Thirteen new films are clustered in the release schedule without a single breakout hit, is the National Day film season stepping into the "era of no blockbusters" for the first time?
No blockbusters in this National Day film slate.
From 2023 to 2025, the total box office of the holiday schedule has declined for three consecutive years. This year, the overall market is likely to shrink further compared with last year, and the pre-sale phase has shown insufficient momentum: according to data from Lighthouse Professional Edition, as of September 30, the total pre-sale box office (including advance screenings) of new films in the 2026 National Day slate has exceeded 50 million yuan, with only one film *Traces of the Detective* recording a pre-sale box office of over 10 million yuan. At the same time last year, the pre-sale box office had already exceeded 100 million yuan.
Citi's research report points out that investors have low expectations for the National Day slate box office, mainly due to weak consumption and the lack of clear breakout hits, and the long holiday spanning the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day may mean that travel replaces film consumption. The bank predicts that the 2026 National Day slate box office will reach 1.6 billion yuan, down 12% year-on-year. Top Consulting forecasts that the total box office of the 7-day 2026 National Day slate will be around 1.28 billion yuan, down 30% year-on-year. The first-day box office is less than 200 million yuan, compared with 320 million yuan last year. In this context, this year's National Day slate is likely to become the worst-performing one in recent years.
13 new films cover a variety of genres including comedy, crime, animation, thriller, etc., but there are no leading blockbusters with strong appeal, leaving most audiences no reason to watch them "at all costs". As one of the major annual holiday schedules, the National Day slate has entered the "era of mid- and low-budget films" for the first time, and all film and television companies need to adjust their strategies, adopt more flexible layouts, select topics with stronger emotional impact and younger orientation, and try to achieve big returns with small investments.
13 New Films Gather,
Chen Sicheng, Xiao Shenyang Battle Against "Resident Evil"
As the "outpost battle" of the National Day slate, the Mid-Autumn Festival slate has more or less reflected the current market situation.
The top three at the box office are all "old films": *Avengers: Endgame*, *Welcome to Dragon Restaurant*, and *Eight Immortals!* take the top three spots, and *Avengers: Endgame*, which was re-screened seven years after its release, contributed 30% of the box office in the schedule.
Bainian Qiancheng released two backlogged films *Old Rivers and Lakes* and *The Hero of Dunhuang* at one go, and the latter was arranged for release at the last minute, with only 3 days between the official announcement and the public release. Their box office reached over 30 million yuan and less than 20 million yuan respectively, while the rumored total production cost of the two films exceeded 400 million yuan. The previously announced strategies such as IP universe and studio matrix ended up in a bleak situation.
The operation of the Mid-Autumn Festival slate, which features a large number of films but no blockbusters and last-minute scheduling, has extended to the National Day slate. Two weeks before the release, there was no sign of any major blockbusters, and *Battle of Detectives* only reserved a one-week window period for itself. The market fluctuates between hot and cold, and the Matthew effect is intensifying, leading many film producers to choose to "wait and see"; the logic of distribution and promotion has changed, and audiences rely on real word-of-mouth after the release, which makes film producers more inclined to cut pre-release promotion budgets and focus resources to drive audience attention.
Judging from the schedule rhythm, the National Day slate presents a "wave-like fluctuation" trend, with films released in batches in staggered time periods.
The first to be released is *Heart of the Beast* starring Brad Pitt, scheduled for September 30, which tells the story of the extreme survival of a man and a dog, and is more oriented towards film enthusiasts.
Seven new films will be released on the first day of the National Day holiday, including *Vibrant Life* about the love and marriage of silver-haired people, *Battle of Detectives* a Hong Kong-style crime action film starring Louis Koo and Caesar Wu, horror film *Embroidered Shoes in the Ancient Mansion*, and low-age oriented *New Big Head Son and Small Head Father: The Eye of Heaven Series: The Out-of-Control Seventh Day*. Judging from the pre-sale situation, first-day box office and screening arrangement rate, the current top 3 seed players are roughly *Traces of the Detective*, *The What Do You Mean Couple*, and *Peppa Pig: Perfect Holiday*.
*Traces of the Detective* is directed by Chen Sicheng and led by Xinli Pictures. With the strongest star cast in the schedule and the appeal of Chen Sicheng returning to the suspense track, it was once regarded as the top seed. The film is adapted from the real deeds of Cui Daozhi, China's leading trace identification expert and recipient of the July 1 Medal, connecting four major serious crimes spanning nearly half a century. It is positioned to match *The Great Team*, which is also adapted from a real prototype and enjoys good reputation. However, as a realistic themed main melody commercial suspense film, its popularity is not as high as the "social topic + suspense" type with strong emotional impact. It received a 6.8 score on Douban upon release, with public feedback focusing on "episodic structure", "watchable but not surprising".
*The What Do You Mean Couple* is produced by Super Le Infinite Pictures and Maoyan Entertainment, telling a story of "soul swapping". Its advantage is that as "the only comedy in the schedule", it fills the gap of the in-demand genre, plus the national popularity of the couple Xiao Shenyang and Shen Chunyang, and the real sense of their many years of marriage life, the name of the film is easily associated with *Mr. & Mrs. Smith*. However, similar settings have been made too many times, and the sense of freshness is insufficient.
*Peppa Pig: Perfect Holiday* is co-produced by Shanghai Huace Film Co., Ltd. and Hasbro Consumer Products Licensing Limited. It is the first 3D feature film of the series, produced by the original British team, with larger scale and higher IP popularity, directly diverting the target audience of *Big Head Son and Small Head Father*.
