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Interface News reporter | Zhang Youfa

"Catch the Dolls" has become the long-awaited rescue work of the summer season.

This year's summer season had a bad start. Maoyan Professional Edition shows that the box office data for movies in June was only 2.231 billion yuan, a 46% drop from 4.134 billion yuan last year. Compared with other major seasons, the summer season is more driven by blockbuster movies. Since there are no works like "Gone Girl" that quickly heated up the market last year, the summer movie market has been relatively cold.

According to the data from Lighthouse Professional Edition, the box office of "Catching Dolls" has exceeded 1.3 billion in just over 4 days. On weekdays, the attendance rate of "Catching Dolls" exceeded 10%, making it the only movie with an attendance rate of over 10, which shows how much it has stimulated the audience's enthusiasm for watching movies. Lighthouse Professional Edition and Maoyan Professional Edition have adjusted the box office forecast of this movie to more than 3.5 billion.

The performance of "Catching Dolls" can quickly heat up the market, which once again proves that comedy films are still a rigid demand in the domestic film market. However, comedy works that can truly meet this demand are still scarce.

Shen Teng's box office appeal

The popularity of "Catching Dolls" is closely related to the two leading actors Shen Teng and Ma Li, especially Shen Teng's box office appeal. The Lighthouse Professional Edition shows that since their first film collaboration "Charlotte's Troubles" ten years ago, the total box office of the films co-starred by Shen Teng and Ma Li has exceeded 12 billion yuan.

The establishment of this brand effect stems from the national popularity that Shen Teng and Ma Li have established through the continuous output of the Spring Festival Gala, variety shows and comedy movies. In an era of fragmented and multi-media communication, just as Wu Jing has become a symbol of national narrative, the Shen-Ma combination has gradually become a symbol of comedy.

Shen Teng first appeared on the Spring Festival Gala in 2012, and created the well-known "Hao Jian" in the sketch "Today's Happiness". He gradually accumulated his national popularity through participating in Spring Festival Gala sketches many times since then.

In 2014, Shen Teng participated in Luyu's Appointment. When the host Chen Luyu saw Shen Teng backstage, she felt embarrassed and said, "I really thought your name was Hao Jian." Shen Teng responded, "Yes, it's always like that. It's the same when I go to the mall. People say come to Mr. Hao's side." So when he was promoting his TV series and movies at that time, "there was no strength in promoting Shen Teng."

However, after the 2015 film "Charlotte's Troubles" starring him and Ma Li, which grossed 1.444 billion yuan, Shen Teng began to establish a brand effect in the field of comedy films for the general public. By 2019, some self-media had labeled Shen Teng "the new generation of comedy king".

In addition to movies and the Spring Festival Gala, Shen Teng is also accumulating comedy brands in the field of variety shows. In "Ace vs. Ace", his on-the-spot reactions often appear on Weibo hot searches, and some viewers say "Shen Teng and Jia Ling carry this show together." In his usual Weibo interactions, Shen Teng's ability to pick up jokes often goes viral.

This kind of influence beyond the circle is crucial to film promotion. The "2023 China Film Market Annual Review" released by Lighthouse Research Institute shows that the average frequency of movie watching in China in 2023 is 2.58 times, which means that a large number of low-frequency movie-watching users may only go to the cinema during important periods such as the Spring Festival, National Day and summer vacation.

For these audiences, Shen Teng and Ma Li are undoubtedly more attractive. Shen Teng's golden partner Jia Ling in "Ace vs Ace" has achieved repeated success in the past Spring Festival, which also strongly proves this point.

Audiences even invented a unit of measurement called "Tencent Content" to accurately determine the true connection between the movie and Shen Teng. This also proves, to some extent, the role of Shen Teng's personal effect in publicity and promotion. When "Catching Dolls" was released, many accounts also used the slogan "100% Teng Content" to promote it.

After the epidemic, the promotion and marketing cycle of movies has become shorter and shorter. Cinema practitioners once told Jiemian Entertainment that many movies are often released and taken off the shelves quietly. As the promotion and marketing are increasingly pursuing cost reduction and efficiency improvement, the appeal of Shen Teng and Ma Li can play a role in breaking the circle of promotion and marketing, which has become particularly important.

