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Movie posters for summer movies on display at the cinema. Photo/cfp

Text | @连城易脆 (senior film publicity practitioner, film market analyst)

*This article is a compilation of the author's speech at the Jiupai News "Jiupai Roundtable" live broadcast "Halfway through the summer, is the summer of movies still hot?" and was reviewed and revised by the author before publication.

When making a movie, you should avoid trying to figure out the audience's taste.

This summer's film market needs confidence. Even if there are indeed certain difficulties, we still need to have a more positive attitude when expressing it. Similar to the financial market, it is called self-fulfilling prophecy. If you have no confidence and keep singing the praises of the Chinese film market, it will naturally get worse and worse.

Why do we do previews? This involves word of mouth, which can be understood as a taste test. When the first wave of audience reactions and word of mouth comes out, as a decision maker, can we quickly capture the real word of mouth? Can it truly represent the market's reaction? Some of us blindly believe in certain praises, which may be marketing-made. In addition, we may underestimate the fermentation potential of the market.

This is a great test of the decision-makers’ grasp and level of the market. On the one hand, we need to look at the platform data more broadly, rather than basing our judgment on a single platform or a review by a film critic that may look eye-catching, which will affect our judgment of the entire market. On the other hand, we also need to have a very clear quantitative understanding, believe in the data and the model, but not blindly follow them.

Audience tastes change too quickly and frequently. Film production has a lag. When an idea is born, it takes half a year to write a literary plan, an outline, submit it for filing, and start formal filming. It can take even several years for the film to be released.

Many top directors have talked about this issue. It is very taboo to follow the trend in film shooting. Once you follow the trend, by the time the movie is released, no one knows where the trend has disappeared. So there is no need to deliberately cater to or look for the audience's aesthetic taste, but to want to dig out some good themes from the bottom of your heart and make some good movies for the audience.

For example, the past few years were the best time for main-theme movies. Basically, as long as you make a main-theme movie with the scale and specifications of a commercial film, the box office will not be too bad, and you can often create very high box office results, such as "Operation Red Sea" with more than 3 billion yuan and the box office champion "Changjin Lake".

The poster of "Changjin Lake" displayed in the cinema. Photo/Xinhua News Agency

But in the past two years, the ceiling of the main theme box office has dropped rapidly. The production level of "A Thousand Miles Home" is not bad. It may be higher in the first two years. As I said just now, movies emphasize freshness. When the same type of movies are crowded, the audience will have aesthetic fatigue. For example, there were a lot of love movies and chick flicks in the past, but they were gradually abandoned by the audience. Now, comedy movies and suspense crime movies have become a hot commodity and a rigid demand.

Since "Hero", there has been a trend of costume blockbusters. Everyone loves to watch them, and a huge number of them have been made. However, they later suffered box office failures. From my personal observation, the audience's tastes undergo a major adjustment every three years.

Tolerate strong base low quality comedy

In any developed film market, there are bound to be many low-quality films. Only when the good and the bad are mixed together and there are enough denominators, can there be more exquisite films in the numerator. You can't expect that there will be 5 masterpieces out of 10 films. You must shoot 1,000 films to only have 5. This is a very normal phenomenon.

Director Lu Chuan said that Catch Dolls is a low-quality, alkaline comedy, which is understandable, but inappropriate. You can criticize sharply, but it is best to attach reasons. If you only judge it, it will become an output of extreme emotions, mutual insults and attacks, and you can't return to a rational and valuable discussion. It's very regrettable.

I feel that there are indeed some low-quality, high-base movies coming out recently. Movies need to be fresh, but you will find a lot of homogenized movies, just like a formula, choose a theme, put comedians together, and write a story. You will find that it is very old-fashioned, and many of the jokes are Internet jokes. The audience still hopes to see more original, fresh, and even sharp jokes with satirical effects as the soul of comedy.

Another one is crime-themed movies. Under the bloody, exciting and violent visual appearance, the core should be more advanced, social and public, and ultimately convey truth, goodness and beauty. It cannot be conveyed in a stereotyped, dogmatic, preachy and repulsive way.

Now you will find that there are always one or two high-cost special effects movies, such as science fiction, war, and fantasy, released every year, but compared with American movies that cost 100 million or even 200 million US dollars, the number is only a fraction. Now everyone is very aware of investment risks. If there are 20 or 30 co-producers for any movie, it means that they dare not invest and want to spread the risk. From this perspective, we should encourage more blockbusters.

The relationship between word of mouth and box office is counterintuitive

As for the relationship between word of mouth and box office, there is no particularly obvious pattern, which is particularly counterintuitive. Many movies have low ratings, but their box office is very high. I have a director friend who comforted another director with a relatively low rating, saying that he didn't need to worry about his rating. A one-point lower rating would result in a 100 million higher box office. It was very ironic.

Later, we found that we need to look at the relationship between the two in different categories. For some movies, such as art films and literary films, which are more popular among senior moviegoers, the box office is strongly correlated with word of mouth. This part of the audience pays special attention to ratings, various evaluations on the platform, and the attitudes of opinion leaders. Good word of mouth will lead to good box office.

Back to commercial films, they also have to be divided into types. To have a high box office, word of mouth is very important. At least a bottom line must be maintained and the quality cannot fail. As long as it can reach the baseline, it will depend on whether it is good-looking, eye-catching, and topical. No emphasis will be placed on particularly detailed reviews. This type of film that pursues high box office mainly avoids a collapse in word of mouth.

In addition, some small movies may have box office revenues of only a few hundred million, or even only tens of millions. Their target audiences are the large number of lower-end markets, or KOLs who basically don’t care about movies, or audiences who don’t care about movie ratings. Word of mouth can be said to be unimportant, with ratings as low as 3 or 4 points, but the box office can still be 200 million or 300 million.

