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The top pan-entertainment self-media only talks about hard facts and hard logic

Rhino Entertainment Original

Text｜Nan Rumin Edited｜Park Fang

The official end of July means that the 2024 summer season is officially halfway through, and theoretically more than half has passed.

Judging from the performance in July this year, it is still relatively good, but it depends on who you compare it with. If you compare it with last year's overwhelming performance, there is still a huge gap. The problems faced by this summer season are obviously more severe, because the current market unfavorable is only one of the problems. The next August will be even more difficult. A significant decline compared with last year is almost inevitable.

(Market performance in July in recent years)

In the end, the box office in July was nearly 5.4 billion, which is only 60% of last year. The average daily box office was over 170 million. If we compare 2021 and 2022, it is obviously a very significant improvement. Of course, the epidemic in those two years had a special impact on the entire market. If we extend it further, in July 2018, it once received 6.966 billion, and in 2019 it also received 5.756 billion, both of which exceeded this year's performance.

In short, compared with normal years, July, the most important month of the summer season, is clearly at a disadvantage. In the past few years, neither the entire economy nor the film market has achieved rapid growth, and the film market is even in a downward channel. The performance in July this year once again proves that the film market is still in an unstable state and needs more blockbusters to save the market.

It cannot be said that the audience's viewing quality is declining, or other objective environmental factors such as the economy, after all, these factors have little impact on movies. The reason is actually just one point, especially compared with the hot last year, there is a lack of real seed players, a lack of dark horses with good reputation and long-term development, which is the real reason for the huge gap with last year.

Looking back at last year's summer season, it was an unprecedented feat, from "Gone Girl" to "The Octagonal Cage", to the later "30,000 Miles of Chang'an", to the later "Investiture of the Gods" and "All or Nothing", this relay-style series of hits kept the entire summer season alive. So far, this summer season is almost a solo dance of the comedy "Catching Dolls". This situation of independently supporting the market is naturally not comparable to last year's multi-core drive, so there is a very obvious gap in the market.

As mentioned before, the performance in July this year was far below expectations. The biggest reason was the lack of top seeds. In other words, the projects that claimed to be top seeds actually performed far below expectations and did not achieve the results brought by real seeds. Last year, it was the time for the gods to fight, and several high-standard seeds were fighting. Today's market performance can be said to be completely flat, and many have ushered in the fate of flop.

（Performance of each film in July）

Judging from the market performance in July this year, except for "Catching Dolls" which met the established expectations and earned more than 2 billion, other films completely collapsed. Fortunately, "Catching Dolls" was released in time to save the situation. The combination of Yan Fei, Peng Damo, Shen Teng, and Ma Li is indeed powerful. The film is guaranteed to get more than 3 billion, and it is likely to hit the box office champion for the whole year of 2024. But even so, the film did not exceed expectations. After all, more than 3 billion is the general expectation of the industry.

On the contrary, the suspense film "Silent Killing" became the only surprise in July, with a performance beyond expectations. The film will eventually lock in 1.4 billion yuan, temporarily ranking sixth in the box office in 2024. As Ke Wenli's second film, the box office of the film will eventually surpass "The Accidental Detective" and become the director's highest-grossing film. It is precisely because the film exceeded its mission that July does not seem so embarrassing.

The latter ones are all projects that failed to meet expectations, and they are all occupied by a number of Hollywood movies, which also proves how poor the performance of domestic films is in the market throughout July. The world's hottest IP "Despicable Me 4" has been released in mainland China. The previous film had a volume of more than 1 billion, but under the premise of a sharp decline in Hollywood, it is difficult to escape the fate of being cut in half, and will eventually be locked in the volume of 350 million.

However, Marvel's new film "Deadpool and Wolverine" saved the market in July. Marvel has failed many times in a row, which is a far cry from the world's number one IP. Now this new film has stopped the decline of Marvel in time, and it is expected to get 350 million in the mainland. Later, Pixar's new film "Inside Out 2" performed better than expected, and still got 160 million in July, but such a surprise is obviously far from enough.

The serious lack of top hits can be attributed to the overall poor quality of the summer season. In fact, judging from the list of films, several of them are very marketable, each with its own style and characteristics, and have the potential to be a box office hit or even a big hit. However, judging from the market results, the serious lack of quality has caused the market to collapse rapidly. Even the most popular IPs cannot withstand the poor quality.

(Many blockbusters failed in July)

The reason why these films performed far worse than the same period last year has been found. These films are basically in the category of "bad movies" in terms of both box office and word of mouth. The novel adaptation of "A Small Shop at the Edge of the Cloud" earned more than 130 million yuan in July, but the final box office did not exceed 500 million yuan. Douban only scored 5.1 points, which made it impossible for the film to gain market continuity and led to a rapid collapse.

Wuershan's much-anticipated summer blockbuster "Under the Alien" is undoubtedly the biggest variable in the entire summer season. Last year's "Investiture of the Gods" started low and ended high, and eventually became a summer hit and became a good story, but this year's "Under the Alien" obviously failed to replicate the feat of last year's "Investiture of the Gods". The film has just broken the 100 million mark and ultimately failed to reach the 200 million box office. It can be said that much of the missing share in July was lost by "Under the Alien".

Later, Jackie Chan's "Legend" also suffered a huge collapse. The film finally received only 80 million box office and Douban only scored 5.2 points. It can be said that after Jackie Chan's consecutive box office failures, this "Legend" may be the last straw that broke the camel's back. This also indicates that the superstars who once called the shots, such as Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Chow Yun-fat, are finally slowly coming down from the altar.

The Hong Kong film "The Customs Front" also collapsed severely. Douban barely passed the test, with a box office of only 130 million yuan and more than 54 million yuan in July. The decline of Hong Kong films is undoubtedly one of the reasons for the market decline. The highly anticipated romantic film "Welcome to Me" also failed to meet expectations. Yu Shi's appeal is good, but the lack of text has led to a Douban score of only 6.2, which quickly made the film lose its competitiveness.

The market should not be a one-man show for "Catching Dolls". It must be a flourishing market like last year. I look forward to more surprises in August.