For young audiences, the CP effect of Shen Teng and Ma Li has a far-reaching impact. On Bilibili, which is dominated by young users, many mashup videos of the two leading actors have exceeded one million views. Outside the premiere theater of "Catching Dolls", Jiemian Entertainment also saw many CP fans spontaneously gathering and putting up large self-made CP promotional posters.

The CP mixed video of the two people Source: Bilibili

The penetration and appeal of the sinking market is another reason for the surge in the box office of "Catching Dolls". Lighthouse Professional Edition shows that on July 17, the box office share of "Catching Dolls" in third- and fourth-tier cities exceeded 70%.

Domestic comedy films are already popular in the lower-tier markets. According to the "Domestic Comedy Film Genre Research" released by Enlightenment in 2022, the number of domestic comedy viewers in third-tier and lower-tier cities accounted for 49% from 2015 to 2022, 5 percentage points higher than the overall market. Shen Teng and Ma Li's comedy appeal is even stronger in the lower-tier markets.

This influence is very obvious on short video platforms such as Douyin. Lighthouse Professional Edition shows that when the premiere was held on July 13, the number of new views of #电影抓娃娃# ranked first on the Douyin Douyin topic list. After that, it has been at the top of the list for several consecutive days. According to the "2022 Douyin Downstream Market Data Insight Report" released by the Bytedance City Research Institute, the downstream market provided Douyin with 61% of content supply sources, 55% of content viewing share and 57% of interaction volume.

Film market analysts once told Jiemian Entertainment that it is difficult for imported film marketing to have a penetration on Douyin because many short video users are not familiar with Hollywood stars such as Tom Cruise. However, Shen Teng and Ma Li seem very familiar to these users, which also makes related materials more likely to trigger forwarding and like effects.

The word-of-mouth effect of the film itself guarantees its long-tail effect. Last year, Shen Teng's "Superpower Family" was also regarded as a summer movie to save the market, accounting for 36.8% of the first day of release. However, due to poor word of mouth, the film's daily screenings and box office declined rapidly, and the final box office of 300 million was far below market expectations.

"Catch the Doll" was screened on a large scale and quickly scored 7.5 points on Douban. It currently remains at 7.4 points, which is considered excellent among comedy movies and ranks among the top new movies in the summer season. Among the movies starring Shen Teng in recent years, the Douban score of 7.4 points is second only to "Charlotte's Troubles" and "Speeding Life 2".

The hunger of domestic comedy

For this year's slightly sluggish film market, comedy remains the greatest common denominator among audiences.

Lost in Thailand is the first Chinese film to break 1.9 billion, which is closely related to its positioning as a comedy. When interviewed by Yang Lan at the time, director Xu Zheng himself was also very surprised, "I didn't expect the audience's hunger for domestic comedy would explode to this extent. Now it has become an event, not a movie anymore."

Driven by this hunger, comedy films such as "Charlotte's Troubles" have been successful. "Research on the Types of Domestic Comedy Films" shows that in recent years, the annual box office output of comedy films is basically around 10 billion, and the average market share is 22%. Although the reputation of comedy films has fluctuated in recent years, most of them can get good box office on the basis of good reputation.

As the film market becomes more and more dependent on the big schedule, the social and family-friendly nature of the schedule has also put forward more demands for comedies. In recent years, many successful films in the big schedule, in addition to pure comedies, also have elements of comedy, such as the realistic "Article 20".

In the past two years, changes in film supply have further increased the demand for comedies. Bona Chairman Yu Dong mentioned in a previous conversation with Jiemian Entertainment that many films have been released from inventory in the past two years, but the reserves of various companies are insufficient. Insufficient films and blockbusters were put into production in 2023, which affected this year's summer season.

In the absence of heavy-duty blockbusters, comedy has become the trump card to attract audiences. In the past two years, when the market was relatively quiet, comedy films often stood out. For example, last year's "The Untold Story" was released in April and eventually grossed over 1 billion yuan, but its Douban score was only 5.8. This year's "Thelma and Louise" with a Douban score of 5.3 has also grossed nearly 800 million yuan.

The public has such a strong demand for comedy, but comedy stars with national popularity are a scarce resource. Of the four films that finally entered the Spring Festival this year, except for "Boonie Bears: Reverse Time", the remaining three films can be labeled as comedies and starred by Shen Teng, Ma Li and Jia Ling respectively.

