"The longest Spring Festival box office season in history" is coming. Who will become this year's box office dark horse?

Cailian News Agency, February 14 (Editor: Zhai Zhehao) — Last year’s Spring Festival box office hit “Nezha 2” debuted unexpectedly, grossing 15.446 billion yuan, and the producer, Enlight Media, once surged over 300% in the nine trading days after the holiday, leaving a deep impression on everyone.

This year, which film will become the dark horse at the Spring Festival box office has also become a topic of keen interest among investors.

This year’s Spring Festival (February 15 to February 23) has a total of eight scheduled films: “Flying Past 3,” “Panda Project: Tribal Adventure,” “Silent Alarm,” “Dartman: Wind Rising in the Desert,” “Boonie Bears: Year of the Bear,” and “Star River Dreams,” all scheduled for Lunar New Year’s Day (February 17). “Return: Wolf Pack” will be re-released on the third day of the Lunar New Year (February 19), and “Night King” is scheduled for the fourth day (February 20).

Currently, “Flying Past 3,” “Silent Alarm,” and “Dartman: Wind Rising in the Desert” are leading the pre-sale box office charts for the Spring Festival.

“Flying Past 3” is currently the most anticipated. As a regular at the Spring Festival, its predecessor “Flying Past 1” grossed 1.728 billion yuan, and “Flying Past 2” grossed 3.398 billion yuan, accumulating a substantial audience base. Director Zhang Yimou’s films have always guaranteed box office success, and with a strong cast led by Yi Yangqianxi and Zhu Yilong, “Silent Alarm” is expected to bring surprises. “Dartman: Wind Rising in the Desert,” directed by Yuan Heping, known as “the world’s number one martial arts director,” has the potential for word-of-mouth fermentation as a hardcore martial arts film. “Star River Dreams” is also a strong contender among dark horse box office hits; its director Han Yan previously directed “Send You a Little Red Flower,” which achieved a box office of 1.432 billion yuan.

Overall, according to data from Maoyan App Professional Edition, as of February 13 (two days before the Spring Festival), the total pre-sale box office for the 2026 Spring Festival is 218 million yuan, far below the 690 million yuan in the same period of 2025 and 474 million yuan in 2024. CICC’s research report analyzed that, considering the high base set by “Nezha: The Devil Child Comes to the Sea” in 2025, the total box office for the 2026 Spring Festival is expected to decline year-on-year, with the period’s box office including service fees likely between 6.5 billion and 8.5 billion yuan.

However, some brokerages remain optimistic. CITIC Construction Investment Securities believes that, based on current film reserves, the 2026 Spring Festival box office level is promising. The box office during the Spring Festival has continued to hit new highs in recent years, mainly due to: first, the holiday period has been longer in recent years—2024 and 2025 both had an 8-day holiday, longer than the usual 7 days; second, top-tier films are more concentrated, and the importance of the Spring Festival period has been increasingly recognized throughout the year, encouraging production companies to schedule their top films during this period.

In the secondary market, bets on box office dark horses have never stopped. Recently, the film sector has led gains, with Hengdian Film & TV, involved in producing “Flying Past 3,” “Boonie Bears: Year of the Bear,” and “Star River Dreams,” previously experiencing a nine-day surge with seven limit-ups, and its stock price has doubled in 2026. Additionally, Enlight Media has risen over 30% in the past week, and Bona Film Group has increased by 23.86%, indicating that profit-taking risks should not be underestimated.