Last weekend, the Vietnamese box office witnessed a remarkable change of position. "Len huong" has not reached the initial release date but has surpassed a series of currently released films to top revenue.
According to Box Office Vietnam data compiled by box office monitoring units, in three days from September 11-13, "Len Huong" sold more than 302,000 tickets through more than 9,250 screenings, achieving revenue of about 29.35 billion VND. Meanwhile, "Summer Break Fears Retirement", a movie that dominated the box office for many weeks before, earned about 5.14 billion VND in the same weekend.
What is noteworthy is that "Len huong" entered the race with early screenings from September 11th, while the scheduled release date was previously announced on September 18th. Right at noon on the first day, the film grossed more than 1.9 billion VND per day and was booked for more than 3,300 screenings, thereby ending the 28-day lead in daily revenue of "Summer vacation fears retirement".
After three days, revenue has approached 30 billion VND. The achievement in the period called "early screening" is large enough for the producer to then announce that the film will officially premiere from September 14, four days earlier than the initial plan.
When the "early broadcast" extends almost into a release
Before "Lên hương", "Nghỉ hè sợ nghỉ hưu" showed more clearly how early screenings are being used as a distribution strategy.
Huynh Lap's movie is scheduled to premiere on August 21, but ticket sales start from 6 pm on August 14, then it will be shown all day on August 15-16. 8. When the box office signal is favorable, the screenings will continue to be extended to August 20.
Thus, in about a week before the official release date, audiences could watch the movie at many cinema complexes with thousands of screenings per day. Before the release date, the revenue of "Summer Break, Afraid of Retirement" had reached nearly 70 billion VND.
By mid-September, the total revenue of the film had exceeded 200 billion VND according to box office monitoring systems.
Two consecutive cases show that the concept of "early screening" in the Vietnamese market is changing significantly.
Previously, early screenings were often understood as a special time frame before the release date, both serving a group of interested audiences early and helping distributors measure market reactions. But when a film is screened thousands of times a day, lasting many days and generating tens of billions of VND in revenue, the boundary between "early screenings" and a commercial release is actually increasingly blurred.
The race begins before release date
The first advantage of this strategy is time. A film can enter the market ahead of its competitor, accumulate revenue and create a word-of-mouth effect before the date identified as the official release date.
More importantly, the results of the early days may have a reverse impact on the distribution of screenings. When the number of tickets sold is good, the film has a basis to increase screenings and maintain favorable time slots. "Len huong" is a clear example when in just the first day of early screenings there were more than 3,300 screenings and quickly occupied the number one position in the box office.
Early screenings also become a communication tool. Instead of promoting entirely with trailers, posters or actors' activities, the producer has more convincing data: actual revenue. Milestones of several billion, tens of billions of dong before the release date continue to be brought back to the communication campaign, creating the feeling that the film has become a box office event.
However, this strategy also requires a change in the view of opening revenue. If a movie has been widely screened for nearly a week and earned tens of billions of VND before the release date is announced, the revenue on the "opening date" no longer fully reflects the opening power as before.
The above films therefore show a remarkable movement in the market. Early screenings are no longer just for surveying audiences. They can determine positions on the charts, create screening advantages, trigger word-of-mouth and even make the official release schedule adjusted.