The team behind "Catching Dolls" is Shen Teng + Ma Li, and Yan Fei and Peng Damo are the directors. This duo has already established a cooperative relationship during the Spring Festival Gala. The Spring Festival Gala skits that are familiar to the public, such as "Help or Not" and "Catering to Their Preferences", were completed by this comedy team. The subsequent successes of "The Richest Man in Xihong City" (Ma Li's guest appearance) and "Catching Dolls" also proved the ability of this golden pair to guarantee the box office bottom line.

The two directors also tried to reflect the continuity of the brand in this movie. "Catching Dolls" buried many Easter eggs of "The Richest Man in Xihong City". Almost every supporting role and extra in "The Richest Man in Xihong City" had the opportunity to appear in "Catching Dolls", and many lines also echoed the previous work, creating a call back effect similar to that in a talk show.

The success of this group is directly related to its closeness to the audience's needs. From stage plays, Spring Festival Galas to movies, the comedies they create often have a wealth of jokes and have become widely circulated in the Internet era. The two directors once mentioned in an interview, "In fact, there is really no trick to writing comedy, but we have to consider more whether what we express can resonate with more people."

"Any drama must be related to reality, and comedy must grit its teeth and stand with the times." Screenwriter Ning Caishen once said.

For example, the success of Feng Xiaogang and Ge You's comedy films in the previous period also lies in grasping the pulse of the times and finding the largest audience group. Statistics show that from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, the ratio of urban to rural moviegoers in China was 2:8, while the box office revenue was 8:2. Therefore, Feng Xiaogang set his audience as urban young audiences from the beginning.

Kaixin Mahua is a comedy group that realized the needs of the Internet earlier. For Kaixin Mahua, they also need to find new Internet groups besides the traditional audience of drama.

Zhang Chen, the founder of Happy Twist, once went to Zhongguancun to do a survey and found that there were a large number of white-collar workers there. They were familiar with Internet language but were under great pressure from work. Listening to jokes was their way of entertainment. After targeting this group, the second round of performances of "If You Want Twist, I'll Twist It for You Now" was moved to Haidian Theater in 2006. The attendance rate began to rise again, and almost every show was sold out. "In the last seven shows, each scalper earned an average of 8,000 yuan."

On May 17, 2012, Peking University professor Zhang Yiwu publicly stated that Happy Twist is the only outstanding brand left in Chinese drama in the past decade. "It has two precise directions. One is to be close to the communication rules and development direction of the Internet, and the other is to be close to the spiritual needs of young audiences."

This experience also enables the two directors to better understand the needs of the audience. Yan Fei once mentioned in an interview that their advantage is that "we often face the audience through stage plays, so we know how to make the audience like us, and we also know what the audience likes."

The high density of jokes and gags, coupled with a strong plot setting, is obviously the key to this type of comedy capturing the audience.

"Charlotte's Troubles" uses the genre of traveling back to the school days, which contains the fantasy of the loser to transcend life. "The Richest Man in Xihong City" is about a windfall, which requires spending 1 billion in a short period of time. "Catching Dolls" uses a concept similar to the Truman Show, which contains thoughts on education. These comedies often superimpose social topics with high-concept narratives, so they can attract a large number of audiences to the theater.

An example of the influence of this setting is that after the release of "The Richest Man in Xihong City", the online article "Losing Money to Become the Richest Man from Playing Games" became a phenomenal online article of the year and even became a genre of writing by repeatedly using the routines in the movie that intended to lose money but actually made money.

The 2023 China Market Annual Inventory Report shows that, combined with the high-frequency comments on the top five box office hits in the 2023 summer season, "educational significance" has become a feature of the season. "Catching Dolls" highlights the topic of education during this season when parent-child attributes are relatively strong, and to some extent, it has also captured the audience's resonance. Looking at the Douban comments section of "Catching Dolls", in addition to Shen Teng and Ma Li, many are discussions about the educational methods in the film.

Some people think that the educational story in the film is similar to a horror film, while others think that it is not worth taking too seriously. After all, for a large number of audiences, it is a rare opportunity to go to the cinema, so just having a laugh is enough.