China's film industry is not as good as that of the United States, but it is comparable to that of other countries.

Audiences have high expectations for Chinese films. Every vertical sub-category must be compared with the best in the field. Animated films must be compared with Japan, special effects blockbusters must be compared with the United States, and art films must be compared with France. The pressure on Chinese films is actually quite high. If something is not number one, it is not good enough.

But Chinese films are already the second largest market in the world, and many films can only be made in China, while other countries simply do not have the conditions to make them. Back to live-action comic-based movies, including some other animated films, China still has too few denominators. Live-action comic-based movies, except for Under the Inhumans, can you think of a second one recently?

From the perspective of Wuershan's attempt, it failed. But we should still have a more positive and encouraging attitude, not to slander, abuse, ridicule, or satirize. Such a mentality is definitely unhealthy. At this stage, we are in the initial stage, and there are a lot of things to explore. A comic adaptation series as successful as Marvel's is not achieved overnight. Only when you have lost enough money in movies, you can make a profitable movie. This is the accumulation of the industry. It can only be said that now "Under the Alien" has become the price of accumulation.

The Western film industry has a history of more than 100 years. The reform of China's cinema film market only began in 1994. The film industry, which has truly entered the market economy, has only a 30-year history. How can it be compared with the accumulation of a century of development?

English is still the dominant language in the world. In terms of coverage, Chinese is still inferior to English. Disney and Netflix can sell their products all over the world, and the threshold to enter other film markets is much lower. Therefore, the funds and channel resources recovered by our market are far inferior to theirs. The development of our film industry is too single-minded, basically relying on box office revenue. Disney also has peripheral products, and its revenue can exceed the box office revenue of movies. What a terrible industrial strength. It also has theme parks, and we don’t have any truly successful theme parks at all.

The strength and weakness of China's film industry is a relative concept. Compared with the United States, it is certainly weak, but if we put the United States aside, our confidence will instantly rise. In the past two years, we always said that Korean films were advancing by leaps and bounds and that they were industrialized, but what was the news about Korean films in the past two years? There may be only four films that made a profit at the box office throughout the year. A large number of people in the Korean film industry are complaining that we are all working for Hollywood and Netflix, and we are almost unable to survive. They only have a market of 50 million people, while we have a market of 1.4 billion people. A single market alone is enough to develop the film industry. Works of this level, such as the "Wandering Earth" series and the "Fengshen" series, can only be produced in China and the United States, and other countries simply do not have the conditions to produce them.

January 15, 2023, Huangpu District, Shanghai, movie poster for "The Wandering Earth 2". Photo/cfp

More than 90% of countries and regions cannot talk about the film industry. They have no film industry or film industry. They are just dumping grounds for Hollywood movies. Their local products are all made with state financial subsidies. Local people don’t watch local movies at all.

In addition, there is still a lot of room for growth in the management level, project operation level, and IP incubation level of Chinese films. Our films can only be scheduled one to two months in advance, which shows that our entire project is not industrialized enough. Marvel can schedule films three or five years in advance, which shows the strength of the entire industrialization. Each set of industrial chain can cooperate to designate a release date. Chinese films cannot do this for the time being, and they are in a state of random fluctuation.

Of course, Chinese films also have an advantage that other countries do not have: we are the only country in the world that can check box office in real time. No other major film market can do this. We can track box office at any time. Other countries either have not established a very complete Internet-based film platform, or they have corresponding detailed box office data, but they do not disclose it publicly and need to spend money to buy it. The cost is tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, which means that it is completely closed to the C-end, and only institutions can afford it.

In addition, China has the largest number of IMAX audiences in the world. Of course, our territory is also large enough, and the hardware and software facilities of our cinemas are far better than those of other countries. The comfort level is much higher than that of the old developed countries such as the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, and the ticket prices are also much cheaper.

The special effects are good but the story is bad, which shows that the screenwriter's work is not taken seriously.

Since its birth, the film industry has been constantly impacted by other cultural products, the most typical of which is television. When television was born, the average number of moviegoers in major film markets around the world plummeted from dozens of times to only a few times, and it never went up again. At that time, the film industry was already facing life and death, but at least it has survived until now, and in the foreseeable future, the film industry will not die so quickly.

In the process of continuous iteration, products must constantly face various competitions. The most intelligent directors like Cameron, Jiang Wen, and Spielberg will find a way out for movies. They will not completely lose their living space due to other factors, such as the impact of streaming media. They will continue to explore. For example, Avatar directly brought 2D to 3D. Now 3D is declining. Will there be naked eye 3D in the future, and other new forms of movies? For example, Ang Lee explored 120 frames, but unfortunately it failed. But will there be new film technology to drive the development of movies, so that streaming media cannot replace the viewing experience of the cinema?

Famous screenwriter Christopher Nolan on the set. Image source: Internet.

In the future, the definition of movies may also change. How does a piece of information flow or a story enter the brain? It may not be through a screen, but through some kind of nerves or other devices, and it can also be called a movie.

Sometimes we often say that the special effects of a movie are good, but the story has some problems. In essence, this reflects that we do not attach enough importance to the work of screenwriters. On many of our movie posters, the screenwriters are either not signed or the signature is very far away. In Hollywood, if this happens, you will lose money and be sued, which has serious consequences.

I personally hope that China will soon produce a truly global hit film. The Chinese domestic film market may only account for 10% to 20% of the global box office. This is a certain type of top blockbuster in my mind, because Chinese cultural products are definitely worthy of being the treasure of the whole world and are definitely worthy of being appreciated by people all over the world. In addition, I hope that this type of top blockbuster can lead to a revolution in film language, such as the French New Wave, or a revolution in film technology, such as Avatar.

[Source: Jiupai News]