Author / Lu Shiming
If you count from 2013 to the present, the Chinese film Spring Festival has just gone through a decade.
To put it bluntly, the Spring Festival file is the real sense of witnessing the development and growth of the real meaning after the marketization of Chinese films, and any film and director can only successfully stand at the top of the food chain if they experience the baptism after the Spring Festival file.
But Rome was not built in a day, and buns needed to be eaten until the tenth to be full. From not being optimistic about everyone to becoming a leading horn, the road traveled by the Spring Festival stall is obviously more tortuous and more difficult than other stalls, so that now the Spring Festival stall has become a "can't afford to lose, must win" slot.
To this day, some people still think that the success of "Journey to the West and The Descent of Demons" ten years ago will be very accidental. However, it must be noted that after the baptism of this decade, the Spring Festival file has quietly produced a lot of changes, and this change has also prompted the upstream and downstream of the industry to invest the highest quality and most abundant resources into it, and affect and influence the operation and operation of other films.
The first change, the radical change in the concept of cinema
In fact, many people inside and outside the industry will only see the outbreak of "Journey to the West and Descending Demons" in 2013 as a sign of the rise of the Spring Festival file, but earlier, there will still be many viewers watching movies during the Spring Festival, and most of the young people's spending power is not bad, but neither the number of studios nor the quality of the film can guarantee delivery to all the slots, and even we have not formed a better slot concept, many films are still delivered in the more traditional New Year slots and summer vacations.
However, after 2010, the 3D of imported blockbusters and the rise of some domestic films began to further stimulate more active consumption films of the post-90s generation with stronger consumption power, and the cultivation of this active consumption ability was through the increase in the income level of young audiences and the recognition of new shopping malls & studio brands.
When there are enough consumers with strong consumer desire and ability, there is a real opportunity to stimulate this part of the consumer to have the independent willingness to watch the film through the supply and marketing means of the film, this change makes the mainland in the Spring Festival file can form a real sense of just need, so that the mainland until now every New Year's Day will become a single country's daily box office champion.
The second variation, the richness and variety of types
In the first few years of the Spring Festival, perhaps magic, historical themes, and Hong Kong-style comedies will occupy the main share, and from 2013 to 2015, the overlap and similarity of genres are very serious, and even the phenomenon of multiple variety films will occur, perhaps at that time, everyone did not realize that genre differentiation was a guiding direction for the market, and more would be entangled in the question of brand authorization and who is the authentic authority.
The real change comes from the emergence of "The Mermaid" in 2016, the market has changed from a battle for supremacy to a super and a super, of course, the super here is irrefutable, but the gap between these "strong" and super is obviously too much, the cumulative box office of all other films is not as much as that of "The Mermaid", in the case of the overall ticket price is almost the same, the type of innovation has formed a complete crush on other old forms of films.
In the following years, although the Spring Festival box office champion will form a certain degree of crushing on other films, there will also be a good scene of counterattack, but from the perspective of the supply of film types and the unique choice of the schedule, the Spring Festival file has no longer taken "family fun" as a main element, although in many Spring Festival films there will be some specific Spring Festival atmosphere strong plots, but if only from the genre point of view, most people are difficult to imagine the science fiction film "The Wandering Earth" and the war film "Red Sea Action" embedded in the Spring Festival file.
The third change, the iteration and update of the director
As the saying goes, "it is easy to fight the country, it is difficult to defend the country", but in the Chinese mainland, for all the important slots, it is actually not easy to fight, and it seems to be more difficult to keep, presumably this point is deeply appreciated by all the directors and actors who have been in the Chinese film market, especially the key slots such as the Spring Festival slot of the Lunar New Year file.
Just as many years ago, Xingye's "Kung Fu" came out to detonate the New Year file at that time, and since then, the mainland New Year file has continued to form a continuous stage of development before the popularity, and the Spring Festival file was also opened by Xingye's "Journey to the West and Descending Demons", to the "Mermaid" also directed by him to reach a peak, but after that, many previous editors and directors have also begun to gradually withdraw from the historical stage, even in other stages it is difficult to achieve victory.
In 2017, Han Han emerged, Chen Sicheng's Tang Detective universe scale began to emerge in 2018, Guo Fan's opening of the first year of Chinese science fiction films in 2019, Jia Ling broke the box office record for female directors in 2021, and Shen Teng also became the most attractive box office star in the Spring Festival file, while the iron Wu Jing and the new Yi Qianxi also began to become the backbone of the Spring Festival file.
This change also comes more from the iteration of the audience, whose iteration seems to be carried out in parallel with the actors, which is accurately captured by this golden period, and there may be an important iteration in the next decade, but for now, it is still difficult to judge who is the next Shen Teng, Wu Jing and Yi Qianxi.
