Text | Jumping curtain, author | Castle peak
Word of mouth "slippery kneeling".
Before the release, "Li Mao Dressed as a Prince" still had a lot of expectations. The reason is that the main "comedy" genre gives it a certain advantage in the entire slot. Under the sluggish performance of the entire market. "Comedy is fragrant after all."
Then after its release, the film's reputation was greatly disappointed. Although the film's schedule is "anti-rising", the attendance rate of the film has been affected to a certain extent after the word-of-mouth opening. This is the current situation of the entire film market, once the word-of-mouth evaluation of the film is sluggish, the role in the market will increase rapidly.
Last year, the number of moviegoers in the entire film market "faded" by more than 500 million compared with 2019, which naturally has the long-term impact of the epidemic, but the audience's viewing choice is also a "caution" that is visible to the naked eye. This is naturally related to the quality of the film, but also related to the cost of watching the film.
But for "Li Mao As a Prince", it is not just a movie's box office gains and losses. The starring team of this movie once again let the happy twist flower be pulled out of the "back pot", and the "pseudo-happy twist comedy" was worried in the market several times, which actually caused this comedy brand to cause a certain market consumption. Secondly, costume comedy is already in decline on the big screen, and with the failure of "Li Mao dressed as a prince" again, whether costume comedy will "part" from the big screen is also a more practical question.
01 Happy twist "back to the pot"
"Pseudo-Happy Horse Flower Series".
In 2015, "Charlotte Troubles" sprung up in the National Day file, making Happy Twist the comedy brand with the highest "national popularity". In the era of comedy, Happy Twist has a very high market reputation, followed by "Shy Iron Fist" and "Donkey Get Water" to further enhance the reputation of Happy Twist in the audience.
But in 2018, the reputation of "Li Cha's Aunt", which also chose to be released in the National Day file, suffered a huge decline, although the final box office still received 604 million, but the harvest of the market is no longer the same year. This is the biggest word-of-mouth crisis encountered by the "genuine comedy" of happy twist, but what really makes the reputation of happy twist flower is consumed is precisely the "pseudo-happy twist system".
Because happy twist variety shows, dramas, and movies are developing, but the main creative team is relatively fixed. Especially for some IP that are more successful in dramas, the main creative team is basically used in movies, and the actors who can be called names are actually relatively fixed. Therefore, all comedies with a high density of happy twist actors are mistaken by the audience as "happy twist comedies".
In last year's Lunar New Year file, Chang Yuan's debut film "Warm Baby" won 864 million at the box office, but the reputation has been obviously polarized. In March this year, the reputation of "Sun Never Sets" that pulled out "Shen Teng" for marketing completely collapsed, and the final box office was only more than 20 million.
Although the "pseudo-happy twist" comedy does not represent the level of happy twist, the highly similar starring lineup and the theme of the motif are generally similar, which makes the happy twist "back the pot" several times. The starring lineup of "Li Mao Dressed as a Prince" has Ma Li, Chang Yuan, Allen and other twist "familiar faces", and there are also twist "supporting roles" such as Wei Xiang and Wang Chengsi, so it is naturally divided into "twist comedy" by the audience.
But in fact, this movie has no connection with Happy Twist, and there is no trace of Happy Twist among producers and co-producers. However, for ordinary audiences, it will not be too "elaborate" capital connection, more or through the type + main creator to identify, happy twist originally with the national degree to obtain market dividends, and now although it can still attract attention but have to say that word of mouth has formed a huge consumption.
Nowadays, the industry can generally be identified by "containing the amount", but for the general audience, the happy twist actor + comedy but direct impact is still effective. However, many comedies are folding in the market, which is obviously a potential crisis for the legitimate "twist comedy".
On the one hand, there is a clear need for comedy in the audience, but the power of word of mouth is gradually on par with the need for genre. On the other hand, happy twist comedy has a consistent creative law, which is basically a warm comedy model of small people. For the innovation of the comedy genre, the audience will obviously put forward higher requirements for happy twist.
In the next Spring Festival file, although "Super Family" has been officially withdrawn, "This Killer Is Not Calm" starring Ma Li and Wei Xiang is still listed, and "Lone Moon" starring Shen Teng and Ma Li is also expected to be released this year. Obviously, Happy Twist still needs the trust of the audience, but how to make a distinction between the positive twist comedy and the pseudo-twist comedy, and maintaining its own word-of-mouth trust will be a big topic for Happy Twist.
02 Costume comedy is completely out of drama?
The return on investment ratio is seriously worrying.
The trend of costume films in the film market in recent years has become worse and worse, and it has long become a foregone conclusion. A big reason is that in terms of realist resonance and emotional empathy, costume films obviously have a natural disadvantage, which is difficult to compensate for. In addition, the production cost of costume films is not low, but the box office seriously drags down the return on investment ratio will inevitably reduce the number of high-quality costume films.
In the Spring Festival of 2019, "Detective Pu Songling" starring Jackie Chan was released, although there was a successful kung fu comedy as the foundation, but this costume fantasy comedy still performed badly, and finally accumulated a box office of 160 million, but the cumulative comprehensive box office of the Spring Festival box office champion "The Wandering Earth" reached 4.686 billion, ranking second in the annual box office.
