Published on December 14, 2021| No. 2718
In 2021, the mainland film market gives people a clear impression: once the holiday, the new films in the theater are released in a pile, and the audience cannot see it at all; without the holiday, the quality of the new films is uneven, and the audience has no intention of stopping in the theater.
This kind of period dependence is quite typical in the 2021 Spring Festival file.
Affected by the new crown epidemic, the Spring Festival of the Year of the Rat in 2020 fell to the freezing point, and the theater was "closed" for half a year. It was not until the Spring Festival of 2021, when the audience returned to the theater with their families, that the consumption power of movies was released. The film producers also want to share a piece of the Spring Festival file on the large number of moviegoers.
As a result, six blockbusters were collectively screened. "Detective Chinatown 3", which has been postponed for a year to meet the audience, the nostalgic family comedy "Hello, Li Huanying", the adventure film "Assassination of a Novelist", which focuses on the wonders of the two worlds, the absurd and humorous reality comedy "Surging Crowds", the national comic "New God List: Nezha Reborn", which interprets the story of the gods with modern images, the magic film "Samurai Order" adapted from the mobile game "Yin and Yang Division"... It's dizzying.
Judging from the final box office figures, the Spring Festival slot was a success. The 2021 Spring Festival stall ended successfully with a box office of 7.822 billion yuan. According to the "2021 Spring Festival Market Data Insight Report" of Ali Pictures' Lighthouse Research Institute, the 2021 Spring Festival file not only increased the box office by 32.5% compared with the 2019 Spring Festival file, but also set a new high of 160 million viewers.
However, behind the "double male competition" of "Tang Detective 3" and "Hello, Li Huanying" at the box office is the "cannon fodder" ending of many films. Even if andy Lau, Wan Qian and other big-name movie stars are gathered, director Rao Xiaozhi still has to personally go down to cheer for "Surging Crowds" in order to increase the number of films; "Samurai Order" can not avoid the fate of squibs, and finally ended at the bottom of 273 million yuan.
Happiness belongs to "Chinatown" and "Li Huanying", and the other films have nothing.
But the 7.822 billion yuan box office is clearly swinging, and film distributors can only "remember to eat and not remember to play": thinking about the good schedule, ignoring its cruelty.
Qingming and May Day earn more, how miserable the Dragon Boat Festival
Looking at the mainland film market in the first half of 2021, in addition to the Spring Festival stalls, the other three major festival slots (Qingming stalls, May Day stalls and Dragon Boat Festival) have a sharp contrast between bulls and bears.
Following the "strongest Spring Festival file", 2021 ushered in the "strongest Qingming file" and "strongest May 1st file".
According to the data of The Lighthouse Professional Edition, as of 24:00 on April 5, the box office of the entire Qingming file (April 3 to April 5) in 2021 exceeded 820 million yuan, and the number of moviegoers reached 22.25 million. The box office hit a record high in the same period, an increase of 17.33% over 2019.
By may 1st (May 1st to 5th), due to the five-day holiday, the elongation of the time dimension also expanded the box office volume. According to the statistics of the 1905 Film Network, the box office of the May Day show in 2021 finally fell at 1.67 billion yuan, with a total of more than 44 million moviegoers and a total of 2.246 million screenings.
Although the total box office performance is considerable, there are only one or two works that have obtained high box office revenue, and most of the others have lost money.
In addition to "Godzilla vs King Kong", works such as "My Sister", "Tomorrow Will Be Better", "The Eleventh Time", "Shengsheng", "Journey to the West: The Reborn Demon King" and other works all want to share a piece of the pie; in the May 1st file, the main films alone can list "On the Cliff", "Your Wedding", "Secret Visitor", "Sweeping Black Battle", "Chasing the Tiger and Catching the Dragon", "Sunshine Robber", "True Three Kingdoms Unmatched", not to mention "Looking for Han", "Pig Pig Man Big Movie Dinosaur Diary" and other small films.
At first glance, there are quite a lot of films in each slot, and the types are relatively rich, but the problem of unreasonable scheduling is also quite significant.
