2024-07-16
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Author | Yuguochuiyan Editor | Xiansheng Editorial Department
It is midsummer, but the film market is still in a cold winter.
Lighthouse data shows that in the first half of this year, the total box office of the film market was 23.992 billion yuan, compared with 26.3 billion yuan in the same period last year, a year-on-year decrease of 9.1%. As for 2018 and 2019 before the epidemic, the box office of movies was 32 billion and 31.3 billion respectively. From this point of view, if the film market wants to fully recover, there is still a long way to go.
However, the recently released new film "Catching Dolls" has already achieved a box office of 375 million during the preview period. This comedy starring Shen Teng and Ma Li can be regarded as a shot in the arm for the long-dormant film market, and may play a role in rescuing the market in the short term.
Although the film market has continued to be sluggish this year, there are still movies that have achieved both box office success and good reputation.During the New Year's Day holiday, the low-budget movie "The Annual Meeting Can't Stop!" became a dark horse, with a Douban score of 8.1 and a box office of 1.292 billion yuan. Although the Spring Festival schedule was withdrawn, the top movies represented by "Hot and Scorching", "Article 20" and "Speeding Life 2" still firmly occupied the top of the box office.
However, since the Spring Festival, there has not been a movie with a box office of over 1 billion in the first half of this year, which has directly led to the film market remaining sluggish.
From the perspective of film types, a commercial film that has both box office success and good reputation is considered a successful good film, and an art film that only needs to gain high reputation is considered to have met expectations.
However, this year's film market is too cruel. Some high-quality commercial films did not achieve the expected box office, such as "Let Us Rock the Sun Together", which scored 8 points on Douban. High-reputation art films such as "Away with the Boat" and "Stop and Go" did not achieve the box office miracle of "Hidden in the Dust" and "The Mistake by the River".
Various reasons have led to the frequent release of bad films, while the living space for good films has been further compressed.
After the Spring Festival, the Taiwanese film "Zhou Chu Eliminates Three Evils" earned 665 million yuan at the box office, and the imported film "Dune 2" earned 352 million yuan at the box office, temporarily filling the cold period of the theater supply source. The Qingming Festival saw a small climax of warming up thanks to Hayao Miyazaki's "How Do You Want to Live?" The film, under the banner of "Hayao Miyazaki's final work", earned 791 million yuan at the box office.
But after the May Day holiday, the film market quickly returned to its original state. The Dragon Boat Festival holiday also failed to produce a rescue film like "The Vanishing Girl". Now, with the summer holiday almost halfway through, films such as "A Small Shop at the Edge of the Clouds" and "The Customs Front" have not made a good start. Only "The Silence" directed by Ke Wenli is expected to break 1 billion in box office.
Looking at the box office situation of the film market in the first half of the year, we can see that the phenomenon of the box office-only theory of movies has become increasingly prominent, which has also invisibly filtered out some good movies and given bad movies an opportunity to take advantage. Although the popular movies "Hot and Spicy", "Speeding Life 2" and "Article 20" during the Spring Festival have successively set film history records and have high reputations, these movies are also regarded as representatives of successful commercial films, but the market cannot be saved by the top movies alone.
In the first half of this year, the phenomenon of inverted movie box office and word of mouth seems to have become the norm, and imported films are no exception.
Wenyu Xiansheng temporarily defines movies with a Douban score of 7.5 or above as good movies. If we follow this classification standard, movies such as "Let's Rock the Sun Together", "Diary of a Teenager", and "Under the Sun" can be regarded as representatives of movies that are well-received but not popular. Although they are all commercial films, their box office performance is not satisfactory.
From the perspective of content, the topics involved in these three films are too heavy. "Let's Rock the Sun Together" is one of Han Yan's trilogy of serious illness films. It also discouraged some audiences during the Spring Festival and was eventually changed to the end of March. "Diary of a Young Man" directly faces the stubborn problems of family education and intimate relationships in East Asia; "Under the White Sun" focuses on the issue of supporting lonely elderly people. Although these topics hit the current hot spots, the overly heavy narrative style is like an invisible barrier that isolates the audience.
