there are no "hit" domestic animated films in the summer season. rooted in tradition, it still needs to innovate contemporary expression
2024-09-01
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summer has always been a big box office for animated films. domestic animated films have set new box office records in the hot summer, such as "nezha: the devil child comes into the world" and "journey to the west: hero is back". however, this year's summer domestic animated films performed mediocrely. the previously promising "white snake: floating life" and "falling into the mortal world" failed to continue the box office success of last year's "30,000 miles in chang'an". whether in terms of theme expression, story subject matter, or long-term ip operation, domestic animated films still need to work hard to catch up.
"white snake: floating life" box office follow-up is weak
according to incomplete statistics, at least 13 domestic animated films were released during this summer, which is not much different from the previous years. among them, "white snake: floating life" produced by light chaser is one of the most promising works. the film chose to be released on the chinese valentine's day, and with its love theme, it easily won nearly 100 million yuan in box office on the first day, becoming the single-film box office champion of the day. however, the film was released just in time for the paris olympics, and its attention was affected to a certain extent. for example, the grand world premiere of the film held at west lake in hangzhou on july 30 was completely taken away by the table tennis mixed doubles final that night. in addition, the reputation was not as good as expected, and "white snake: floating life" failed to take the counterattack curve like last year's "three thousand miles in chang'an". at present, the film has accumulated a box office of 376 million yuan in 20 days, which has not met the expectations of the industry.
if white snake: floating life had a perfect opening but weak follow-up, then falling to earth, which has a good reputation, lost the initiative. the film scored 7.9 points on douban, the highest among summer animation films, but it only received 5.3% of the screenings on the first day of its release on july 12. except for the second and third days of its release, when it received about 6% of the screenings, the subsequent screenings all dropped to less than 4%, and finally earned only 38.04 million yuan in box office.
the theme is old-fashioned and lacks topicality
last year, "chang'an: 30,000 miles" created a box office miracle of 1.824 billion yuan, and the traditional culture shown in the film caused widespread discussion. however, this year, "white snake: the floating life" and "falling into the mortal realm", which also chose traditional cultural themes, failed to reproduce the same popularity.
"from the perspective of quality, white snake: floating life, falling to earth, and umbrella girl are all good. the reason why the market performance is not good is first of all closely related to the overall box office environment of the summer season. in addition, these animated films this year lack topics that can go viral." film critic jing runcheng analyzed that the reason why "30,000 miles of chang'an" became a hit is that the family and country feelings, the atmosphere of the prosperous tang dynasty, and the tang poetry culture in the film resonated with audiences from all walks of life and all ages. the spirit of fighting against fate in the previous "journey to the west: hero is back" and "nezha: the devil child comes into the world" is also very popular. "and "falling to earth" and "white snake: floating life", one is about brother-sister love, and the other is about love. the themes are relatively mild and old-fashioned. the stories are already familiar to everyone. there is no new expression, so it is difficult to arouse the interest of more audiences." in his opinion, if a movie wants to be both popular and commercially successful, it needs to find a strong connection with the audience in terms of theme.
film critic yun feiyang also believes that this year's domestic animated films lack clear labels in terms of dissemination. "after watching white snake: floating life, there is nothing much to say except to praise the good pictures. white snake: origin is an original prequel story, and white snake 2: the green snake is about traveling to the future, but in the third part, the story is almost not innovative." he suggested that the main creators should find the core selling point of the film from the initial planning, and "label" the work in the most concise and attractive way, and try to "recommend the film in one sentence."
drawing from traditional culture, we also need to find appropriate contemporary expressions. film market analyst zhu qingtian bluntly said that the plot of "white snake: floating life" copied the film and television works such as "the legend of the new white snake", portraying the white snake as a love-first person who helped xu xian's family pay off their debts before marriage, put away her magic and made soup after marriage, and put xu xian first in everything. this runs counter to the current concept of encouraging women to be independent, and the theme is not pleasing. "the theme of "falling into the mortal world" is suitable for audiences under 16 years old, and lacks more profound content to attract adult audiences."
ip development requires "matrix thinking"
the release of "the monkey king: hero is back" in 2015 sounded the clarion call for the rise of chinese animation. the number of domestic animation films in this summer's film season remains high, indicating that the influence and attention of the chinese animation market are rising steadily, but the box office is lower than expected, which exposes the shortcomings and problems in the development of the animation industry at this stage.
compared with hollywood, the long-term operation and marketing capabilities of domestic animated film ips need to be improved. this year, three imported films, despicable me 4, inside out 2, and detective conan: the million-dollar pentacle, ranked first, third, and fourth in the summer animated film box office, respectively. all three works are series of popular ips, which have not only achieved good results in the chinese market, but are also very popular worldwide. "in comparison, there are too few series of domestic animated films. over the years, only boonie bears has achieved stable success. the white snake series finally made it to the third film, but this time it was a bit of a "turnover." zhu qingtian said that domestic animated films need to cultivate "matrix thinking" and continuously expand the breadth and depth of the same ip. "we have made a lot of feature films and short films based on the 'minions' ip, and the peripheral derivatives have made a lot of money. there are also various interactions with theme parks and commercial brands. the character of baoqingfang fangzhu in the 'white snake' series has been very popular since the first film, and fans have requested a sequel, but it has not been filmed until now. chinese animation needs to develop and operate its own 'ip tree', extending branches in all directions to continuously increase audience stickiness and freshness."
although traditional culture is an inexhaustible treasure trove of resources for film and television creation, the themes of current domestic animated films are mostly limited to ancient myths and legends, lacking richer content, especially contemporary stories. yun feiyang admitted that after filming wukong, he filmed nezha, and then erlang shen and white snake. such material is inevitably too narrow. "we need more contemporary themes with a realistic style like the 2021 "the lion boy"."
this puts higher demands on the number and strength of domestic animation film companies. "why do so many people make movies about the monkey king and erlang shen? because these characters are household names and have their own ip foundations, but domestic animation film companies are not strong enough, have low risk resistance, and lack brand marketing capabilities, so they can only play the safe card in creation." zhu qingtian said that currently, the only well-known domestic companies specializing in animation films are guangxian, zhuiguang, and huaqiang, which is far from enough. chinese animation has risen, but there is still a long way to go to become truly strong. reporter yuan yuner
