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The summer season is most directly related to the student population on vacation, so for animated films, the summer season is undoubtedly the base camp. This year, among the 12 domestic animated films, the Chinese-style animations "Falling into the Mortal World" and "Umbrella Girl" performed poorly, and "White Snake: Floating Life" became the only hope.

Looking at the "White Snake" series, "White Snake: Floating Life" earned 94.283 million yuan on its first day of release, far exceeding the first-day box office results of the first two films. As of press time, the film's total box office forecast on Maoyan Professional Edition is 666 million yuan.

(Image source: Maoyan Professional Edition Lighthouse Professional Edition)

Although it set a new record for the series, it is still not as good as last year's success of "30,000 Miles in Chang'an".

In terms of quantity, 14, 12 and 17 domestic animated films were released during the summer vacations in the previous three years respectively. Although there are 12 this year, 3 of them are re-released.

Last year, not only was there "Three Thousand Miles in Chang'an" with 1.824 billion yuan, but also "Tea No. 2 Middle School" which made a small profit but won a big prize with a box office of nearly 400 million yuan. This summer, no domestic animation has broken the 1 billion yuan mark. Only "White Snake: Floating Life" has reached the 600 million yuan mark within the 1 billion yuan mark, followed by "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Guardian", which barely made 80 million yuan, less than the 160 million yuan of the previous one.

It is obviously easier for imported animations to break the 100 million mark. Despicable Me 4, Inside Out 2, Garfield and the Family, Your Name (re-released), Haikyuu! ! Junkyard Showdown, and Doraemon: Nobita's Earth Symphony are the six imported animation films that filled the mid-tier in the summer season.

The fact that animated films failed to make it to the summer season is, of course, highly related to the overall sluggishness of the summer season this year. However, if we look at the performance of Chinese animations in this summer season from a longer-term perspective,Poison EyesIt is found that perhaps this is not the fatigue of Chinese animation, but it is more appropriate to call it the normal state of Chinese animation. Looking at the performance of domestic animation in the summer season in the past 10 years, it can be clearly seen that Chinese animation has a phenomenon of good and bad years and an obvious 28 effect.

It’s just that the hit performance of “Three Thousand Miles in Chang’an” last year and our long-term expectations for domestic animation since “Nezha: The Devil Child Comes into the World” have raised the expectations for domestic animation. The slogan-like passion of “the rise of domestic animation” has faded, and the domestic animation film market should also usher in a rational return.

Chinese comics big and small year

This year is undoubtedly a small year for Chinese animation.

How to define the good and bad years of Chinese animation? This is certainly not a rule that can be predicted in advance, but a summary of the market trends of domestic animation films since 2019. The number of films released and box office performance are the two main considerations.

(Source: Top Data)

For animated films, the two most important periods of the year are the Spring Festival and the summer vacation which includes the Children's Day.

In 2023, there are two domestic animated films in the top ten box office movies, namely "Three Thousand Miles in Chang'an" released in the summer and "Boonie Bears: Bear Heart" released in the Spring Festival. Both of them have box office results of over 1 billion, with a total box office of 3.319 billion. In addition, the top domestic animations that have reached the billion-yuan level include "Deep Sea" and "Tea No. 2 Middle School".

This year, after two important periods, there were only two domestic animated films with box office revenues of over 100 million yuan. One was Boonie Bears: Reversal of Time, which was released during the Spring Festival and earned 2.006 billion yuan at the box office. The next one is White Snake: Floating Life, which is currently being released. After that, the number of films with box office revenues dropped sharply to tens of millions, and only two of them even broke 50 million yuan, namely Peppa Pig Movie: Interstellar Action and Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Guardian.

Stills from Boonie Bears: Reverse Time (Source: Douban)

In fact, the term "the rise of Chinese animation" usually refers to non-children-oriented animated films. Looking back from its birth, two adult-oriented animated films have become important symbols of the "big year of Chinese animation".

One is "The Monkey King: Hero is Back" in 2015, which used a subversive style at the time and a box office of nearly 1 billion to free domestic animated films from the constraints of being oriented towards young children and find a new path for adult audiences.

Another is 2019's "Nezha: The Devil Child Comes into the World", which once again achieved a breakthrough for domestic animated films, and even became the ceiling of domestic animation box office with a box office of over 5 billion. It was the first time that an animated film won the annual box office championship, and it made the domestic animation surpass the imported animation box office for the first time that year. In the same year, "White Snake: Origin" opened the first film in the Light Chaser Animation Mythology series.

