Is the box office stable during the Spring Festival? Listed film companies are showing off their ace IP sequels, industry insiders expect box office to exceed last year.

"Tang Detective, Nezha, Fengshen... Popular IPs are returning, and listed film companies are all showing their ace cards for the 2025 Spring Festival box office. This year's Spring Festival box office is entering the preheating period earlier than in previous years. Although there are still more than two weeks until the Spring Festival box office, Caixin reporters noticed that some cinemas in Shanghai have already put up promotional materials for the new films of the Spring Festival box office in their ticket halls. According to data from Maoyan Professional Edition, 7 films have already been scheduled for the 2025 Spring Festival box office, with a total Maoyan want-to-see count exceeding 2 million. Wanda Film Holding's "Tang Detective 1900," Beijing Enlight Media's "Nezha: The Devil Child Wreaks Havoc," and China Film Co., Ltd.'s "The Heroic Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Great Hero" are ranked in the top three of the Maoyan want-to-see list for the Spring Festival box office. Many industry insiders told Caixin reporters that considering the size of the scheduled films and their accumulated audience, as well as the fact that the 2025 Spring Festival box office will last for eight days, the box office during this period is expected to surpass that of the same period last year, setting a new record in the history of Chinese Spring Festival box office. Listed film companies showcase their top IP sequels at the Spring Festival box office As of now, seven new films including "Tang Detective 1990," "Nezha: The Devil Child Wreaks Havoc," "The Heroic Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Great Hero," "Fengshen Part 2: The War of Western Qi," "Boonie Bears: Rebooted Future," "Jiaolong Operation," and "Ji Wu" have been scheduled to be released at the 2025 Spring Festival box office, making the lineup quite luxurious. A major highlight of this year's Spring Festival box office is the top listed film companies betting on their projects. Companies like Wanda Film Holding (002739.SZ), Beijing Enlight Media (300251.SZ), China Film Co., Ltd. (600977.SH), Beijing Jingxi Culture & Tourism (000802.SZ), and Bona Film Group (001330.SZ) all have films in the Spring Festival box office. Among them, Beijing Enlight Media still dominates the production and distribution of "Nezha: The Devil Child Wreaks Havoc." This film is a sequel to the animated film "Nezha: The Devil Child Rises" released in 2019, which created a box office miracle of 5 billion yuan and took the mainland box office champion that year, bringing substantial profits to Beijing Enlight Media. Also continuing successful IP sequels are Beijing Jingxi Culture & Tourism's "Fengshen Part 2: The War of Western Qi," Wanda Film Holding's "Tang Detective 1900," and Bona Film Group's "Jiaolong Operation." Beijing Jingxi Culture & Tourism's "Fengshen Part 2: The War of Western Qi" is the prequel to the three-part "Fengshen" series, with the previous installment "Fengshen Part 1: The Wind of Chang'an" released in 2023, accumulating a box office of 2.6 billion yuan; "Tang Detective 1900" is a prequel to the "Detective Chinatown" series, with "Detective Chinatown 2" and "Detective Chinatown 3" released in the Spring Festival box offices of 2018 and 2021 respectively, achieving box office revenues of 3.3 billion yuan and 4.5 billion yuan; "Jiaolong Operation" continues the story of its predecessor "Operation Red Sea," released during the 2018 Spring Festival box office, which became the box office champion of the mainland that year with 3.6 billion yuan. In the 2025 Spring Festival box office, China Film Co., Ltd.'s "The Heroic Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Great Hero" and Huawen Fantasia's "Boonie Bears: Rebooted Future" are also worth attention. The former is based on the well-known martial arts novel by Jin Yong, while the latter is the 11th film in the Boonie Bears series, which has been landing in the Spring Festival box office for 8 consecutive years. According to Maoyan Professional Edition data, as of the publication date, the cumulative want-to-see count for the 2025 Spring Festival box office has exceeded 2 million, with "Tang Detective 1900," "Nezha: The Devil Child Wreaks Havoc," and "The Heroic Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Great Hero" ranking in the top three of the Maoyan want-to-see list for the Spring Festival box office. Industry insiders expect the box office to exceed last year's, with the first-day box office being crucial After the failure of the 2024 summer box office and the dullness of the National Day box office, the film market urgently needs a boost, and this year's Spring Festival box office has become a key moment for the entire industry to bring back the market and get audiences back to the theaters. "The Spring Festival box office is generally the largest ticket warehouse in the annual film market and is also the most likely period to produce films with high box office revenues," a film distributor told Caixin reporters. This year's scheduled films for the Spring Festival box office mostly have heavy IP endorsements or support from high box office previous installments, and they all have a large fan base with diverse genres and themes. Caixin reporters were told by Maoyan Entertainment market analyst Lai Li that overall, the 2025 Spring Festival box office is indeed a fiercely competitive season. It is hoped that these big films can bring audiences back to the theaters and give the film market a good start this year. Another industry expert told Caixin reporters that the concentrated release of high-quality content will effectively boost audience enthusiasm for watching movies, promote market demand and box office recovery, and drive improvement in the performance of related listed companies. Taking into account the judgments of several industry insiders, it is estimated that the total box office for the 2025 Spring Festival box office is expected to fall within the range of 8.3 billion to 9 billion yuan, surpassing the record of the Chinese Spring Festival box office in the same period last year (80.16 billion yuan). If the audience demand remains optimistic, the final box office results may exceed expectations. However, the actual box office still needs to consider factors such as the number of viewers and the reputation of the films after release. "(There is a high possibility of surpassing last year's Spring Festival box office), the specific data is hard to judge right now, we still need to see the first-day box office and the word-of-mouth of the films after release," a film industry expert told Caixin reporters. Yudong, founder, chairman, and CEO of Bona Film Group, recently told the media in an interview that if the first-day box office of the 2025 Spring Festival box office can exceed 1.7 billion yuan, then the total box office of the entire Spring Festival box office will...".The box office performance is "stable".According to the data from the National Film Administration, the national box office on the first day of the 2021 Spring Festival (February 12th, the first day of the first lunar month) exceeded 1.7 billion yuan, still the highest record for single-day box office on the first day of the lunar new year. This article is reposted from "CaiLian Society", edited by GMTEight: Jiang Yuanhua.