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the year of famine

author: gao yue

cover source:solid as a rock》stills

this summer, the movie market was almost completely sluggish. the occasional signs of improvement were quickly drowned out by the dullness.

wuershan, who was "deified" in last summer's battle,under the alien” suffered a waterloo, with a box office of 120 million, less than half of the film’s investment.silent kill", failed to reproduce "she disappeared"the box office legend of ". chen sicheng has delivered "the peak of his life so far", but "decryption》's box office performance is onlycatch dolls"a dream of red mansions: a perfect match", which hu mei spent 18 years to polish, suffered from poor reputation and box office performance.

from jackie chan and xu zheng, who became directors after becoming good actors, to hu mei, who had famous works such as "the emperor of han wu" and "the yongzheng dynasty", these well-known figures in the film industry were not surrounded by flowers and praises this summer, but were ridiculed and even besieged.

according to the data from lighthouse professional edition, the total box office of this summer season was 11.643 billion yuan, only about half of last year's performance (20.63 billion yuan). the highest-grossing "catching dolls" with 3.25 billion yuan failed to surpass last year's "all or nothing".

fell by half

sun jingyuan (pseudonym), the cinema manager of a second-tier city in northeast china, is very depressed. he wonders if the audience only likes comedies. since "catch the doll", he has clearly felt that fewer people go to the cinema, and even the introduction of snack discount packages is of no use.

sun jingyuan regarded "under the alien" as a "lifeline", hoping that it could attract audiences to the theaters. however, the reality did not match his expectations. the box office of "under the alien" on the first day was less than 40 million, and it failed to beat "deadpool and wolverine". it even had a negative box office for three consecutive days. then came "the decryption", and then "retrograde life”, his expectations were dashed time and time again.

the directors were even more surprised and disappointed.

before the release, wuershan, the director of "under the alien", showed his determination to win. not only did he declare in an interview that he wanted to "build a supernatural world that belongs to the chinese people", but he also planned a trilogy for the film - only if the first one is successful can there be a sequel. in order to warm up for the variety show, the lead actor hu xianxu even posted a photo of his abdominal muscles on the social platform.

there is a reason why wuershan is highly expected. he is good at oriental fantasy themes. last year's "investiture of the gods part 1" grossed 2.48 billion yuan, and was even hailed by some fans as a "domestic mythological epic." according to maoyan professional edition, the number of people who wanted to watch "under the alien" reached 186,000, and the film also had an advantage in the early screening schedule.

but in the end, the box office of "under the alien" was only 120 million yuan, and its douban score was 5.9 points.

stills from "under the alien" source: douban

in august, nicholas tse's "the customs front", jackie chan's "legend》 and marvel's "deadpool and wolverine", neither of them made any splash.

sun jingyuan can only place his hopes on chen sicheng, the "man who can fight with shen teng."

as a well-known "product manager" in the film director industry, chen sicheng's "detective chinatown" trilogy has won 820 million, 3.19 billion and 4.12 billion yuan in box office respectively. last year, "gone girl", which attracted attention with its twists, suspense and social topics, won the second place in the summer season with a box office of 3.52 billion yuan.

but sun jingyuan was disappointed again. the decryption only earned 330 million yuan at the box office. what may have attracted more attention than the movie was the hairline of the lead actor liu haoran.

stills from "decryption" source: douban

in the "囧" series of comedy films and "i'm not a drug godxu zheng, who gave a memorable performance in "the legend of the condor heroes", was criticized for "a rich man playing a poor man and asking the poor to buy tickets to watch" in "reverse life". zhu yilong, who won the best actor award for his performance in "life events", co-produced "negatives make positive", but failed to "double happiness". also not as good as expected were "legend", starring "ai version of 27-year-old jackie chan", and "white snake: floating life", which was inferior to its predecessor.

this year's summer movie season can be described as the "worst and most unexpected" one that audiences have seen in the past decade.

according to maoyan professional edition, the total box office for the 2024 summer season (june-august) is 11.643 billion yuan, a far cry from the 20.63 billion yuan in 2023. there are only two films with a box office of over 1 billion yuan, namely "catch the doll" (3.25 billion) and "silent killing" (1.35 billion), but there were 5 last year.

why did the summer season that set the "first in film history" record in 2023 suddenly die down in 2024?

the year of famine

the summer season is a popular time slot that filmmakers who believe in the metaphysics of schedules scramble to grab.

in 2015, monster hunt became the summer box office champion with 2.4 billion yuan. in 2017, wolf warrior 2 took in 5.5 billion yuan, breaking the summer box office record. dying to survive and ne zha were also dark horses that emerged in the summer.

compared with the 20.63 billion box office of last year's summer season, this year's summer season is really bleak. but if we extend the timeline, it is not difficult to find the special features of the past two years.

the number of film projects filed and started each year determines the future reserves of the film market.

