According to a 2025 Chinese film market data report, the industry's polarization effect remained significant. The film "Ne Zha 2: The Devil Boy Challenges the Sea" accounted for nearly one-third of the annual box office, heavily influencing annual user demographics and highlighting growing market structure imbalances. Market reliance on a very small number of major projects intensified, with concentration at the top increasing, mid-tier films continuing to decline, and genre and scale polarization worsening. Consequently, the average movie-going frequency continued to drop, the proportion of young viewers kept decreasing, and several highly anticipated large-scale commercial productions underperformed at the box office.
Data showed the national box office (including service fees) reached 51.832 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.98%, with 1.238 billion admissions, up 22.64% year-on-year. "Ne Zha 2" alone contributed 15.446 billion yuan in box office, accounting for 29.80% of the annual total. However, only 48 new films surpassed 100 million yuan in box office revenue, 24 fewer than the previous year, primarily due to a lack of mid-tier films with box office earnings between 100 million and 500 million yuan. The box office structure became more concentrated towards top-performing films, with small and medium-sized productions contributing less.
By April 29, four A-share listed companies primarily engaged in film investment, production, and distribution had disclosed their 2025 annual reports. Combined, they reported total annual revenue of 9.515 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 37.06%, and aggregate net profit attributable to shareholders of 1.048 billion yuan, a substantial surge of 13,569% year-on-year.
Specifically, Huayi Brothers Media Corporation experienced a comprehensive decline in performance. China Film Co., Ltd. and Beijing Jingxi Culture & Tourism Co., Ltd. saw revenue growth but not profit growth, with revenue increases only in the single digits while net profit decreases reached double or even triple digits. In contrast, Beijing Enlight Media Co.,Ltd. reported triple-digit growth in both revenue and net profit, achieving its highest operating performance since listing.
On the surface, Beijing Enlight Media was the biggest and only winner in the film investment sector for 2025, largely due to the animated feature "Ne Zha 2," which it primarily invested in and controlled, contributing nearly one-third of the annual box office. The film generated between 950 million and 1.01 billion yuan in revenue for the company by its seventh day of release.
In the first quarter of 2025, Beijing Enlight Media's revenue reached 2.975 billion yuan, nearly equaling the sum of its 2023 and 2024 full-year revenues, accounting for 73.64% of its total annual revenue. Essentially, "Ne Zha 2" single-handedly supported 70% of the company's annual revenue. Dependence was even more pronounced on the profit side; first-quarter net profit attributable to shareholders was 2.016 billion yuan, while the full-year figure was 1.672 billion yuan, meaning the first quarter accounted for 120.57% of the annual profit.
Quarterly breakdown shows revenues of 2.975 billion yuan, 267 million yuan, 374 million yuan, and 424 million yuan for the first through fourth quarters, respectively. Net profits were 2.015 billion yuan, 213 million yuan, 106 million yuan, and a loss of 691 million yuan for the same periods. Starting from the second quarter, the phenomenon of increasing revenue without corresponding profit growth became severe. Revenue continued to grow, but net profit declined, culminating in a significant loss in the fourth quarter.
Calculated gross margins for the first to fourth quarters were 78.32%, 77.90%, 29.68%, and 5.42%, respectively. The second-quarter margin was similar to the first and significantly higher than the same period in 2024. However, the third quarter saw a sudden plunge to 29.68%, a drop of 48.22 percentage points from the previous quarter, followed by a sharp decrease to single digits in the fourth quarter.
Besides the significant gross margin decline, Beijing Enlight Media recognized asset impairment provisions totaling 672 million yuan concentrated in the fourth quarter. This included 222 million yuan for inventory write-downs and impairment of contract fulfillment costs, and 451 million yuan for impairment of long-term equity investments.
Regarding inventory, the company recorded impairment provisions of 128 million yuan for development products, 83.7869 million yuan for work in progress, and 9.8682 million yuan for development costs.
For long-term equity investments, Beijing Enlight Media primarily recorded a 409 million yuan impairment provision for its investment in Maoyan Entertainment, bringing the ending balance of impairment provisions for this investment to 1.441 billion yuan. Other long-term equity investment projects affected by impairment included Zhejiang Qiji Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing Daqian Yangguang Digital Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing Twenty-Four Culture Media Co., Ltd., and Magic One Day International Media (Beijing) Co., Ltd.
