2024-08-27
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Text丨New Creation
Editor: Ai Luo
The 2024 summer season can only be described as "dismal".
Although judging from the main creative lineup, Zhu Yilong,Zhang Ruoyun, Yu Shi, Wang Junkai and other big-name traffic stars, plus Gu Changwei, Wuershan,Xu Zheng, Chen Sicheng and other big-name directors have joined; in terms of production cost and investment volume, there are alsoUnder the Alien》、《Decryption》, but the overall box office performance was far below expectations.
According to box office data from professional data platforms such as Maoyan and Dengta, as of August 25, 2024, although the total box office of the summer season has exceeded 11 billion yuan, compared with last year's summer season box office of over 20.6 billion yuan, it has shrunk by nearly half. It is almost destined to become the summer season with the worst box office performance in the past decade excluding the three years of the epidemic.
In terms of the specific box office performance of individual films, the only film with a box office of over 3 billion yuan during the summer season was "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" starring the golden duo Shen Teng and Ma Li.Catch dolls》A single seedling, second place《Silent Kill》1.348 billion box office, the third place "Alien: Reaper" just surpassed 500 million this weekend, and there is no other top movie that has broken the 500 million box office. Compared with the same period last year, 5 movies broke 1 billion, which can be said to be a direct failure.
Are the movies not good? Are the tickets too expensive? Are the Olympics diverting attention? There are many speculations. The 2024 summer season may just be a microcosm of the entire year's film market, and the foreshadowing has been laid in the past.
2024 summer box office returns to levels of 10 years ago
Star effect, big director brand, industrial blockbusters, these labels that used to make a movie a hit have all failed and no longer seem to have absolute appeal in the current market environment.
Why did no one watch movies suddenly? This question replaced the pure discussion of the movie content and became the most eye-catching topic of the summer season.
On August 8, Alibaba Pictures CEO Li Jie posted a long article on WeChat Moments, which caused a huge uproar. In this long article, Li Jie called for the rectification of fan clubs, pointing out that behaviors such as "spreading rumors and slander, and hiring blackmail troops" have harmed the development of Chinese films:
Alibaba Pictures CEO Li Jie posted on WeChat Moments
For the industry, what Li Jie said is not new. Before and after this incident, several film crew members also privately disclosed that their works had been attacked by the Black Water Army.The mutual blackmail and harm within the industry, coupled with the harm to films and their creators by marketing companies and marketing accounts for personal gain, has become a nightmare that makes everyone in the industry miserable and unable to escape.
This summer, well-known directors such as Wuershan, Xu Zheng, and Chen Sicheng have all been subject to serious rumors and slander. Currently, many public opinions are no longer just directed at film and television works, but have directly risen to personal attacks. Such behavior puzzles the creators, and at the same time, they feel frightened and at a loss.
In addition, the fan circle wars on social platforms and the mutual attacks between fans of different groups, especially in the public opinion field of movies starring some popular stars, are becoming more and more intense; the algorithm mechanism is also vigorously recommending some extreme and emotional complaints, and it is only because the algorithm will determine that such content will bring better interactive effects to the platform.
The inaction of these community products has hurt the atmosphere and enthusiasm of movie-watching, and has also led to a further deterioration of online public opinion, which has had a negative impact on the reputation of the film. This has directly caused many viewers to search for the reputation of related films on social platforms and find that all the reviews are negative, so they are directly discouraged.
The fragmented entertainment content on short video platforms provides viewers with a cheaper and more convenient way to entertain themselves. More and more viewers prefer to watch movie clips or film reviews on short video platforms, and browse short video content such as three-minute movie reviews, rather than going to the cinema.
In addition, the current popular short dramas are also reshaping the aesthetic tastes of ordinary audiences. More and more stories with strong reversals and causal theories, such as inspirational stories from the bottom of society, counterattacks from losers, and rewards and punishments for good and evil, are taming the audience's interest.
The two best-selling movies of the summer season, "Catch the Doll" and "Silent Killer", actually fit this kind of narrative logic, which seems to be indirectly confirming that the audience's taste is changing. However, most filmmakers have not yet realized that the audience has evolved, and many films of this summer season have obviously not kept up with the changes in the audience's aesthetic taste.
