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Text丨Xu Yunze

Editor: Ai Luo

Zhu Yilong's singing in a bar caused dissatisfaction, and fans blasted the film's agent for being heartless

On the evening of August 13, the summer movie "Two negatives equal a positive》At a road show in a cinema in Shenzhen, an audience memberZhu YilongThe video quickly spread on social media and the public opinion fermented that Zhu Yilong's fans were generally very dissatisfied with the film's production company and Zhu Yilong's agent, while the majority of passers-by felt that fans were interfering with the normal promotion of the film, and the boundary of group behavior had reached the point where it needed to be corrected.

After the incident, Zhu Yilong himself responded to the controversy caused by "exaggerated face-to-face shooting" at another roadshow. While taking fans' emotions into consideration, he emphasized the importance of the crew as a team. He also said that film is a collective art rather than an individual one, and that for the outcome of a film, artists, studios, crews and fans should "work together and support each other."

The 2024 summer movie season is not so much about fierce competition as it is about being quiet and unpredictable. On the fifth day of its release, the feature film "Negatives Make Positives", starring and co-produced by Zhu Yilong, had just exceeded 60 million yuan at the box office, and the predicted total box office also fell to 101 million yuan. However, among the many summer movies that performed below expectations, it was not outstanding. Instead, the offline operation of this roadshow made the dilemma of box office failure public, triggering widespread discussion.

The fans' outbursts on the spot and the ridicule they encountered afterwards were like a boomerang. It was an unbalanced evaluation caused by the previous advocacy of "box office only" and "actors carry the box office theory", and it was a misunderstanding caused by the misplacement of fan economy in film marketing.

On the fifth day of its release, the box office of "Negatives Make Positives" reached 60 million 

The box office theory is a boomerang, and the actor-driven box office theory is a false proposition

Just with theLife EventsZhu Yilong won the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" and the Golden Rooster Award for Best Actor, and has been promoted to the "double actor". In the past two years, his film career has been smooth sailing.She disappearedThe box office success of "TheTheory of "actors alone carry the box office"The failure to once again demonstrate its amazing "box office" strength may be the reason for this collective outbreak.Deep AnxietyWhere.

In the fans' narrative, fans, acting skills, awards, and works should be ironclad evidence of box office appeal, so they attributed the commercial failure of "Negatives Make Positives" to the film company's misplaced genre definition, inappropriate schedule, and inadequate publicity and marketing."Victims", and was put in opposition to the film company. In addition to the twists and turns in the execution such as the bar roadshow, he demanded that the film company and the agent "apologize to Zhu Yilong."

Zhu Yilong's previous starring box office results were very impressive 

However, the box office success or failure of a movie has quite complex causes, and is the result of the combined efforts of many factors such as director, subject matter, plot, actors, publicity, and release date selection.

This summer, Wuershan's "Under the Alien》failed to replicate the success of Investiture of the Gods and was a box office flop.Decryption》encountered controversy over its reputation,Retrograde Life"The Love of Love" also failed to achieve a box office hit. These films, which also brought together commercial blockbuster directors, advantageous themes, and highly popular actors, each had their own bottlenecks and have not yet been successful in terms of commercial performance. Regarding the cold reception of "Negatives Make Positives" at the box office, some commentators pointed out that contemporary young people are no longer keen on falling in love, which is the overall decline of romance films.

On the other hand, the film industry should never"Box office only", commercial success or failure does not completely represent the quality of the film itself. In the current niche viewing environment, viewing interests are becoming more and more personal, and many uncertainties are reflected in the box office. Fans' expectations and public opinion judgments on a star artist's "box office ability" seem too hasty. After all, even in "Catch dolls》 has demonstrated amazing box office appealShen TengEven Ma Li can hardly make every movie a hit.

Zhu Yilong responded to fans' dissatisfaction, saying that the team and the audience are all on the same path

The film market is a complex and an "adult world".

In his response to fans, Zhu Yilong said that he is already a "mature man", which also shows from one side that as an actor, Zhu Yilong has entered the Mesozoic era. As a film practitioner, he has also begun to try roles such as producer in this "Negatives Make Positives".