As for imported films, it is an indisputable fact that the box office appeal of Hollywood films has declined. The appeal of long-tail IPs of films such as "Mad Max: Fury of the Goddess", "Kung Fu Panda 4", and "Inside Out 2" is significantly lower than expected. As of press time, the box office revenues were 60.609 million, 373 million, and 306 million, respectively. This is not a problem that has only appeared this year. Last year, "Oppenheimer" had a global box office of 952 million US dollars and "Barbie" had a global box office of 1.36 billion US dollars, but both were cold in China, with box office revenues of 453 million yuan and 252 million yuan, respectively.
Perhaps, when the film market environment changes, the audience's viewing habits and aesthetic styles will also change accordingly, and eventually they will gradually become disenchanted with foreign films, and the market share of foreign films will also shrink.
Let's take a look at the situation of art films. This year's Spanish animated film "Robot Dreams" scored 9 points on Douban. There was no dialogue in the whole film, but the audience was moved to tears by the love between the puppy and the robot. The style of this film is similar to "Wall-E", but silent films really challenge the audience's patience. The final box office was only 11.034 million.
The domestic film "Go and Stop" takes the experience of a failed migrant worker returning home as the main narrative line, fully presenting the ugly side of the familiar society. The down-to-earth plot also resonated with the audience to a certain extent. In addition, the film was starred by stars such as Hu Ge and Gao Yuanyuan, and the final box office reached 102 million. Although it is not as good as the box office miracles of "Hidden in the Dust" and "The Mistake by the River", it is also a successful attempt.
In contrast, art films such as "Away on a Boat" and "Dogs" were well received but not popular. Although "Galaxy Writer" won the Grand Jury Prize and the Best Screenwriter Honorary Award at the 17th FIRST Film Festival, its reputation and box office were dismal. It can only be said that art films with a certain viewing threshold are not the type that audiences appreciate.
Whether it is a domestic film or an imported film, perhaps good movies with a certain threshold are gradually "disappearing" under the pressure of the box office.
In addition, some excellent films failed to win and then ran away, which really made it difficult to revive the confidence of the film and television industry. For example, films such as "Mr. Red Carpet" and "Let's Rock the Sun Together" were withdrawn from the schedule one after another, and after being re-released, the box office failed to turn around. In this summer's movie season, "Wild Child" starring Wang Junkai was hastily advanced and then withdrawn. Although it is unknown what the quality of this movie is, it has earned enough marketing gimmicks in the early stage.
In the future, this situation may become the norm and will inevitably squeeze the living space of good movies.
"I finally have a holiday, but the cinema is filled with bad movies."
Whenever an important release date comes, netizens will complain about the situation where there are too many new films but no films to watch.
During the May Day holiday this year, "Thelma and Louise" and "The Untamed" earned 781 million and 511 million yuan at the box office respectively, but their Douban scores were 5.4 and 5.3 respectively, which were not even up to the passing line. The relatively good romance film "A Trip Across the Moon" only had a box office of 45.842 million.
As a comedy, "Thelma and Louise" is easily the first choice for the audience, while "Peacekeepers" relies on Wang Yibo's traffic to drive the box office. Although compared with the situation of the "Tiny Times" series that set a box office record of 1.79 billion many years ago, the current film market has become more rational, but traffic stars are still an important guarantee for the box office.
Of course, the quality of movies starring popular stars may not be satisfactory, but the fan base is enough to raise the lower limit of the box office. The same was true during the May Day holiday last year. The movie "Life Is Not Strange" starring Fan Chengcheng only scored 5.8 points on Douban, but still earned 1.1 billion yuan at the box office; "King of the Sky" starring Wang Yibo scored 6.5 points on Douban and also reached 850 million yuan at the box office.
Since these movies of varying quality are released in a specific period of time, audiences who go to the cinema do not have many choices and can only passively select relatively good movies from the bad ones.
Although there are many bad movies in the cold period, it is not necessarily possible to create miracles in a specific period, because the audience has enough time to select in normal times. This also provides sufficient space for good movies to ferment. For example, last year's "Keep You Safe", "Wading the Angry Sea", "The Third Squadron" and other movies all stood out in the cold period. However, this year's film market lacks precisely such high-quality movies. The only dark horse movie is the Taiwanese film "Zhou Chu Eliminates Three Evils", but it has little contribution to the overall film market.