The popularity of the Olympics this summer is also a major factor in the low popularity of movies this summer. The Paris Olympics opened on July 26 and closed on August 11. Almost all long video platforms bypassed the Olympic Games to schedule dramas and avoid the edge. It can be seen that the Olympics has diluted the popularity of movies.
However, due to the serious underestimation of the impact of the Olympics, the film industry still arranged several key summer films during this period. With the frequent good news of the results of popular Olympic events such as table tennis and women's tennis, the enthusiasm of the people for the Olympics has been completely ignited. The newly released films Wuershan's "Under the Alien", Chen Sicheng's "Decryption", Xu Zheng's "TheRetrograde Life》It is difficult for them to seize the hot spot space. In the past, these were the top seed players in the summer box office, but this time the box office did not exceed 500 million.
In addition, many people hope that the so-called "lipstick effect" will appear in the film industry during the economic downturn. However, the reality is that with a ticket price of 5-60 yuan, plus the cost of transportation, dining and other consumption behaviors, watching movies has become a "luxury consumption" in the eyes of many ordinary people.
Many netizens on social platforms have reported that ticket prices are too expensive, and many cinema people have called on relevant departments to lower the release price of movies. However, in reality, if the release price of movies cannot be lowered, the film companies no longer have sufficient release budgets to make large-scale ticket subsidies as in the past. In addition, Maoyan and Tao Piaopiao have occupied the entire movie ticket market and no longer need to fight price wars through ticket subsidies. It is difficult for audiences to enjoy the low-priced tickets of 19.9 yuan offered by e-commerce platforms in the past when they seized the market.
Audiences complain that movie tickets are expensive nowadays, it is better to watch the Olympics at home
With so many external factors influencing the film industry, we must eventually ask ourselves: Has the quality of this summer's films really deteriorated? Many industry insiders do not think so.
For example, "Under the Alien" is Wuershan's first attempt to adapt a comic book into a movie based on the theme of "Chinese style superpowers", and he also added new formulas such as AI and barrage to the movie; Chen Sicheng's "Decryption" did not stay in the commercial genre films that had achieved huge box office success in the past, but instead made a new and bold creative attempt at the main theme biographical films that were difficult to break through the rut in the past; several young directors, Li Yang's "Safe Evacuation from the 21st Century》 and Wen Shipei's "Negatives Make Positives", are not satisfied with just playing it safe in genre films, but through imaginative and free expression, they allow the audience to see the infinite potential and talent of the new generation of creators.
The box office performance of "The Decryption" caused Chen Sicheng's market failure, but this cannot be blamed on the quality of "The Decryption"
However, although innovation is good, audiences do not buy it. Many creators are ambitious and want to bring something new to the market, but this road is not always smooth. According to feedback from cinema managers,The audience's acceptance of "new" films is not high, and the attendance rate is far lower than that of "Catching Dolls", "Silent Killing" and "Alien: Death Stranding》This is a genre film narrative with obvious characteristics that is familiar and liked by the audience.
Why is this so? Take a restaurant as an example. In order to meet the diverse tastes of consumers, chefs consciously develop some innovative dishes. This is certainly something worth encouraging, but for diners, mainstream consumption is always the most classic cuisine. Looking back at this year's summer movie season, the quality of the movies is good, but most of them are not the classic types that mainstream audiences like.
In this regard, some producers in the industry have made it clear that creators cannot simply ignore the market and make works that they think have innovative value. Doing so is too self-indulgent and irresponsible to the film industry, which is obviously in a recession. Top creators should improve their awareness of serving the audience, return to the track they are best at, and make commercial films that the audience likes to watch the most. It is imperative to get the audience back to the cinema.
In addition, today's movie box office is overly dependent on marketing, through hype-style publicity at the premiere, hiring big V influencers to control pre-screening word of mouth,Relying on "fraudulent marketing" to deceive audiences into watching movies, the accumulation of this has now caused the audience to overdraw their credit for theater movies.Some netizens even developed a rebellious mentality, saying, "The more marketing moves a movie has, the less likely I am to go to the cinema to watch it." This is especially true for some creators who have had hit movies in the past, because the quality of the movies did not meet the audience's expectations, which caused a "boomerang" at the box office this year. No matter how much publicity is done, it is difficult to convert the popularity into box office.
at the same time,Movie marketing is blindly pursuing short video streaming in the sinking market, and is gradually losing its conversion efficiency. On the one hand, users have gradually figured out the marketing routines of short videos, and the so-called "three-piece marketing set" of short videos, "XX visits the set, XXX sheds tears, and XXX is shocked", has gradually become a joke. In addition, under the premise that the number of users on short video platforms has peaked, they will also pay more attention to the efficiency of traffic conversion on the platform, and strategically tilt more traffic to e-commerce and short dramas. According to the marketing staff of the relevant films in the summer season, the total number of likes of their films on the short video platform and the explosion rate of a single video with one million likes are obviously lower than expected.
