BEIJING, April 28 (Xinhua) -- At least 17 new movies will be screened on the Chinese mainland during this year's May Day holiday period from April 29 to May 3.

 

The five-day holiday could potentially be one of the most lucrative May Day holidays, as this is the first such holiday after China optimized its epidemic response late last year.

 

The presale box office of the new releases punched through the 200 million yuan (around 28.9 million U.S. dollars) mark on Thursday, the China Film News, an industry publication under the China Film Administration, said in a post on China's Twitter-like platform Sina Weibo, citing box office tracker Dengta Data.

 

Industry optimists projected a box office gross of up to 3 billion yuan over the period, the China Film News said Monday.

 

The box office record for the holiday period was set in 2021 and stands at 1.67 billion yuan.

 

A FEAST FOR MOVIEGOERS

 

A cornucopia of movies awaits film enthusiasts, with genres ranging from action, comedy and crime to suspense, romance and animation.

 

"Born to Fly," a "Top Gun"-style production, turns a rare spotlight on the test pilots of the country's Air Force. It tells a story of how elite pilots rubbed shoulders with death during the test flights of China's cutting-edge fighters to help collect data under extreme conditions.

 

The movie smashed the presale record for the May Day holiday period over the past five years on Tuesday with a box office of more than 70 million yuan, according to China Film News. As of Friday morning, the total revenue, including presale earnings, amounted to 121 million yuan, according to Dengta Data.

 

The movie is considered the most anticipated film of the holiday period. Netizens were wowed by its razzle-dazzle and expressed their excitement in the comment section of the film's official account on Sina Weibo. "My face has been wet with tears," wrote one netizen.

 

On the second spot of the Dengta Data box office chart for new releases is "All These Years," a romance drama adapted from a namesake novel by Liu Wanhui. Together with presale revenues, the movie has raked in 40.23 million yuan at the box office.

 

"Godspeed," a domestic road comedy, came in third on the leaderboard with a box office of 23.54 million yuan as of Friday morning.

 

According to a poll by Dengta Data involving six leading media outlets, the median estimates for box office revenue were 942 million yuan for "Born to Fly," 519 million yuan for "Godspeed," and 318 million yuan for "All These Years" during the holiday period.

 

RECOVERY OF MARKET

 

Market optimism is not without basis. Over the course of the Spring Festival holiday, Chinese cinemas recorded a staggering 129 million attendances, resulting in a combined box office revenue of 6.76 billion yuan in just seven days.

 

It was the second highest grossing period to date on the movie season's tally, indicating a resilient upward momentum of the market following a hibernation forced by COVID-19, analysts said.

 

March is traditionally a slow month for foot traffic at cinemas, yet this month saw 35 new movies hit theaters on the Chinese mainland. These movies generated a combined box office revenue of 1.9 billion yuan, up 108.87 percent year on year, according to the China Film News.

 

"There are clear signs of market recovery," said Chen Jin, an analyst with Dengta Data.

 

The box office revenue for April crossed the mark of 1 billion yuan in the first nine days of the month and had reached 2.1 billion yuan by Friday, buoyed in part by the nostalgia-filled film "The First Slam Dunk," and domestic action comedy "Ride On."

 

SQUEEZE FROM IMPORTED RIVALS

 

Despite the optimism, analysts said the performance of the movie season faces pressure from foreign films released right ahead of and after the holiday.

 

Released on April 20, the Japanese manga adaption "The First Slam Dunk" has amassed 441 million yuan on the Chinese mainland, according to the China Movie Data Information Network. It is expected to have significant staying power during the May Day holiday.

 

Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" is set to release on May 5 and "Fast X," the latest installment in the Fast and Furious action franchise, will hit Chinese theaters on May 17.

 

Imported movies, however, failed to meet market expectations in the first quarter despite the traction of Marvel comics adaptations, said experts. The Chinese market generated a combined box office revenue of nearly 16 billion yuan in the first quarter, according to the China Film News. Domestic films contributed 14.1 billion yuan, up 6.5 percent year on year.

 

It has become an undisputed fact that the development of Marvel-led American comics adaptations has been stuck in a bottleneck, said Sun Jiashan, an associate researcher at the Chinese National Academy of Arts.

 

As American society has experienced a significant shift towards conservatism in recent years, values such as isolationism and populism have started to influence the movie-making industry in the United States. Such a cultural divergence makes their productions increasingly unpalatable for Chinese audiences, Sun said.

 

Fu Haifang, general manager of a cinema line company in east China's Zhejiang Province, attributed the dull performance of Hollywood movies in the first quarter to factors including the growing maturity of Chinese audiences and the absence of Hollywood blockbusters during the period.