In addition, content creators have tried to set box office records through drama and film linkage, but the move was not successful. For example, movies such as "Twinkle Twinkle Star" and "I Don't Want to Be Friends with You" are adapted from high-scoring dramas of the same name, with Douban scores of 5.2 and 6.3 respectively, but relying on the accumulation of fans of the dramas and the nostalgia of specific schedules, the box office of these two movies was 702 million and 203 million respectively. The previously released film version of "Want to See You" is also a case of failure in the film and television adaptation of high-scoring dramas. Although these dramas can guarantee the lower limit of the box office when they are made into movies, what is overdrawn is the audience's trust in the drama adaptation.
In the long run, audiences may be more inclined to revisit the series and do not want to spend money to see the nostalgia of the series being exhausted in the movie version.
In addition to drama adaptations, non-fiction literature IP adaptations are not always effective. The movie "Morning Clouds and Evening Rain" released in May scored 6.2 on Douban and only grossed 18.81 million yuan, failing to replicate the miracle of "The Third Squadron". High-quality IP is difficult to successfully adapt into film and television, which directly leads to good themes being turned into bad movies.
It is worth mentioning that in order to achieve box office miracles in a specific period, the participating companies behind the movies have quickly moved up the release schedule of their inventory movies. This not only caused bad movies to crowd out a specific period, but also led to a shortage of theater movies in the cold period, thus discouraging audiences from going to the cinema.
Rather than blindly rushing to grab box office revenue during popular periods, film companies should perhaps focus on the quality of their films. By relying on the quality of their films, they can make a small profit with a big return during off-peak periods and also overtake others.
This year's summer season got off to a bad start, with movies such as "A Small Shop at the Edge of the Cloud" and "The Customs Front" released in June. As of press time, the box office of these two movies were 489 million and 127 million respectively, and their Douban scores were 5.1 and 6.3 respectively, with mediocre box office and word of mouth.
Recently, the romantic film "Welcome to Me" starring Yu Shi was just released, but unfortunately it flopped. As of press time, the film scored 6.2 points on Douban and only grossed 44.226 million yuan. Summer movies are still struggling. Currently, the only movie that has grossed over 500 million yuan in the summer is "Silent Killing". Compared with the same period last year, there have been movies such as "The Vanishing Girl", "In the Octagonal Cage", and "30,000 Miles from Chang'an".
Now, as the summer vacation is about to be halfway through, the entire film market is still deserted.The biggest problem is that cinemas can no longer retain young people.
Lighthouse data shows that from 2019 to 2023, the proportion of ticket-buying audiences aged 40 and above increased from 10% to 16%, but the proportion of audiences aged 20-24 decreased year by year, from 30% to 19%, and the proportion of audiences under 20 years old dropped from 8% to 5%.
To this end, cinemas are also trying to attract young people. Although "A Small Shop at the Edge of the Cloud" has a bad reputation, Zhang Jiajia's book of 500 million yuan carries the memories of a generation of young people, and there are always people who choose to pay for feelings. This year's animated film "White Snake: Floating Life" is also a sequel to "White Snake: Origin" and "Green Snake: The Tribulation". However, if creators want to completely bring young people back to the cinema, they still need to start with themes that young people are interested in. Recalling memories alone is far from enough.
Judging from the works to be broadcast, although there are more than 80 works to be released this year, the probability of the summer season repeating last year's grand occasion is almost zero in the absence of highly anticipated works such as "Fengshen 2", "Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King" and "Jiang Yuan Lane". In addition to "Catching Dolls" starring Shen Teng and Ma Li, which has already become a hit, there are also films worth looking forward to such as "Reverse Life" directed by Xu Zheng and "Decryption" directed by Chen Sicheng. I wonder if these works can be a rescue work like "All or Nothing".
According to the forecast data of CICC, the total box office of the 2024 summer season will be between 85% (17.5 billion yuan) and 105% (21.7 billion yuan) of last year's summer season. During this period, the role played by the top movies is self-evident. If there is still no dark horse in the summer season, the film market may have to wait until the National Day holiday to pick up.
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