Many movies have huge revenue, but the revenue gap is still deep.
Vietnamese cinema in 2024 has many bright spots. That is the rise of a number of Vietnamese films with outstanding revenue, even surpassing foreign films, such as films by Tran Thanh and Ly Hai.
These two directors created a box office fever in the first half of 2024. At the beginning of the year, the film "Mai" opened the Vietnamese Tet film race with 520 billion VND in revenue. The work surpassed "Nha Ba Nu" (459 billion VND), becoming the highest-grossing film in history. The revenue of the above two films along with "Bo Gia" (395 billion VND) shows that Tran Thanh is a force that is difficult to usurp in Vietnamese cinema at this time when all of his projects are big successes, achieving great achievements.
After “Mai”, Ly Hai’s “Lat mat 7: Mot giau uoc” brought in a sky-high revenue of 482 billion VND. The film surpassed Tran Thanh’s “Nha ba Nu” to climb to the top 2 highest-grossing Vietnamese films of all time.
In addition to films with outstanding revenue such as "Mai" and "Lat mat 7", Vietnamese cinema in 2024 also witnessed the participation of films with good revenue, many of which exceeded 100 billion VND such as: "Get rich with ghosts" (128 billion VND), "Ma da" (127 billion VND). Some films are close to reaching the 100 billion mark such as "Cam" with 96 billion VND, "Linh lich" with 86 billion VND, "Gap lai chi bau" with 92 billion VND.
However, in contrast to the bright picture above is the gloomy color of Vietnamese cinema when it falls in the summer. In the summer, there are no quality domestic films. Many domestic films have low revenue, leaving the theater with heavy losses such as: "Hot girl squad" 67.9 million VND, "Fragile flower" 430 million VND, "Domino: Last exit" 596 million VND, "Tea" 1.6 billion VND, "4th floor murder" 2 billion VND, "Lights" 3.4 billion VND, "B4S: Before love" 3.8 billion VND...
As such, it can be seen that the Vietnamese cinema landscape in 2024 is clearly imbalanced. One side has record high revenue, the other side has disastrously low revenue. Many Vietnamese filmmakers face many difficulties when their films leave theaters without being able to recover their capital.
Don't just rely on luck
In the last months of the year, there were a series of films released such as: "Cong Tu Bac Lieu" which earned 35 billion VND, "Ngay Xua Co Mot Tinh" which earned 45 billion VND, "Co Dau Hao Mon" which earned 73 billion VND, "Linh Mieu" which earned 86 billion VND... Among these, there were many projects that initially attracted the attention of the audience, such as "Ngay Xua Co Mot Tinh". The film attracted the audience because it was adapted from a story by writer Nguyen Nhat Anh. However, when the film version was released, the film's revenue did not meet the producer's expectations.
At the end of December, two more Vietnamese films were released. Among them, the film “Sister-in-law” by Khuong Ngoc had good revenue. The film has earned 35 billion VND and is still showing in theaters. On December 24, the film “Kaleidoscope” by Vo Thanh Hoa was released to the audience, serving the Christmas season.
According to Box Office, the total revenue of domestic films in 2024 is about 1,900 billion VND. However, currently, Tran Thanh and Ly Hai's films have accounted for more than half of the total revenue of Vietnamese films in 2024.
This shows that Vietnamese cinema currently has a clear classification from the audience. If the quality of the film is low, the audience will completely ignore it. In the above films, the works with revenue of over 100 billion all have a common denominator: One is that they are made by famous directors, two is a carefully invested content, with better content than the rest of the films.
However, it must be said that some quality Vietnamese films, with good content such as “Sang den” still have poor revenue. Part of the reason is the script and the theme is not suitable for the audience. This is a regrettable case.
