Chen Hongtao： Empowering cinemas from multiple angles to create more quality master works.

Special feature of 1905 film network The popularity of the Spring Festival in 2023 exceeded expectations. 6.758 billion box office, 129 million movie-goers, helped China mainland film market to surpass the 10 billion mark in January, creating the highest box office record in the same period in history.

As the forerunner of the whole industrial chain model, WANDA CINEMAS felt the signal of the coming of "spring" in the film industry in advance.In the Spring Festival of 2023, the data of attendance, attendance rate and overall box office of Wanda Cinema were eye-catching. In Beijing, Shanghai and Taiyuan, a total of four Wanda Studios ranked in the TOP10 box office list of the National Cinema Spring Festival.

In order to thoroughly publicize and implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, on the occasion of the convening of the two sessions of the National People’s Congress, the film channel will launch "Blue Feather Meeting Room" at 22:00 every night — — Dialogue spring. Lan Yu, the host, talked with the heads of China film leading enterprises and wrote a new look of China film from different angles.

In this program, Lan Yu talks with Chen Hongtao, CEO of WANDA CINEMAS, focusing on the new measures to upgrade the viewing environment in WANDA CINEMAS, the new achievements of empowering cinemas from multiple angles, and the new progress of key projects in the future.

Actively explore the film derivatives market

Cinema+Multi-format Integration Broadens Revenue Channels

At present, the domestic film derivatives market is still in the "blue ocean" state, with great commercial value potential. In the Spring Festival of 2023, the crowdfunding amount of surrounding derivatives exceeded 120 million yuan, and the number of transactions exceeded 580,000, which triggered a heated discussion.

When Lan Yu, the host, visited the CBD store of Wanda Studios, a trendy shop in the waiting space attracted her attention. There are many domestic and foreign movie IP derivatives for sale. According to the staff in the store, the best sales of derivatives at present are.

As early as 2016, WANDA CINEMAS has laid out the film derivatives market. At that time, when the company wholly acquired Time Network, it wanted to use the audience base of movie fans accumulated by the website for many years to vigorously expand the film derivatives business.

On February 3 this year,WANDA CINEMAS said on the investor relations platform that during the Spring Festival, the IP series of "Buer Rabbit", "Bao Ke Meng", The Wandering Earth and the peripheral products of "Bears Come and Go" all had good sales performance.

In addition to Chaowan Store, Wanda Studios also launched a script killing related business. As a popular reasoning game among young people, script killing is closely related to the film and television industry. At present, many cinema movie IPS are authorized to be developed into scripts.

"Because the script killing is closely related to the movie, for example, after the movie is released, the offline script is killed here." Chen Hongtao said that it is also a good choice for the audience to play a game of script killing after watching the movie.Judging from the actual sales volume, the main theme scripts such as "Red Rock" and "Guardian of Dawn" are also very popular among young people.

In the past, all kinds of clues in the script killing needed to be explained by the host on the spot, and the cost was not low. When the scripts in Wanda Studios kill venues, such clues are projected in front of players through multimedia equipment, which saves time and effort and saves costs. In addition, the script can also realize the conversion of more scene functions according to the actual needs.

At present, WANDA CINEMAS is building an online script killing platform named "Enough Fun", which is expected to be launched in April this year.

"We have always paid more attention to the scene, experience and atmosphere of watching movies, because now when everyone comes to watch movies, it is not just a movie, but also a gathering of friends and other scenes, including our marriage proposal, talk shows and children’s performances. There are also many." Chen Hongtao bluntly said that WANDA CINEMAS is actively exploring the unlocking of more application scenes in cinemas. Empower the cinema from more angles.

Build 100 CINITY cinemas in three or four years.

Create more masterworks of China stories.

"Overall, this year’s Spring Festival file should be said to be a very positive signal. The overall box office is nearly 6.76 billion. I think we are still quite satisfied.Participated in the production of "Wandering Earth 2" and "Bears Come and Go with My Bear Core" also achieved good results.. Talking about the Spring Festival in 2023, Chen Hongtao’s words are full of joy.

At present, the cumulative box office of Wandering Earth 2 has reached 3.985 billion yuan, and it is expected to break through the 4 billion yuan mark this weekend. The cumulative box office of "Permanent Guest" and "Bear with My Bear" in the Spring Festival has reached 1.451 billion yuan, creating the highest box office record for animated films in the Spring Festival in China.

In addition, during the Spring Festival, the performance of WANDA CINEMAS cinema business sector has also made some progress. According to statistics,During the Spring Festival in 2023, the overall attendance of Wanda Cinema reached 17.37 million, with an average attendance rate of 41.9%, and the overall box office revenue reached 1.05 billion yuan, accounting for 15.5% of the total market.

Behind this achievement, WANDA CINEMAS contributed a lot to the upgrading of cinema hardware. As we all know, the hardware facilities of a cinema often become the key to affect the audience’s viewing experience. In 2022, a number of flagship stores under Wanda Cinema introduced the latest IMAX equipment. This is very beneficial to improve the viewing effect of many Spring Festival blockbusters.

In addition, Chen Hongtao also revealed that the company has also upgraded its equipment for its PRIME Cinema and CINITY Cinema. Among them, CINITY Cinema uses a high-standard projection system with independent intellectual property rights in China. WANDA CINEMAS is very supportive of the development of domestic products. It is estimated that the number of CINITY cinemas in Wanda Cinema will be expanded to 100 in the next three or four years.

With the development of the times, the cinema has become an important place for the offline announcement of movies. How to innovate the form and content of roadshows has become a thinking question for WANDA CINEMAS. In this regard, the company has also made many attempts. For example, at the premiere, the team adopted the online live broadcast mode to simultaneously transmit the roadshow information to many places in the country. In order to match the sci-fi theme of the film, the company also specially selected a studio with the metauniverse as the background for live broadcast.

At the upstream content production end of the film industry, it has become the direction of WANDA CINEMAS to produce more masterful works that tell China culture and stories well.In the past, a series of three works with a total box office of 8.743 billion yuan became the representative of such excellent works in WANDA CINEMAS.

Regarding the production progress of detective chinatown series follow-up works and detective chinatown 4, which the public is more concerned about, Chen Hongtao admits that it is still in the process of further planning and creation. In the future, the company will gradually release some new news, so please keep your attention.

At present, the company’s participation in the production has been scheduled for April 1. The cinema films produced by the company are also expected to meet the audience in 2023.

"In the cinema, in the process of watching movies, you will find your ideal and pursue your dreams, so we think that the spring of China movies is such a picture, which will get better and better, and tomorrow will get better and better." Chen Hongtao shared his views on the vision of "spring" in China movies. With a hundred flowers blooming and a hundred schools of thought singing, the development of China’s films will also make by going up one flight of stairs.