From 2016 to 2019, at least one original Chinese animation was released every year, such as Big Fish and Begonia, The Guardian, The Wind Whisperer, Yesterday's Sky, and The Legend of Luo Xiaohei. Since Ne Zha: The Devil Child Comes into the World, the number of original animated films of this type has obviously increased.

Three years after the epidemic, despite the restricted environment, original animated films such as "Jiang Ziya" and "Mr. Miao" (2020), "New Gods: Nezha Reborn", "White Snake 2: The Rise of the Green Snake", "City of Terracotta Warriors", "Jigong Descends the Dragon" (2021), "New Gods: Yang Jian" and "Classic of Mountains and Seas: Goodbye Monsters" (2022) have emerged.

2023 may be the only remaining "big year", with "Chang'an 30,000 Miles", "Deep Sea" and "Tea No. 2 Middle School" all performing well. If the increase in the number of domestic animations such as "Heavy Rain", "White Snake: Floating Life", "Umbrella Girl", "Falling into the Mortal World" and "Erlang Shen: Deep Sea Dragon" this year is one of the results of the domestic animation trend, the poor box office is also a warning of the dilemma behind domestic animation, reflecting the structural imbalance of mismatch between supply and demand.

IP is not a panacea

In this summer's box office when many live-action blockbusters failed, "White Snake: Floating Life" as an animated film was able to take in 600 million yuan at the box office. It benefited not only from the well-known mythological story, but also from the audience base of the first two films in the series and the brand halo of Light Chaser Animation.

Stills from "White Snake: Floating Life" (Source: Douban)

In terms of subject matter, mythology IPs will still dominate domestic animations in 2024. Among the top 20 domestic animated films, the Boonie Bears series took eight seats, and of the remaining 12, four were from The Investiture of the Gods, two were from The Legend of the White Snake, and one was from Journey to the West. The remaining four, including Deep Sea and Big Fish and Begonia, were at the bottom, with Tea No. 2 Middle School and The Legend of Luo Xiaohei at the bottom.

Deep Sea benefited from the word-of-mouth influence of director Tian Xiaopeng's previous work, The Monkey King: Hero is Back. Tea and Luo Xiaohei's Legend also had the reputation of animated series accumulated in advance. The only special original animation left is Big Fish and Begonia.

Stills from Big Fish and Begonia (Source: Douban)

The first point reflected here is the IP dependence on the subject matter. When a subject matter is verified by the market, the subject matter inertia will inevitably exist.

IP plays a certain role, but it is not a decisive role.

For example, when "I Am Nezha 2: Hero Returns" was released last year, audiences mistakenly thought it was a sequel to "Nezha: The Devil Child Comes into the World" and called it a "scam movie". But this movie is actually a sequel to "I Am Nezha" released in 2016, and its target audience is also children. In the end, it received low reputation and box office.

(Photo source: Douban)

This year's summer blockbuster "Erlang Shen: The Deep Sea Dragon", even though it was also based on "The Investiture of the Gods" and had a similar name to the "New Gods" series of Light Chaser Animation, its unoriginal plot failed to impress the audience and only earned a box office of just over 4 million.

A Douban netizen "decoded" the film in the comment section as follows: "After filming the Monkey King, we filmed Nezha, then Bajie, and now Yang Jian. The story is that the protagonist is first demoted, then awakened, and finally sublimated." This also shows the public's aesthetic fatigue with animated films based on myths and legends.

The third installment of the Light Chaser Animation White Snake series also has the problem of lack of novelty in the plot. However, it can still surpass the box office level of the previous film, thanks to the trust that the Light Chaser Animation brand has established in the hearts of the public and the consistent production standards.

The IP of the animation series has established a brand effect, which is, to a certain extent, a reflection of the gradual maturity of the industrialization level of Chinese animation films. In comparison, the live-action films "Decryption" and "Reverse Life" in the same period, relying only on the director brands of Chen Sicheng and Xu Zheng, could only barely reach a box office level of about 500 million, which further shows the value of the brand effect.

"Reverse Life" (Source: Douban)

In addition, the most commendable aspect of the "White Snake Series" IP is that there is an integration between the industrial logic of live-action films and animated films, and the genre narrative of romance films is added to the animation. This is a very significant breakthrough in the traditional concept of film viewing.

According to the "2023 China Film Market Annual Inventory Report" of Lighthouse Research Institute, in terms of the distribution of viewing companions for various movie genres in 2023, the proportion of single-person viewing and multi-person viewing of animation genres was the highest, and the proportion of two-person viewing was the lowest.