Many popular artists, once they become popular due to a certain role and have a large number of fans, will easily form path dependence, cater to the fans' preferences, and repeatedly take the same type of roles. The result is likely to be that they play the same roles over and over again, and can only have fun in a small fan circle, quickly overdrawing their own possibilities and vitality as actors.

Since "Guardian", his works such as "Life Events" and "The Rebel" have been recognized by the mainstream market.Mistake by the river》, including "Negative Negatives Make Positives" and other art films to explore various acting styles,Zhu Yilong's career development path has clearly shown that he will develop from a traffic star to a powerful actor, and then explore the deep waters of the film and television industry. The rules and order of this deep water area are much more complicated than those of online dramas and TV dramas, and are increasingly different from the logic of fan circles.

Obviously,Zhu Yilong stands at the crossroads where industry logic and fan circle logic diverge, while his fans are still "keeping to themselves" in their own world.

Zhu Yilong responded by emphasizing that "I am a mature man now" 

Fans are trapped in an "information cocoon". It is not wise to interfere too radically with movie marketing

In fact, Zhu Yilong’s fans’ offline face-to-face interaction received applause and praise at the roadshow. Before public opinion turned against them, the group was quite supportive of such direct intervention.

This isStar fans compete for the right to speak and the right to dispose of artists in the film and television industryAnother example of this is not uncommon.

Fan economy and fan circle culture have accumulated in the domestic entertainment industry for ten years, spreading from the high-barrier circles in the past to all aspects today. It is no exaggeration to say thatFor artists, whether it is personal development or career planning, and for the industry, whether it is capital raising or marketing, they are all deeply embedded in and influenced by the discourse of the fan circle.

On the one hand, the marketing and publicity of film and television works will "use" the fan base as long as there are actors with traffic attributes: fans follow one offline roadshow after another, and online social media and short videos are used to cater to fans' interests in content. In terms of effect, it relies heavily on fans to collect data and contribute to the volume, and even a large part of the box office pre-sale itself relies on fans to buy tickets to increase the screening chassis. This provides fans with "consumers are God"-style "legitimacy" to make suggestions and raise objections.

On the other hand, a large proportion of fan-oriented publicity and promotion often over-emphasizes a certain individual star and ignores the film and television work as an organic whole. Not only is it easy to cause a separation between publicity and promotion and "mismatched goods", but in the past for quite a long time, it has actually caused an adverse impact on the imbalance of the focus of film and television work creation and production.

This is especially true in film marketing. Senior producer S told Entertainment Review:Compared with TV series, the film market is much less affected by traffic stars."First, in a film industry dominated by the director-centered system, the market appeal of celebrity artists still cannot surpass that of directors; second, the film industry has not yet been a purely digital industry. Audiences vote with their feet. Compared with ratings and traffic, the box office may indeed have a higher real effectiveness. The main link for traffic to play a role is publicity and promotion. However, no matter how high the initial popularity is and how good the data is, the box office will eventually show its true strength."

Suggestions put forward by fans regarding the "misalignment of publicity and promotion", such as buying a big screen and editing the lines of the male lead, are all centered around the actors themselves. There is a significant professional information gap between these and the marketing ideas formulated by the film company for a wider audience.

Some film promoters have expressed concerns about this phenomenon. Image source: Weibo blogger 

Back to the scene of that speech, the fans said at the beginning that they hope the real voices from the fans can break Zhu Yilong’s“Information Cocoon”To some extent,In the fans’ perception, artists are controlled by their management team, investors and film producers, and artists always seem to be the teenagers who lack subjectivity. This is also the rationale for their self-perceived fans’ words and deeds in their fight for the right to speak.

Fans have evolved from spontaneous support and passive assistance to conscious operation and active management, including but not limited to judging announcements or film contracts for artists, filling in the gaps in publicity and marketing for film producers, and commenting on behalf of audience members. As the potential energy generated by fans' love continues to accumulate, fans have also built a ""Information Cocoon"。

There are no filters in the adult world. In fact, dealing with the complex relationships with investors, film producers, fans and the market is the foundation for artists to "build a career". For fans, it is also an important issue to manage expectations and become a positive boost to the development of artists and film works rather than another form of discourse hegemony and interference.