in more than 40 minutes, 20 million in more than an hour, and 50 million in more than 5 hours. "The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Greatest Hero" set a record for the speed of pre-sale in film history at each node, and also led to a refresh of the fastest record of pre-sale exceeding 100 million in the Spring Festival in Chinese film history.
Judging from the pre-sale results throughout the day, "The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Greatest Hero" is in a "leading" position. At present, the box office of the film has exceeded 80 million, ranking first in the first-day pre-sale box office of domestic films, and is expected to break the pre-sale record of "Detective Chinatown 3" which exceeded 100 million in 36 hours.
The box office of "The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Greatest Hero" exceeded 80 million on the first day of pre-sale.
However, despite the fierce fans' offensive, martial arts themes are relatively rare in the Spring Festival period in recent years, which has also made theaters maintain a relatively rational wait-and-see attitude towards the scheduling of "The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Greatest Hero". On the first day of pre-sale, the total number of screenings of the film was 65,000, lower than the 80,000 screenings of "Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King", the 72,000 screenings of "Detective Chinatown 1900" and the 67,000 screenings of "Investiture of the Gods Part II: The Battle of Xiqi".
This year's Spring Festival period is regarded as a "battle of survival" by the film industry. The contestants are all absolutely elite. Starting from the second place, the pre-sale box office results of several films are almost closely tied, with a slight gap, which can be regarded as a more objective "basic plate" for this year's Spring Festival period.
"Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King" is the crowning achievement of Chinese animation and is a must-see for many viewers during the Spring Festival. The film almost ranked second on the box office chart on the first day of pre-sale. "Nezha 2" is a super blockbuster with both comedy and visual effects, and it can indeed be called the hexagonal warrior of the Spring Festival: in terms of plot, all the old characters return, and new characters and worldviews are added; in terms of visual effects, it has been made with sincerity for five years, and every shot is worth feeling on the big screen; in terms of core, "Nezha 2" will continue the narrative style of "strong resonance" of the previous film, break through the age barrier, and create a national viewing carnival. Judging from the number of scheduled screenings, the film currently has a clear advantage, which shows the recognition and confidence of the theaters in this IP.
The box office of "Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King" exceeded 30 million on the first day of pre-sale.
New materials have their own highlights and good content work together to attract audiences
As pre-sales start, Spring Festival moviegoers have also gradually stepped up their publicity and promotion efforts, releasing new trailers and materials to further concretize the content of the mysterious Spring Festival light and shadow feast.
The "Why Fight" trailer and the "New Year's Conferred Gods" poster released by "The Second Part of Conferred Gods: War in Xiqi" are full of information. In the trailer, King Yin Shou of Shang (played by Fei Xiang) sent Deng Chanyu (played by Naer Naxi), Tai Shi Wen Zhong (played by Wu Xingguo), the four generals of the Demon Family and other Shang army to conquer Xiqi in order to seize the Conferred God List. Faced with the pressure of the Shang army, Xiqi City, which had not been through war for hundreds of years, was ready for battle. The soldiers and civilians in plain hemp clothes raised the whole city's strength and fought a desperate battle to defend their homes under the leadership of Jiang Ziya (played by Huang Bo) and Ji Fa (played by Yu Shi). In this war, some people fought to the death to defend their homes, some people sacrificed their lives for their mission, and some people did whatever it took to achieve their ambitions...
The film will show how humans will defeat magic in a battle of great disparity. Whether it is the flashing of swords and shadows on the cliffs, the battles in front of the city gates, the desperate defense of the city gates, or the dangers in the canyon, the fight for life, each scene is full of the magnificent temperament of mythological epics. The two camps are fighting with their own beliefs. Who will win will be revealed on the screen on the first day of the Chinese New Year.
Poster of "The Second Part of the Conferred God: War in Xiqi"
"Detective Chinatown 1900" released a "pre-sale version" trailer based on the plot. "Buying tickets is like solving a case, which requires speed and efficiency." All the members of Chinatown are out, including Wang Baoqiang, Liu Haoran, Chow Yun-fat, Bai Ke, Zhang Xincheng, Yue Yunpeng, etc., who are actively participating in the ticket grabbing when the pre-sale starts. The imaginative mashup, cheerful and familiar music, and the crowds calling their friends are full of joy, and also show a lot of comedy, action, and suspense elements.
