Spring Festival, the first blockbuster film season of 2020, is around the corner. Chinese box office pre-sales ahead of the holiday currently total at nearly 400 million yuan, demonstrating the market's expectation. It has been predicted that total box office sales during Spring Festival in 2020 will hit 10 billion yuan.

But, the combination of delayed pre-sales, rising ticket prices, early releases and the new coronavirus pneumonia outbreak has made this year's Spring Festival film market full of uncertainty.

Spring Festival films encounter 'black swan'

Recently, the confirmed cases of pneumonia caused by a new virus first detected in central China has climbed to more than 400. It has spread to many other places in the country, and experts are reminding people to safeguard personal health, pay attention to indoor sanitation and air circulation, and try to reduce crowded public activities.

However, cinemas fit the bill of such "closed, airless public places and crowded places." The epidemic will undoubtedly reduce Chinese film fans' willingness to watch films in the cinema.

Nearly 190,000 netizens said they might not watch movies during the Spring Festival holiday because of experts' advice on preventing coronavirus, according to a poll published by the 21st Century Business Herald on Weibo on Monday.

According to data from Dengta, a Chinese film data platform, the climb of "Detective Chinatown 3"'s pre-sales after January 20 slowed sharply. "Lost in Russia" also showed a similar trend, taking only 646,600 yuan in new pre-sales on Tuesday.

Also, some cinema customers have refunded their tickets before these two films have been released. 1 percent of potential customers of "Detective Chinatown 3" and 1.1 percent of those planning to see "Lost in Russia" refunded their tickets for the first day of the Lunar New Year, January 25.

Pre-sale dates and fares

Taking the 2019 Spring Festival as an example, more than 30 million people went to the cinema on the first day of the lunar year. This year's pre-sale period for Spring Festival films is the latest in history.

The pre-sale period started on January 18 this year, about ten days later than in previous years. As of noon on January 21, "Detective Chinatown 3" led the way with total pre-release box office takings of 200 million yuan, while the remaining films didn't even break 50 million yuan.

In addition, the average film ticket price for this year's Spring Festival season is higher than in previous years. In September 2018, according to the new rules, all online film ticket subsidies were stopped, which means that people who buy movie tickets online will no longer be able to enjoy cheap tickets.

According to the China Film Administration, the average film ticket price for the 2018 Spring Festival was 35.5 yuan per ticket, and for the 2019 Spring Festival it was 44.9 yuan, while the average ticket price on the first day of the Lunar New Year this time around is now about 52.3 yuan.

Liu He, a film critic, said that judging from the audience's response to the above films, it should not be a problem to increase box office sales during the Spring Festival holiday of 2020. But, there is some uncertainty about how much growth will be achieved.