(Source: Lighthouse Research Institute's "2023 China Film Market Annual Review Report")

Outside of the White Snake series, it is almost impossible to see love in animated films. This is because the traditional concept is that "animation is for children". Although adult animated films have been trying to break this concept for many years, they have never dared to take too big a step.

This year's "White Snake: Floating Life" also pioneered the choice of Valentine's Day to be released, competing head-on with real-life love movies. As a result, "Her Little Dimples" was withdrawn from the schedule, and Zhu Yilong's movie "Negatives Make Positive" only accounted for 10% of the single-day box office. "White Snake: Floating Life" won the Qixi box office championship without suspense.

No IP is born as an IP. All IPs need to have a solid reputation built up by previous works before they can accumulate brand effect.

For example, last year's "Chang'an 30,000 Miles" broke the myth and legend blueprint with real historical figures and historical facts, triggered "tap water" marketing, and broke the circle with "animation + education" to find a breakthrough in the myth and legend theme. If the "White Snake" series can continue the story of Baoqingfangzhu, it is also an original idea different from IP adaptation.

(Photo source: Weibo)

From the new projects launched in the past two years, we can also find that the industry has turned to mythological themes after becoming tired. After "Chang'an 30,000 Miles" fired the first shot of the "New Culture Series", Light Chaser Animation filed the first part of the Three Kingdoms series named "Fighting for Luoyang"; Light Chaser Animation filed "The Legend of Jianghu Heroes" and "New West Chamber" this year, which are based on "Water Margin" and "The West Chamber" respectively. "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" has also become a new source of material.

Due to the limited animation production cycle, the effects of these projects cannot be verified immediately. By then, no one knows what the trend will become.

Structural issues

According to Top Data's "2023 China Animation Film Market Research Report", the current box office concentration of domestic animated films is relatively high, with animations with box office revenues of over 100 million yuan accounting for 15% to 20%, contributing 75% to 85% of the box office to the animation market.

Judging from the proportion of types and box office, the number of domestic animations is still mainly parent-child, and the number of animations for all ages and young people is relatively small. However, except for the "Boonie Bears" series, the average box office of a single film for parent-child is much lower than that for all ages and young people.

(Data source: Top Data)

Judging from the performance of animation production companies, Light Animation, Huaqiang Animation, and Light Chaser ranked the top three in terms of cumulative box office among the major domestic animation production companies.

Hengdian Film and Television, Gene Films, and Beijing Jingcai each made it into the top ten with one work, "The Monkey King: Hero is Back", "The Legend of Luo Xiaohei", and "Young Lion", while almost all other companies had at least six works.

(Data source: Top Data)

On the one hand, it is difficult for independent animation works to continue. On the other hand, the animation film industry requires industrial cluster-style industrial operation, and the investment volume is relatively large. There is almost no such thing as small and medium-cost commercial animation films. It is normal for small animation film companies to find it difficult to succeed due to investment and production restrictions.

The key for a small factory to succeed is to find a new way.

Take "The Lion Boy" as an example. First of all, it has the highlight of content. It stands out with new folk stories among the vast mythological themes. At the same time, the content expresses the choice between pursuing dreams and real life, which is realistic and universal.

Stills from "Young Lion" (Source: Douban)

As the "2023 China Animation Film Market Research Report" points out, in terms of emotional appeal preferences, emotional expressions such as resonance with real life and self-worth identification are more universal and "related to me", and can form a strong empathetic connection with the audience, and can leverage higher box office growth.

Unfortunately, this summer's movie "Falling into Earthly Dust", which had high reputation but low box office, did not break through the barriers.

On the one hand, "Falling into the Mortal World" is based on the folk legend "The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl", which is an extension of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts graduation short film of the same name that once went viral online, but its popularity is indeed far less than that of public IP. In terms of the degree of content innovation, it itself is still a "micro-innovation" within the framework of myths and legends, and the public's praise is almost concentrated on "completeness" rather than "innovation".

Stills from "Falling into the Mortal Realm" (Source: Douban)

For any project in the early stages of development, the producers cannot accurately predict what kind of feedback the market will generate in the future. But only by really trying to make a different attempt can it be seen. Only by truly and accurately capturing the public's emotions, creating a contemporary story, and finding the current grip of traditional themes can the audience be motivated to recommend it and trigger a "tap water" fermentation. Although the current situation of the film market is unlikely to reach the level of 2019 due to simple word-of-mouth fermentation, it can at least accumulate a certain amount of box office potential for the next work.

Such industrial structural problems can only be fundamentally changed after the animation industry becomes more mature. We need more time and patience.