The fourth change,
Ticket prices are rising and ticketing friendliness is improving
The 2018 Spring Festival stall may be a large increase in the ticket price that the audience can see with the naked eye in recent years, because the reason is that the ticket supplement is gradually reduced and the fever is reduced, if it is not the first to buy tickets, most of the price of tickets purchased in the later period is significantly higher than the daily fare.
Remember that the intelligence jun on this matter and some practitioners had some discussions, a theater leader said that the audience's income is increasing year by year, China's GDP growth is stable, during the New Year for the social purpose of "family fun", the audience will not skimp on a few yuan of ticket price increases, not to mention the Spring Festival audience itself will have a phenomenon of low frequency of viewing, each year only in the Spring Festival to spend one or two movie tickets, for everyone there is almost no much impact.
At the same time, due to the rapid development of 4G/5G networks and mobile phones in the mainland, the relevant departments are also effectively accepting the audience's reaction to the difficulty of buying tickets in the Spring Festival, through the adjustment and replacement of many software and hardware, so that the audience and users can get a better ticketing experience, to know that few countries in the world can achieve a single-day box office of 200 million US dollars without any problems, behind the naturally there is a strong data, network and relevant departments of support and assistance.
The fifth change, the change and adjustment of core competitiveness
In the first few years of the initial Spring Festival, big stars and big-name directors, including super IP, do have no doubt about the ability to absorb gold, here there is both the accuracy of project delivery, but also the audience's eagerness for IP to present on the big screen, but no one can deny the success of these projects, but from a long-term market perspective, any type has a life cycle, and the presence of some non-film projects may only be one or two years.
However, through the rapid development in recent years, the films that have achieved box office success in the head of the Spring Festival file have more tendencies to return to purer films and return to the truth, perhaps from the shooting method, project selection and interpretation method, it will take care of the younger audience, but if from the choice of themes, the arrangement of actors and the more specific market orientation, the audience that has taken care of all aspects of the Spring Festival file as much as possible, after all, compared with other schedules, the Spring Festival film will face more audiences.
Perhaps for this reason, the more significant changes in the Spring Festival file in recent years are ostensibly that the film seems to be a bit "safe and vulgar", but in fact, in addition to the ratings on some traditional movie rating websites and ticket-buying APPS, some authoritative media have collected a wider audience satisfaction evaluation, and the Spring Festival file will still make a considerable part of the audience have a good satisfaction.
For most of the audience, their more concerned focus is on whether their own viewing requirements can be satisfied in a specific Spring Festival file to see one or two films, the overall changes in these years have begun to better meet the audience's demands from the core competitiveness of the film, each Spring Festival file will have a very strong theme to attract the audience, but this change is difficult for many viewers who have a very high frequency of viewing movies on weekdays. However, for most of the audience who only watch the movie in the key slot, there will be a more obvious feeling.
The sixth change, the big picture under the small story and small competition
For more fans and practitioners, or will care about more specific film situation, the Spring Festival file from only able to accommodate 2-3 head films, to now to squeeze into the index of seven or eight films, see its degree of competitive incentives, perhaps for the audience to have a good opportunity to choose more, but for each head company, entering the Spring Festival file is not only a proof of their own strength, but also a challenge to their future development opportunities.
But from 2019 onwards, the degree of competition incentives in the Spring Festival file began to show signs of decline, although the first day is still a must-fight place for soldiers, as long as it can win the number of games, it is almost impossible to consider whether there will be a cold field phenomenon, and it can even be said that a studio will fully rehearse the more unpopular films, and it will also get a fairly good attendance rate and yield, and even if from other points of view, the studio can only get a lot of income from other aspects.
In addition to the fierce competition that everyone can see with the naked eye, there are too many small stories and small competitions between film parties, between fans and fans, between marketing parties, and between competing studios in the same area. But the purpose of all of us is to promote their favorite films, their own projects, and their own studios to get more profits and box office.
From a long-term point of view, the competition in the Spring Festival file is not terrible, which will make all films pay special attention to entering the Spring Festival, but it must also be seen that the unnecessary investment and vicious competition in the Spring Festival file are bound to gradually decrease, from the perspective of the degree of increasing attention paid to the Spring Festival file by the management departments at all levels, there will only be a big pattern in the Spring Festival file, and some films will promote the more benign development of the entire file period.
Perhaps this week, the pre-sale of the 2022 Spring Festival file is about to start, from the current point of view, the films that have fallen in place are carrying out more normal publicity and promotion, and now everyone is only concerned about whether some cities can smoothly hinder the impact of the epidemic, and whether there will be films that cannot withstand the pressure to withdraw the file may be the matter of this day.