The past marketing methods that pursued short-term benefits are gradually becoming ineffective, which means that movies still need to hone their own content to maintain their competitiveness. "A good iron must be made strong by its own strengths", if the film has excellent subject matter and high quality, even if there is no special marketing action, it may produce a box office comeback like "Alien: Reaper" driven by the quality of the content.
In the discussion of the hot topic "Why don't people go to the cinema anymore?" on social platforms, the most popular answer is "no longer fall for marketing tricks"
Some market analysts said that the movie box office has obvious ups and downs. Last year, because the film industry had just recovered from the epidemic, it had accumulated three years of high-quality works, and the supply of content throughout the year was sufficient, and the box office performance remained high. The 1-2 year production cycle of the film is also destined. Compared with last year, the supply of content has dropped significantly this year, and there are more "Fengshen II", "Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King", "Jiangyuan Lane》 and other films that were originally expected to be released in the summer failed to be released as scheduled, and there was a "Film shortage"The crisis has led to a sharp decline in box office revenue this summer.
The "China Film Investment and Financing Development Report (2022)" shows film filing data, quoted from Shanghai Securities News
However, in this summer, we also saw someNew signsFor example, we tried to bring live broadcasts of major events such as the Olympic Games into cinemas, which brought new consumption scenarios to cinemas and created possibilities; the zero-cut introduction of the Hollywood thriller "Alien: Revenge" greatly exceeded box office expectations, suggesting that we can try to relax the screening scale of films, expand more diverse film types in the introduction of foreign films, and enhance the attractiveness of cinemas to audiences.
Judging from the film schedule for the National Day and Spring Festival, there are still many films to be released that are highly anticipated by the market and have the potential to be blockbusters. Currently, five films are about to be or have been confirmed to be released on the National Day, including "Volunteer Army Part II" directed by Chen Kaige and starring Zhu Yilong, "Crisis Route" directed by Pang Shun and starring Andy Lau, "Safe Entry and Exit" directed by Liu Jiangjiang and starring Xiao Yang and A Yunga, "Best Thing" directed by Ning Hao and starring Ge You and Li Xueqin, "P Plan" directed by Zhang Luan and starring Jackie Chan and Wei Xiang, and the dance drama film "Only Green". Compared with the volume and main creative lineup of the films released during the National Day last year, they are basically at the same level.
Next year's Spring Festival is considered to be the most crowded one in history, and the topic has reached its limit. For example, "The Legend of the Gods Part II" and "Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King", which failed to be released in the summer, are both targeting the Spring Festival. In addition, it is rumored that the Spring Festival will also release another masterpiece "Operation Dragon" created by Lin Chaoxian after "Operation Red Sea", "Tang Detective 1900", the latest work in the Tang Detective universe by Chen Sicheng, "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", a new martial arts work created by Tsui Hark and Xiao Zhan, "Welcome to the Dragon Restaurant", a foreign-related main theme movie jointly created by Wen Muye and Shen Teng, and "Change of Mind", a work involving pyramid schemes, in which Jia Ling and Zhang Xiaofei once again cooperate, and "Boonie Bears", which has always been a "nail house" in the Spring Festival. By then, the Spring Festival will start another box office battle.
IPs that have achieved market success are still highly anticipated
The dismal box office data during the summer season is a crisis that every filmmaker is experiencing firsthand.
However, there is no decisive reversal factor for the industry itself, and the future is still worth looking forward to. The huge sales of "Catch the Doll" show that a movie that the audience really loves to watch still has extremely high commercial value. As long as we truly realize the problem, face the problem, and focus on serving the audience and do a good job in our own content, the movie will not easily withdraw from the mass consumer market.
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