In September, "Xuexian I", starring Xiao Zhan and Li Qin, accumulated 405 million at the box office, but it also performed poorly. However, compared with Jackie Chan's kung fu comedy, "Sui Xian I" is a new genre attempt on traffic stars + costume fantasy, and then from the results, it is not satisfactory.
By 2020, the real costume film is left with "Red Fox Shusheng". Although the film is remarkable in terms of marketing, the final box office performance also landed within 200 million. Chen Linong and Li Xian, the two major flow students, could not "protect the disk".
Compared with costume fantasy blockbusters, costume comedies are relatively cost-effective branches of the same genre. Also because of the advantages of its own superposition type, it is easier to attract ordinary audiences to enter. But until the box office failure of "Li Mao Dressed as prince", whether the costume comedy can still hold up has become very delicate.
Judging from the behind-the-scenes production of "Li Mao Dressed as a Prince", the story of the film is still the number of "small people warm comedy", but the time and space have been transformed into ancient times, which is essentially not much different from the realist comedy before Happy Twist. From the perspective of jokes, the film is still attached to the actor's "baggage", but compared with the mature comedy creation, the main creator of "Li Mao Dressed as a Prince" has publicly stated that many "baggage" are created on the spot twice.
Therefore, some of the so-called jokes in the movie stay in the "lip comedy", and this so-called "baggage" is obviously unable to satisfy the audience. Because Happy Twist has long become the largest branch of domestic comedy, whether it is a variety show or a drama exposure has been greatly improved, and the costume comedy starring Happy Twist actors on the screen is still a cheap comedy with a "sense of variety" or "network movie sense", which naturally cannot satisfy the audience.
But this does not mean that there is no market for comedy, and costume comedies can see a certain rigidity in dramas and variety shows, and even have works that break the circle. For example, "Son-in-law" successfully broke the circle this year, and not long ago, the magic dance steps of "Mr. Please Come Out of the Mountain" in the "Annual Comedy Competition" became the object of emulation.
However, from these works, it can be seen that the maturity of laughter is the key, and the big problem of "Li Mao Dresses Up as Heavenly Son" is the lack of mature laughter. Without word-of-mouth support, it is becoming increasingly difficult for viewers to watch a costume comedy at a certain cost of watching movies.
On a larger scale, a serious downturn in market feedback will also make the return on investment of costume comedies continue to decline. In the past two years, costume comedies have become a "scarce thing", and the market feedback of "shooting one and smashing one" may make the prospects of costume comedies more worrying.
03 Domestic films need "new types"
The audience needs "freshness".
"New genres, new themes, new talents" is the key word of the entire film market in 2019, because many works directed by young directors have poured into the market to become the head blockbuster, but the film genre may not sell well according to the usual market law. In 2019, "Nezha's Devil Boy Descending", "The Wandering Earth", "Captain China", "Crazy Alien", four of the top five domestic films at the box office are not "genre blockbusters" in the traditional sense with the cumulative box office of these four films, but the total box office of these four films accounts for nearly a quarter of the annual market.
"Nezha's Devil Boy Descending" is the light of national comics, but after "The Return of the Great Sage", national comics have been stuck on the "life and death line" of 500 million for several years; "The Wandering Earth" redefines domestic science fiction, and also makes 2019 the "first year of domestic science fiction"; "Captain China" is a new attempt to combine the main theme and disaster films; "Crazy Aliens" is the fusion of comedy and science fiction.
But after all, the "literacy" type dividend is extremely short-lived, or it has to return to the lifeline of quality. For example, in 2019, "Shanghai Fortress" was considered to be a "closed-door work" that closed the "science fiction door" that opened "The Wandering Earth". Two years have passed, and the market has not appeared qualified domestic science fiction.
But for the audience, in addition to the impact of the "new genre", freshness is still the driving force for watching movies. However, it has to be admitted that the head effect of the Current Chinese film market is getting stronger and stronger, which is a very single choice for the audience.
First of all, the box office in 2021 was 47.258 billion, but the box office of domestic films accounted for nearly 85%. Among them, the total box office of the top five Chinese films at the box office reached 40% of the market. Due to the excessive size of the head, 1.5-3 billion domestic blockbusters were missing in 2021, and the number of films that broke through 100 million was extremely low at 11%, which was seriously lower than that in 2019 and 2020. The tail end of the market is also too long, and the number of films with a box office of less than 10 million will reach 71% in 2021.
The serious two-level differentiation of the market will inevitably make more films play the "safety card", so the signal fed back to the production side of the market is the "restraint" on the type and theme. Emotional concentration, realistic empathy coefficient and recognition of the starring lineup have become the three major elements of domestic films, coupled with the market release of the main theme film in the past two years, the audience's choice has become single.
However, in the face of the "fading" of 500 million moviegoers, if the audience's viewing choice continues to be single and the cost of watching movies continues to increase, then the rebound of the market will face more and more pressure.