As a national IP strongly tied to the Spring Festival, the movie "Tang Detective 1900" is the prequel to the "Detective Chinatown" series, and the story is set in San Francisco, where Chinatown originated more than a hundred years ago. With the hard truth that "where there are Chinese, there is the Spring Festival", this setting naturally becomes reasonable. In 1900, without the blessing of modern criminal investigation technology, Ah Gui played by Wang Baoqiang and Qin Fu played by Liu Haoran both have unexpected ways of investigating cases. Ah Gui grew up in a tribe, and he is not only proficient in a variety of "common sense of life", but also inherited the "secret skills" of the tribe. Qin Fu comes from a family of traditional Chinese medicine and has been proficient in medical skills and pharmacology since childhood. How they will flexibly apply their knowledge to the investigation of the case this time will only be revealed in the cinema on the first day of the Lunar New Year.
Poster of Detective Chinatown 1900
The latest trailer of "Operation Jiaolong" was released at the same time as the pre-sale of the film, revealing the core plot: the enemy's "Star Plan" involves a nuclear bomb threat, which will paralyze the entire Asia-Pacific region if it succeeds. The Chinese Navy Submarine Team and the Jiaolong Team were ordered to launch "Operation Jiaolong". They are not only fighting for the country, but also for the peaceful life of every ordinary person.
In the trailer, Huang Xuan and Wang Junkai both said the line "Believe me", conveying the film's sincere invitation to the audience. This "belief" is not only the tacit understanding between the characters, but also the confidence of the creative team in the quality of the film.
However, in the fierce competition of the Spring Festival, the performance of "Operation Jiaolong" is still far from the top four, but the previous work in the same series, "Operation Red Sea", performed a good show of "turning the tide" during the Spring Festival with its super hardcore reputation. Yu Dong, the chief producer of "Operation Jiaolong", believes that "this movie is suitable for all audiences who seek excitement and touching. The escalated battle situation brings unprecedented impact and will give the audience a brand new viewing experience. It is worth every audience to reserve a seat for it on the first day of the Chinese New Year."
Operation Dragon poster
Unlike several other movies that compete to reveal important plots, "Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King" focuses on a "sense of atmosphere". The newly released materials have nothing to do with the plot. The "Meng Zha Sends Blessings" poster symbolizes good luck and fortune during the Spring Festival. In the series of pictures, Meng Zha sends gold ingots, red envelopes, and affixes blessing characters, conveying the auspicious meaning that watching Nezha in the Year of the Snake will surely bring "wealth, luck, and blessings", which is playful and cute.
Poster of Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King
The 19.9 yuan movie ticket returns to normal, the film length and content are increased without increasing the price
On the first day of pre-sale, in addition to the content itself, ticket prices are still a topic of concern to the audience. This year, many viewers noticed that the long-lost 19.9 yuan movie ticket has returned during this Spring Festival.
Opening the ticketing website, you will see that many films including "Detective Chinatown 1900", "Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King", "Fengshen II", "Operation Jiaolong" and so on are marked with a low price of 19.9 yuan. Combined with membership activities and point redemption of other ticketing websites, you can even enjoy buy-one-get-one-free activities for low-priced tickets at the same time. The discount is very sincere.
However, many netizens reported that the areas available for the 19.9 yuan movie tickets are mostly limited to the first row or corner seats in the theater. For this year's blockbusters that generally focus on visual effects, the viewing experience of low-priced tickets may not be ideal. Some viewers, based on their experience of buying tickets during the Spring Festival in previous years, said they planned to wait in the various live broadcast rooms in the future. The film company may release equally attractive coupons in the promotional activities, and they may be able to buy tickets for better seats at an affordable price.
According to data from Lighthouse Professional Edition, the average ticket price for the 3.5 million tickets issued during the Spring Festival is 52 yuan, slightly lower than the levels in 2022 and 2023, but still higher than the average ticket price of 49.1 yuan in 2024.
It is worth mentioning that in terms of "cost-effectiveness", this year's Spring Festival period can be described as "more quantity without increasing prices". The six films are: The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Greatest Hero" is 146 minutes long, "Operation Jiaolong" is 146 minutes long, "Investiture of the Gods Part II: War in Xiqi" is 144 minutes long, "Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King" is 144 minutes long, "Detective Chinatown 1900" is 136 minutes long, and "Boonie Bears: Reboot" is 108 minutes long. Five of the six films are over two hours long, with an average of over 137 minutes, setting a record for the longest average duration of the Spring Festival period in history. At the same time, five of the six films in this year's Spring Festival period are shown on the IMAX big screen, all of which are feasts of audio-visual experience.
The Spring Festival movie season, which has many highlights and is full of sincerity, will officially start in more than a week. How many times do you plan to go to the cinema this year?
