Published on December 12, 2021| No. 2716
On December 10, the "Assassination Storm", which was scheduled to be released on the same day, was temporarily withdrawn, resulting in a vacuum that was difficult to fill in the market, and finally the market closed at a box office of 51.85 million yuan, setting a record for the lowest box office in the past ten years of the Chinese mainland Film Market's Lunar New Year file. The box office on Fridays during the lunar new year period was even lower than this, at 41.09 million yuan on December 30, 2011.
The low-key withdrawal of "Assassination Storm" has not yet been officially announced
The movie "Assassination Storm" is adapted from the novel "Death Notice: The Dark one" by Zhou Haohui, a famous suspense mystery writer in the mainland. The novel was adapted into the web drama "The Dark one" as early as 2014, and the word-of-mouth ratings were very good, and later filmed for the second and third seasons.
"Assassination Storm" is not only adapted from the big IP, but also directed by the famous Hong Kong director Qiu Litao, starring Gu Tianle, Zhang Zhilin and Wu Zhenyu, with a strong creative lineup. Qiu Litao is good at directing police films, and has been gaining momentum in the mainland in recent years, and his "Bomb Disposal Expert" series and "Sweeping Drugs 2: Showdown Between Heaven and Earth" have doubled their box office reputation.
Gu Tianle, Zhang Zhilin and Wu Zhenyu are all Hong Kong movie stars that are very familiar to mainland audiences, especially Gu Tianle has been popular in the mainland over the years, and the box office appeal is very strong.
Unexpectedly, such a film, which is considered to be the most box office strength in early December, suddenly "did not say goodbye" before its release and quietly withdrew.
On the film's official Weibo, the top is still the Weibo that was announced on November 15 to be scheduled for December 10. The latest post was a Weibo post on December 1 that retweeted Yuan Yongyi's praise of Wu Zhenyu, the film's lead actor, and there was no sign of withdrawal.
"Assassination Storm" was screened in Hong Kong before it was withdrawn from the mainland, and in the Hong Kong movie poster, the prominent position read "openly challenging the police", but the mainland version of the poster was removed.
Analyzing the reasons for the temporary withdrawal of the film, industry insiders believe that on the one hand, it may be because the theme and scale of the film are more sensitive, and the mainland has not yet implemented a film rating system, and this withdrawal may be because the content is required to be modified.
On the other hand, it may be a schedule adjustment based on market changes. Since "Manslaughter 2" was recently set for December 17, if "Assassination Storm" is released on December 10 according to the original schedule, it will encounter a strong opponent a week later.
Eight new films lack attention, and old films lack stamina
Whatever the reason, the temporary withdrawal of the original main new film "Assassination Storm" has left a vacuum for the Chinese mainland film market this weekend, and the remaining eight new films "We Once Loved Each Other", "The Secret" and "Blind Organist" although it seems to be a lot of them, none of them have market competitiveness, and the box office performance on the first day of release is not good.
It is worth mentioning that Chen Bailin and Guo Caijie starred, Jiang Chao, Wei Tour, Xie Tingfeng, Jackie Chan, Zeng Zhiwei, Yingda, Li Zongsheng, Yingzhuang, Zhou Hui, Wu Qixian and other stars participated in the "We Who Once Loved Each Other", which is a love film that has changed its name many times and changed gears many times, why did the filmmakers do this?
The media has already exposed the reasons for this: the original film is the first film directed by Fang Zuming, which was completed as early as January 2018, when the title of the film was "Beijing Dynasty Nine to Five", but because Fang Zuming was an artist who had a bad drug abuse, although he retired to the background as a director, it also brought great negative impact to the film, resulting in the delay of the release date.
At first, the film was scheduled to be released on Christmas Eve last year, but was later withdrawn. At the beginning of this year, the film was renamed "Beijing Love Picture Book", and the filmmakers took the way of not giving the director Fang Zu's name in the poster, and changed the file to be released on March 12 this year, but then withdrew the file.
This time set for December 10, the filmmakers remade the promotional poster, the director signed Zhang Xiaolei. It is reported that Zhang Xiaolei was originally the assistant director of the film, and after this "upgrade" to the director of the film, in all the promotional materials and copywriting such as the film's promotional posters, Baidu Encyclopedia and Weibo, there is no trace of fangzu's name at all.
The film was finally released, although the box office on the first day was only 7.295 million yuan, but so many people have paid for the film, it is better to be released than to completely lose everything.
The performance of the new film is dismal, how about the old film? Released on Friday, "Antiques Bureau Central Bureau" Although the starring lineup is star-studded, due to the mediocre performance of word of mouth, the box office is also somewhat tepid, and it got a box office of 21.36 million yuan on December 10, with a cumulative box office of 258 million yuan in 8 days of release, which is already a good result.
November's blockbuster film "Fame and Fame" has been released for a month, can no longer expect to have a better market performance, Rao is so, Friday still got 12.77 million yuan, the cumulative box office of 796 million yuan, Saturday broke through the 800 million mark is not a word.
The market vacuum was hard to fill, and the box office hit a new low on Friday
The market performance of eight new films is very dismal, the old film "Antiques Bureau Central Bureau" appears to lack of staying power, and the word-of-mouth masterpieces "Yang Ming Liwan" and "Chosin Lake" have entered the final stage of the box office due to the long release time.
According to maoyan professional version data, Friday's Chinese mainland film market only received 51.85 million yuan at the box office, which not only hit the lowest box office since September 24 this year, but also created the lowest box office in the Chinese mainland film market in ten years.
The author checked the box office data and found that the box office on Friday during the last Lunar New Year period was even lower than this, which was 41.09 million yuan on December 30, 2011.
The Lunar New Year file is an important period in the Chinese mainland film market, although the current importance is far less than that of more than ten years ago, but it is still a must for major film companies, and it is rare and a pity that such a vacuum period appears this weekend! If "Assassination Storm" can be supplemented by the same volume of films after the withdrawal, perhaps the film market on Friday will not be so bleak.
Fortunately, this is only a temporary downturn. Next Friday (December 17), with the release of many films such as "Manslaughter 2", "Lion Boy", "Crossing the Yalu River" and so on, this year's New Year will usher in a wave of movie viewing boom.