Finance Weekly (ID:cjtxzk)
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Editor| Yang Jie
Countless viewers are willing to make up tickets for Zhang Yimou's "Sniper" after the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. But 46 million people chose to give up this year's "most expensive in history" Spring Festival stall.
On February 4, with the theme song "Snowflake" of the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, two post-00s active athletes, Diniger and Zhao Jiawen, worked together to place the last Olympic flame in the center of a "big snowflake". When the last Olympic flame was placed on the snowflake torch platform jointly constructed by all delegations, the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, which attracted worldwide attention, was also pushed to a climax.
Praised on social media as "the boldest design" and "the most forward-looking innovation", Zhang Yimou, who is over 70 years old, has once again impressed the Chinese people with his talent and ability. With the grand opening of the Winter Olympics, the Spring Festival movie "Sniper" co-directed by Zhang Yimou and his daughter Zhang Mo has once again aroused heated discussion due to the problem of scheduling.
Zhang Yimou competed in the Spring Festival file for the first time, but the cinema line did not give "face". According to maoyan professional version data, on the first day of release, the box office of "Sniper" was only 48.247 million yuan. In the special program of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games, Zhang Yimou said in the face of the host's question "Do you still have time to pay attention to the movies that you have released at the same time": "I feel that the schedule is more miserable." Subsequently, the topic of "giving Zhang Yimou a movie ticket after the opening ceremony" quickly appeared on Weibo's hot search.
In the face of this year's widely discussed "most expensive Spring Festival stall in history", Sniper took the lead in proposing to lower the minimum settlement price on February 5. With the rise of the scheduling rate, the box office of "Sniper" finally exceeded 300 million yuan on February 8. Subsequently, on February 8, the "Chosin Lake Water Gate Bridge" also announced a reduction in the settlement price.
With the "counterattack" of "Sniper", the Spring Festival file in 2022 also ended with a box office of 6.035 billion yuan. Although 8 new films were released, not only did it not catch up with the record of last year's Spring Festival file, but the number of moviegoers lost nearly 50 million.
In order to watch "Sniper", you have to "get up early and greedy"
With her parents in Guangzhou for the New Year, Ying Er, thinking that her parents usually like to watch war-themed movies and TV series, this year's Spring Festival file just had "Changjin Lake Watergate Bridge" (hereinafter referred to as "Watergate Bridge") and "Sniper" two films released, on the first day of the New Year to buy movie tickets.
Ying Er looked at the ratings of the two films on Douban and targeted "Sniper", which had a score of 7.7 and the highest rating in the Spring Festival file in the same period. But when it came time to buy tickets, Ying Er found that the next day's "Sniper" in the movie theater near her home did not have a single rehearsal.
Ying Er continued to check several big cinemas in Guangzhou, such as Wanda, Jinyi, Bona, etc., and found that although "Sniper" has a schedule, it is not only a small number of scenes, but also extremely unfriendly time. "On the second day of the Chinese New Year, Guangzhou Wanda's "Sniper" was only one at 8:30 in the morning, while the two movies "Four Seas" and "Watergate Bridge" had each time period, and they were eager to queue up more than a dozen times a day." She complained in the WeChat group.
Ying'er's friends saw her complaining and also checked the schedule of "Sniper" in the local cinema. Ying'er said that friends told her that there is a similar situation not only in Guangzhou, but also in Beijing, Changsha and other cities, "the most scheduled scenes in a theater are concentrated at 8:00 in the morning and 12:00 in the afternoon, and there are 10:30 p.m. and 0:15 a.m." ”
The data provided by a film and television practitioner on the professional version of Maoyan also shows that from February 1 to 4, the scheduling situation of "Sniper" was really "bleak", ranking last in the main Spring Festival movies (except animated films), with an average four-day scheduling rate of only 7.3%; at the lowest time, the scheduling rate on February 2 was only 5.8%, and even inferior to the animated film "Bear Haunting and Return to Earth" on that day. The scheduling rates of "Watergate Bridge", "Four Seas" and "This Killer Is Not Calm" (hereinafter referred to as "Killer") have basically remained in double digits, of which the average four-day scheduling rate of "Watergate Bridge" is as high as 33%.
("Sniper" February 2 schedule as low as 5.8%, image source: Maoyan Pro version screenshot)
"It's not early in the morning, it's the middle of the night, what does this make people think?" Ying Er eventually had to give up her plan to take her parents to watch the movie.