On the same day it released its 2025 annual report, Beijing Enlight Media reported its worst first-quarter results in nearly a decade.
For the first quarter of 2026, the company's revenue was 191 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 93.58% and a sequential decrease of 54.95%, marking the weakest first-quarter revenue in ten years. Net profit attributable to shareholders was 23.2756 million yuan, down 98.85% year-on-year. Net profit attributable to shareholders after deducting non-recurring items was 9.4194 million yuan, a decrease of 99.53%. Net cash flow from operating activities was negative 21.527 million yuan, down 100.44%. The weighted average return on equity was 0.23%, a decrease of 20.40 percentage points year-on-year.
During the first quarter of 2026, films that Beijing Enlight Media invested in, distributed, and recognized box office revenue for within the reporting period included "Just Going to Work," "Pegasus 3," "Awakening Silence," and "Back to the Wolf Pack" (re-release). The total box office for these films by the end of the reporting period was approximately 5.731 billion yuan.
According to industry statistics, the 2026 Spring Festival box office was 5.752 billion yuan, down 39.5% year-on-year, with total admissions of 120 million, down 35.8% year-on-year. Lacking a major blockbuster with strong appeal and high popularity, overall performance during the holiday period was mediocre, with only "Pegasus 3" meeting industry expectations.
However, data shows "Pegasus 3" had 16 co-producers, with Beijing Enlight Media being just one participant. The film's total revenue share was 3.974 billion yuan, with the production side receiving 1.557 billion yuan. The majority was taken by nine lead producers, leaving the remaining portion, likely minimal, to be shared among co-producers like Beijing Enlight Media. The situation for "Awakening Silence" was worse, with four producers and 32 co-producers sharing a smaller total revenue share of 477 million yuan.
Among the four films, the only one produced by Beijing Enlight Media was the comedy "Just Going to Work," which performed very poorly at the box office. Its cumulative box office was 14.237 million yuan, with a revenue share for the production side of only 4.661 million yuan, raising questions about its ability to recoup costs.
Beyond the decline in its main business, Beijing Enlight Media's industrial investment projects also generated a net loss of 31.6681 million yuan, further impacting its performance.
Regarding its film pipeline, on March 25, Beijing Enlight Media stated that it has projects ready for release in 2026, including "Article 17," "Three Hearts Two Minds," "Go to Your Island," "The Female Radical," "Little Circle Classmate," "Lively and Fragrant," "My Girlfriend," and "Forty-Four Astringent Persimmons." Among these, the comedy "Three Hearts Two Minds" is scheduled for a Labor Day release, while the others await suitable release dates. For television/online series, the company is advancing preliminary development work for "Spring Feast."
It is worth noting that "Go to Your Island" faced backlash when its first AI-generated poster was released in March 2023, criticized for its AI origin and lack of originality, with some noting similarities to Hayao Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle."
The quality of the upcoming "Three Hearts Two Minds" has also raised concerns among viewers. Public information indicates the director is Wu Yang, whose only previous feature film, "I Really Hate Long-Distance Relationships," has a rating of 4.4 on Douban, rated better than only 9% of romance films, and which "won" the 14th Golden Broom Award. Under these circumstances, the director appears to have limited box office appeal.
The lead screenwriter credited for "Three Hearts Two Minds" is Dong Qiuyan, who was the second credited screenwriter for the online series "Sweet First Love," which has a Douban rating of 4.7. Dong Qiuyan is also the screenwriter for another of Beijing Enlight Media's pipeline films, "Little Circle Classmate."
"Forty-Four Astringent Persimmons" had its world premiere as the closing film of the 16th FIRST International Film Festival on August 4, 2022, but has yet to secure a mainland theatrical release nearly three and a half years later, leaving its potential release in 2026 uncertain.
"Lively and Fragrant" is a co-production between Pearl River Film Group and Beijing Renjian Yanhuo Culture Technology Co., Ltd. Public records indicate that Beijing Renjian Yanhuo Culture Technology was added to the business anomalies list by the Beijing Chaoyang District Market Regulatory Administration in October last year for failing to publish its annual report within the period stipulated by regulations.
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