Except for "On the Cliff", the top box office films in the rest of the schedule are driving the box office with topics, rather than pulling audiences into the theater with quality. This will not only make the film's late box office performance poor ("Your Wedding" was overtaken by "On the Cliff"), but also consume the "ammunition" that should be equipped for the daily schedule.
In addition, this year's Qingming file and May Day file are mostly domestic films, and the epidemic situation abroad is relatively serious, and overseas films have to withdraw from the scramble.
Imagine that in 2018, the Qingming file also had films such as "Ready Player One", "Pacific Rim: Thunder Rise", "Bursting Silence", "Starting Line", "Third Degree Suspect" and other films, of which "Ready Player One" single-handedly supported 58% of the box office of the Qingming file. In the 2019 Qingming file, the national film only has "Anti-Corruption Storm 4" and "A Cloud Made of Rain in the Wind", but the imported film also has "Thunder Shazam!" "Dumbo", "Tuner" to support.
This year's Qingming file and May Day domestic films show a blowout trend, but the content shows a bipolar trend: some of the better films have limited height, and some of the worse films have unlimited drops. This is also the reason why "Secret Visitor", which is full of suspense, is not welcomed, and "Your Wedding" is spat on by the audience as "my funeral". In the balance between entertainment and narrative, there are still many places where domestic films need to learn from Hollywood.
In the three-day holiday of the Dragon Boat Festival in 2021, the mainland film market produced a total of 463 million yuan at the box office, of which the first day box office was 153 million, the next day was 169 million, and the third day was 141 million, and the single-day box office of the holiday was only equivalent to the box office level of ordinary weekends, and the advantages of the Dragon Boat Festival were not satisfactory, compared with 912 million yuan in 2018 and 785 million yuan in 2019.
In the 2021 Dragon Boat Festival, the films released are not only of mediocre quality, but also have no topicality.
Due to the impact of the epidemic, family relations have returned to the focus of audiences' lives, and the blockbuster movies have also focused on family and individual emotions. "Send You a Little Red Flower" is actually the creator's soothing of the audience's heart across the screen; "Hello, Li Huanying" shows the mutual sacrifice of mother and daughter for each other in this Spring Festival when she can't go home; "My Sister" depicts the run-in between sister and brother at the moment of low fertility.
The two remakes of Korean films in the Dragon Boat Festival, "When Men Are in Love" and "Sunshine Sister Tao", focus on individual reminiscences. The remake of blindly drawing a tiger with a cat made the two works lose at the starting line and did not receive widespread attention.
"Tropical Past" continues the film noir style of "The Party at South Station", but no matter how superb the form can not save the bland story, not to mention that the tone and sound of "Tropical Past" are not as unique as Diao Yinan.
Under the guidance of the "schedule first" scheduling thinking, the work completely follows the schedule, and the audience faces the scheduling situation: drought death of drought, waterlogging death.
Fortunately, the Dragon Boat Festival has made major issuers realize that the hitchhiking is not so good to take. In the second half of the year, major film distributors began to adopt a muffled way of making a fortune, dispersing the release of the film instead of piling up the film.
The summer slot that was "scared off" was reasonable but lonely
The second half of this year is relatively rational. The two major periods of summer and National Day are still rich in variety, but due to the two-month long summer, there are not many National Day head films, and the phenomenon of movies being released in groups has eased.
This year's summer box office is only 7.3 billion yuan, far less than 12.4 billion yuan in 2016, 16.3 billion yuan in 2017, 17.3 billion yuan in 2018, and 17.7 billion yuan in 2019.
Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Party, the two tribute films of "1921" and "Revolutionary" should come out of no time. The former tells a story of the founding of the party with an all-star cast, adding newly excavated historical materials and dark line espionage elements to it; the latter promotes the revolutionary romantic style and looks back at the collective memory with individual thoughts. However, due to the lack of some realistic hookups, these two films did not perform as well as "Chinese Doctor" at the box office.
