47 billion! In 2021, China’s box office won the global championship, and three major problems need to be solved urgently.

　On the last day of 2021, driven by a number of blockbuster new films such as Hug You Through the Winter, Anti-Corruption Storm 5: The Final Chapter, and popular old films such as manslaughter 2, Love Myth and Lion Boy, the China mainland film market closed at 537.16 million yuan, slightly breaking the box office record of 537 million yuan on December 31 last year, setting a new high in the history of China film in the same period.

According to the box office data of Cat’s Eye Professional Edition, in 2021, the box office of China mainland movies closed at 47.03 billion yuan (about 7.4 billion US dollars). According to the box office statistics website Comscore, the box office in the United States will reach 4.4 billion dollars in 2021. After 2020, China film market won the global box office championship.

However, in 2021, the single-chip global box office champion is no longer a China film: Spider-Man: No Return of Heroes, which was released on December 17, won the global annual box office champion with a total of 1.16 billion US dollars (about 7.4 billion yuan) by December 29, and later surpassed The Battle at Lake Changjin (5.772 billion yuan).

On December 31st, 2021, under the haze of COVID-19 epidemic, the film market in China Mainland earned 537.16 million yuan at the box office, which broke the box office record of 537 million yuan on December 31st last year with a slight advantage, and drew a powerful full stop for the box office performance of the whole year.

According to the box office data of Cat’s Eye Professional Edition, in 2021, the box office of mainland movies in China was 47.03 billion yuan, an increase of 130% compared with 20.417 billion yuan in 2020, and the box office exceeded 45.712 billion yuan in 2016. The market has obviously recovered. However, since the number of national screens in 2016 was only over 41,000, the number of national screens in October last year exceeded 80,000, the box office output of a single screen still dropped significantly.

In 2021, the world’s major film markets will continue to be strongly impacted by the COVID-19 epidemic, and the market recovery is far less than that of China. According to the box office statistics website Comscore, in 2021, the box office in the United States was 4.4 billion dollars, far less than the 7.4 billion dollars in mainland China. Therefore, after 2020, China film market won the global box office champion.

The fly in the ointment is that in 2021, the single-chip global box office champion is no longer a China film. Spider-Man: No Return of Heroes, which was released on December 17th, earned a global box office of 1.16 billion US dollars (about 7.4 billion RMB) by December 29th, and then overtook The Battle at Lake Changjin (5.772 billion RMB) to win the annual global box office champion.

In 2020, The Eight Hundred won the global annual box office champion with a box office of 3.11 billion yuan, which was the first time that a China film won the championship, which excited countless fans.

In 2021, Detective Chinatown 3, Hi, Mom and The Battle at Lake Changjin successively occupied the global box office champion throne. The Battle at Lake Changjin, in particular, remained at the top of the list until December 23rd, only eight days before the end of the year.

Unexpectedly, with the release of the Hollywood blockbuster "Spider-Man: No Return of Heroes" on December 17th and its best-selling in North America and around the world, especially its super-high box office in overseas movie markets, it quickly helped it to complete its counterattack in the last few days of the year.

As of December 29th, the global box office of Spider-Man: No Return of Heroes totaled 1.16 billion US dollars (about 7.4 billion yuan), and then it overtook The Battle at Lake Changjin (5.772 billion yuan) and won the annual global box office champion.

Looking back on 2021, China’s film and film market were mixed.

On the one hand, thanks to the strong prevention and control measures of the Chinese government, our film market has recovered rapidly, winning the global box office championship for two consecutive years and becoming the largest film market in the world.

At the same time, China filmmakers are becoming more and more familiar with the operation of the new mainstream blockbusters to express the values of the main theme and meet the aesthetic needs of ordinary audiences. The Battle at Lake Changjin broke the box office record of Wolf Warriors 2 (5.694 billion yuan) for four years and won the box office title of China film history with a box office score of 5.772 billion yuan.

On the other hand, China films are still facing many difficulties. Especially after we clearly put forward the goal of building a cultural power by 2035, it is even more urgent to solve these problems. Among them, judging from the creation and market performance of China films in 2021, there are at least three major problems to be solved urgently:

First of all, it is urgent for China’s films to spread overseas and expand overseas markets. Only by occupying a box office share commensurate with the film power in the overseas film market can we build a real film power.

Secondly, in 2021, the film market in China is seriously polarized, and the box office of a few head blockbusters is getting higher and higher, but the box office of most small and medium-sized films is very bleak; The box office of the Spring Festival, National Day and other important schedules has hit record highs, but the box office of ordinary days has been hovering at a low level for a long time.

In the new year, how should we reduce the excessive dependence of China’s film market on head films and festival schedules? This is an important topic, because China’s films need the high original support of the whole film industry, whether they are creative or peak in the market, otherwise it will not be a healthy film ecology and market.

Third, we need to have a more dialectical understanding and understanding of the main theme and positive energy film creation. The author believes that as long as they adhere to the people-centered creative orientation, show the true, the good and the beautiful, and lash the false, the evil and the ugly, they are all new mainstream films that carry forward the main theme and positive energy.

Recently, when director Zheng Xiaolong attended a conference in Macau, he thought that tragedies such as Hamlet, Les Miserables and The True Story of Ah Q and other works that castigate the false, the evil and the ugly were positive energy or negative energy. Indeed, it will make the audience feel painful and uncomfortable, but the impulse to promote social progress after the audience watches the movie is huge positive energy.

Therefore, we need to have a more dialectical understanding and understanding of the creation of films with the main theme and positive energy, especially those films that want to spread overseas and face the global film market, and we need to express the common feelings of human beings, carry forward the truth, goodness and beauty, and lash out at the false, evil and ugly.

I hope that in the near future, the overseas box office of China films will also surpass the local box office.