On October 3 and October 5, in addition to horror films, two relatively high-profile films will be released respectively, *Reborn 2* and *Resident Evil: Outbreak Night*.
The director of *Reborn 2*, Ma Yuko, has been focusing on action crime and "revenge catharsis films" in recent years. As an outlet for emotional release, although this genre has the limitation of being niche and difficult to break through to the mass market, it has its own fixed audience. The previous film *Raging Tide* grossed 229 million yuan at the box office, and *Reborn* grossed over 400 million yuan. At present, the box office of *Reborn 2* is expected to fall within this range.
*Resident Evil: Outbreak Night* is directed by Zach Cregger, the director of *Weapons*, and it has the highest score in the series, with both reputation and box office exploding overseas. In 2017, *Resident Evil: The Final Chapter* grossed as high as 1.11 billion yuan. As a model of films adapted from game IP, the "Resident Evil" series IP has high popularity in China. At present, the number of people who mark "want to watch" the film on Maoyan has exceeded 200,000, and maybe *Resident Evil: Outbreak Night* can bring unexpected surprises. Its disadvantage is that the release time is not synchronized at home and abroad, and pirated resources are already available online.
Similar to the situation of the Mid-Autumn Festival slate, since the new films are not competitive, old summer blockbusters such as *Welcome to Dragon Restaurant* and *Eight Immortals!* will continue to take part of the National Day slate market share.
The Evolution of the National Day Film Slate: What Do Audiences Love to Watch?
The 2019 National Day film slate is the peak of box office so far — 4.466 billion yuan. Blockbusters such as *My People, My Country* and *The Captain* were released that year, which officially kicked off the era when the National Day slate became the main position for main melody commercial blockbusters, as well as the highlight period of Bona Pictures.
The following year, *The Battle at Lake Changjin* set a record of 3.2 billion yuan. After that, the box office champion's volume kept declining, from *Home Coming* to *Under the Light*, then to *The Volunteers: To the War* and *The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death*, the box office of the top film in the schedule dropped from the 3-billion-yuan level to the 1-billion-yuan level, and then to the 500-million-yuan level. At the same time, the entire industry is contracting, and emerging entertainment forms such as short dramas and short videos are diverting audiences, and the National Day slate has gradually decoupled from main melody blockbusters.
*Operation Jiaolong*, which was invested 1 billion yuan and released twice within the year, ended up with a dismal box office of over 400 million yuan, proving that the traditional strategy of "main melody heavy industry blockbusters" that Bona is good at is no longer suitable for the current market.
Strong national identity and "patriotic emotional resonance" can still resonate with audiences repeatedly, and the 2.0 version of main melody blockbusters still sell well in the new era. However, they are presented with updated narrative perspectives and more complex human nature features, touching the public's emotional points, triggering multi-dimensional topic attention, instead of only focusing on "direct shooting of wars".
*Full River Red* tried the mixed genre of "history + suspense + comedy" similar to murder mystery games, the emotional highlight of the whole film is the full recitation of Yue Fei's ci poem that triggered off-line imitation; *Nanjing Photo Studio* is adapted from real events, reproducing the heavy history of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression with a restrained technique; *Welcome to Dragon Restaurant* focuses on children in the Middle East, showing the kindness and justice of Chinese people, as well as the value of "eating well".
None of these three films were scheduled for the National Day slate, but chose the Spring Festival slate with wider audience coverage or the summer slate with longer fermentation time, and finally achieved good results. Considering that watching movies costs more time and money and has a higher threshold than watching short dramas, audiences now focus on strong and novel experience, instead of only paying for emotional resonance.
Corresponding to the changes of the National Day slate is the recent "AI transformation" move of Bona Pictures, the "main melody giant". Recently, Bona Pictures' first AI-produced theatrical film *Sanxingdui: Past and Future* was announced to be released on October 23. The film has a total duration of 100 minutes, which is the first domestic theatrical film produced with AI technology and obtained the public release license from the National Film Administration. The news once drove the stock prices of many companies with AI-related layouts such as Bona Pictures, Mango Super Media, Inse Group, and Huace Film to rise. Its final quality will soon be tested by the public.
What kind of content do audiences really need?
Looking back at the entire summer slate, some new phenomena are worth noting. *The Backrooms* and *Obsession*, both led by Gen Z creators, attracted a large number of young peers, becoming hits with extremely high input-output ratio of the year, proving that the industry urgently needs to introduce new creative forces, and also confirming that during the film industry adjustment period and the social and economic adjustment period, the thriller and horror genre is the most likely to produce dark horses. With Halloween coming this month, a large number of thriller and horror films will be released during and after the National Day slate, but almost all of them are small-budget works. To reproduce the dark horse miracle like *Alien: Romulus*, IP popularity is still required.
Another phenomenal work is *Here Comes Niu*, which is a "crude work" made by non-professional creators, became popular for its abstract painting style and novelty of appreciating ugliness, attracting a large number of young people to watch it. The miracle of *Here Comes Niu* is difficult to replicate, but it is a film that purely belongs to the Internet era. Its viral social media spread path relying on secondary creation and meme playing to achieve magical promotion is worthy of reference for distribution and promotion teams.
There is not much time left for this year's National Day slate. At present, imported blockbusters are mostly expected to take the responsibility of boosting the market at the end of the year: *Avengers 5* and *Dune 3* have both been officially announced to be introduced in the Chinese mainland.
With media transformation and technological impact, the old content carriers have not disappeared, but coexist with new entertainment forms, and differentiated content still gets real money votes from audiences. When the bubble and noise fade away, and capital recedes, the only thing that can retain audiences is content of sufficiently high quality.