As one of Boehner's "Victory Trilogy", "Chinese Doctor" starts from the realistic perspective of medical staff, praises the anti-epidemic feats and evokes the collective memory of the audience.
In late July, White Snake 2: Green Snake Robbery was released. The previous work "White Snake: Origins" is a dark horse in 2019, earning 468 million yuan at the box office. "White Snake 2: Green Snake Robbery" continues the story of the first part, although the framework, concept, and character setting are taken from traditional mythological stories, but a great modern interpretation has been made. Unfortunately, the characters are complicated and the clues are chaotic, so that this film has not been able to break the circle after all.
On July 30th, "Midsummer Future" and "Fury Serious Case" were released. The former is the work of director Chen Zhengdao, and this film lets the audience know that he can not only make suspense films, but also love movies. Director Chen Musheng's posthumous work "Fury Case" surpasses the neatness of the story of "Bomb Disposal Expert 2", coupled with large-scale action scenes such as street explosions, alley snipers, church duels, etc., the film finally ranked first in the summer box office with 1.329 billion yuan.
"Out of Control Player", released on August 27, has saved Hollywood movies a little dignity, but the overall cold situation of this year's summer program under the epidemic cannot be changed.
In contrast, the National Day file is more lively. "Changjin Lake" and "My Father and Me" are two mainstream blockbusters, and the former has ascended to the throne of the box office champion in the history of Chinese films. But the box office, which was propped up by the strength of "Chosin Lake", was also an uneven prosperity.
Does the period theory work?
It's not just big slots that will have a box office. For example, the mystery suspense film "Fame and Fame" was released on November 11, the "Singles' Day" mini-slot, but its box office has exceeded the 800 million mark. Therefore, the schedule is not a panacea, and the focus is whether the content can be in line with the demands of the current audience.
Judging from the box office performance of this year's movies, social relevance has become the elixir of the box office. Films that can trigger social associations, can evoke a sense of social justice, and can arouse social empathy will have higher audience acceptance and guaranteed box office.
On the one hand, "Fame and Fame" satirizes the chaos in the entertainment industry, and on the other hand, it uses the "Three Olds Case" to attack the rich and noble for doing evil, which has social practical significance.
"Sweeping Black And Decisive Battle" has sprung up in the "May 1st" crowd, and the scale dividend of the theme is also obvious. Even if the film ends with the old routine of "justice is done", the audience just wants to see the performance of class conflicts and the dark side of society. This is also reflected in "Fury Case".
In addition, under the epidemic, the emotional bridge of the audience by the film is also particularly important. Therefore, some films that focus on idealized emotional expression have a strong box office explosion. This year's Lunar New Year file, movies such as "Love Myth", "Embracing You Through Winter", and "Love in a Year-by-Year Unit" may have a good performance.
Xu Zheng's film "Love Myth", which focuses on Shanghainese romantic comedies, combines the lives of Shanghai's small citizens with dialects, which is indeed innovative. Xue Xiaolu's "Embracing You Through the Cold Winter" takes the anti-epidemic as the background to convey the optimistic attitude of small people; "Love in The Year" starring Mao Xiaotong and Yang Jiu, focusing on the attitude of urban young men and women to love. Realistic issues combined with romantic narratives are perhaps what audiences want most.
Film distributions choose to embrace big schedules, and there may be many factors to consider. Specific to 2021, the most important factor is, of course, the epidemic. First, there is a lack of confidence in the audience's willingness to watch movies under the epidemic. Even if there is no other advantage for the large slot, it can at least ensure the basic turnover of people. Second, the decline in film production capacity since the epidemic has made medium- and large-scale films seriously insufficient. Movies that can be teamed up in ordinary years are now difficult to make a pair on ordinary Saturdays and Sundays. This makes assembling in the big slot a better choice.
We just hope that this kind of distribution thinking does not form a stereotype. After all, the audience of each kind of entertainment product is cultivated by themselves. When the audience is developed into the habit of paying attention to movies only in the large slot period, the healthy development of the film market will have more difficulties.
【Text/He Thought】