according to statistics from the national film administration, the number of film projects reached a new high of 3,825 in 2017, and remained at more than 3,000 in the following two years. these completed projects were supposed to be released from 2020 to 2022, but due to the epidemic, they became a backlog of inventory and were finally released in 2023.

wang xiang (pseudonym), a senior film investor, told snow leopard finance that last year was recognized by the industry as a year of "destocking". "many films that had not been approved and were in backlog were re-submitted for review, editing, and release." some films whose shooting and post-production progress were stagnant during the epidemic were also "released as quickly as possible."

for example, "the first part of the investiture of the gods" started filming in 2018, finished filming in 2020, and will not be released until 2023. "across the angry sea" and "solid as a rock" were also filmed five years ago.

stills from "solid as a rock" source: douban

but this year is clearly a "film shortage year".

in the past three years, the number of film filings has declined significantly, with 2,800 in 2021 and even fewer in 2022, at 1,876. wang xiang said that many of them have only been filed, "but have not started shooting yet, or may not even start shooting at all."

this has resulted in a shortage of film supply this year.

according to data from top think tank, 237 new films were released in the first half of this year. although this is only 6 fewer than the same period last year, it is obvious that most of them are small and medium-cost films, and there is a lack of top films that cannot drive the overall market.

"the number of movies that can be broadcast and are worth mentioning can basically be counted on one's fingers," said wang xiang. in the first half of this year, only four films had box office revenues of over 1 billion yuan, which is the lowest in the past six years.

many movies have to rush to release them quickly. for example, zhang yimou's film "article 20" started shooting in early july last year and took more than 40 days to shoot. it took only a few months to complete a series of processes such as editing, review, and scheduling, and was officially released during the spring festival.

the signal of insufficient supply was transmitted to the summer season, resulting in a cold box office. the dismal box office, in turn, caused some films that were originally expected to be released in the summer season to be absent, such as "nezha: the devil child conquers the dragon king", "fengshen ii", "the legend of the condor heroes",jiangyuan lane》and other head projects.

cyclical fluctuations coupled with special external factors have caused this year's summer season to fall into a rare low.

losing the lifeline

in the eyes of many people, the publicity and marketing of a movie can “create a god”.

especially at present, the entire film industry is short of funds, and money should be spent on the right things. a senior film industry investor revealed to snow leopard finance that nowadays, one-fifth of the cost of a film project is spent on marketing. but compared to offline roadshows, "a more effective way is to spend money on short video streaming and live broadcasts."

last year, for example, many people saw highlights from popular movies on social platforms, such as wang chuanjun worshipping buddha, daji turning into a tail, li bai reciting poems, and he fei's ferocious smile. among them, the "famous scene" of wang chuanjun worshipping buddha received more than 23 million likes on douyin.

wang chuanjun's famous scene of worshipping buddha source: douban

but this year, even the "god of marketing" has failed a little.

bai congcong (pseudonym), who lives in a fourth-tier city in the south, used to accept the "tap water" amway in short videos, but after being "tricked" into going to the cinema many times, she realized that "tap water is not pure either." sometimes, when she browses social platforms, she can see several promotional short videos with exactly the same copy in a row, and gradually she no longer believes them.

many times, after watching the highlights and plot outline of a film on douyin, she even lost interest in going to the theater to watch the entire film.

this situation is not uncommon. some time ago, the well-known film critic tan fei recorded a video summarizing the reasons for the poor performance of the summer movie season. he mentioned that "long time consumption" is the reason why many people do not go to the cinema. "after watching a short video of more than ten seconds or dozens of seconds, you may not have the courage to watch a two-hour movie."

zhao xiaoyi (pseudonym), a senior film and television company employee, can also feel that publicity and promotion are becoming increasingly difficult. projects all want new and creative tricks, but the actual marketing plans are often similar. it is also becoming increasingly difficult to grasp the audience's interest points, "many times, it is a waste of effort."

this year's unexpected situation also came from the traffic congestion caused by the paris olympics.

according to zhao xiaoyi's observation, the summer season was not significantly affected during the 2012 london olympics and the 2016 rio olympics. however, during this year's paris olympics from july 27 to august 12, "movie box office sales declined significantly, and the popularity on social media also declined."

douyin, an important platform for short video marketing of movies, set up a special interface for the olympics this year, as well as related rankings. according to maoyan professional edition data, the top ten movies in the summer season received a total of 42.37 billion views on douyin, while the paris olympics topic had a playback volume of over 100.44 billion.

zhao xiaoyi told snow leopard finance that the company had not anticipated that the paris olympics would be so popular, and had not prepared a response plan in advance, so it was a bit caught off guard.

after the summer vacation, there are the mid-autumn festival, national day, lunar new year and new year's day. this year's film market is not without opportunities. ge you's third appearance as "zhang beijing" in "the best man", xiao yang's "safe travels", as well as "jiangyuan lane" and "dumpling queen" are all highly anticipated.

but before that, they have to make sure they can grab the marketing lifeline.