On Weibo, under the topic of "Sniper" is good and abusive", tens of thousands of users gathered to complain that because "the schedule is not early in the morning is the middle of the night", therefore, the box office of "Sniper" has reached more than 100 million, "all relying on those audiences who get up early and are greedy"; and netizens said that even some regional theaters still have the situation of "simply not giving a single day to the queue". In this regard, some people blame the producer for the lack of publicity, some people indignantly say that the theater "bullies people", and some people "ask for a schedule" under the official micro of the film producer, "Why do we want to see a "Sniper" so difficult? ”
Is it useful to give Zhang Yimou a "supplementary ticket"?
On February 3, "Sniper" official Wei said when celebrating the film's cumulative box office of more than 100 million yuan: "Thank you to every audience for 'getting up early and greedy', thank you for the more than 1.86 million viewers who chose to believe." In response to the complaints about the lack of scheduling in the user's message, fire pomegranate pictures participating in the production of "Sniper" left a message on Weibo, saying that "the schedule is not decided by the film."
Zhang Yimou also shouted in the interview that he hoped to "arrange more films for "Sniper", and not always be the number of scenes in the middle of the night." He did not expect that the cinema line has become the lifeblood of filmmakers, "now more than 10,000 theater managers in the country less than 20,000 have decided to schedule the film, and the director can only do it in a hurry."
On February 4, as soon as the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics ended, actor Yu Hewei posted on Weibo: "Just rush to the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, we must also go to the cinema to support Zhang Yimou's "Sniper"! ”
Spectators who "refilled tickets" overnight flocked to the cinema. According to maoyan professional version data, the box office of "Sniper" on February 4 was 39.45 million yuan, and the box office on February 5 has reached a total of 52.363 million yuan, and the single-day box office has even exceeded the box office on the first day of release.
Subsequently, the cinema lines also began to raise the "Sniper" schedule around the sixth and seventh days of the Chinese New Year. In the early morning of the 6th, the official micro of "Sniper" said that the film schedule, attendance rate, and average number of people per game have gradually risen. At present, its release time has been basically normal, and there is no shortage of golden scenes in the scheduled films. After the 8th day of release, the box office of "Sniper" finally exceeded 300 million yuan.
"The cinema line does dominate the scheduling." A director told the weekly magazine "Finance and Economics", "The theater schedule is divided into two stages. The first stage is that before the release of the film, the producer needs to communicate with the theater party to agree on the scheduling and rebate issues. The second stage is that after the first weekend of the film's release, the theater will adjust itself according to the specific situation of the film, and the most popular movie schedule will increase, and the others will decrease in turn. ”
"Domestic cinema lines are divided into direct and franchised cinemas. In addition to directly operated theaters, theaters and independent theaters that account for a larger proportion are completely independent of the film. An industry insider added, "When they first scheduled films, they basically predicted which film would sell more money, and they would arrange which one more." In his view, "Sniper" competed in the Spring Festival file this year, in fact, it does not have a competitive advantage, "it has no traffic star lineup, and is forced to compete head-on with "Watergate Bridge", naturally can not get a good schedule."
"Sniper" is Zhang Yimou's first film since the film to compete in the Spring Festival file. The film is based on the real sniper deeds in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, but in terms of theme, it "collides" with "Watergate Bridge". Compared with the big mac-level production of "Watergate Bridge", Zhang Yimou chose Zhang Yu, who has been confirmed to have acting skills, but lacks "box office appeal" as the main actor. With the extreme similarity of genres, theater managers really have no reason to choose it.
In a theater in a second-tier city, from February 1 to 4, the schedule of "Sniper" was basically about 2-3 times a day, accounting for less than 10%. Yi Hang, the manager of the theater, told Caijing Tianxia Weekly that the logic of the film schedule "first looks at the star lineup, followed by the type of movie, and finally the settlement reserve price of the distributor will also be used as a reference indicator."
(Poster of the movie "Sniper", source: Weibo screenshot)
"This year, in terms of publicity, there is no film that is particularly prominent, and even from the audience feedback, I feel that it is a bit rushed, and when many people may not have figured out what movies to be on this year's Spring Festival, the Spring Festival file began." Yi Hang said, "The previous "Chosin Lake" has laid a good word-of-mouth foundation for "Watergate Bridge", if there is no "Watergate Bridge", "Sniper" should still sell very well. ”
"We predicted at the beginning that the box office ranking of the Spring Festival movies was almost the order of "Watergate Bridge", "Four Seas", "Killer", "Miracle Stupid Child", and finally "Sniper". So we also arrange the films in this order. Yi Hang said.
For theaters, since the epidemic in 2020, theaters have been difficult to survive, especially for small and medium-sized theaters in third- and fourth-tier cities, the Spring Festival stall is no different from the most important "life-saving straw" in the year, and naturally dare not bet on "bets".
What's more, although "Sniper" has undergone a dramatic reversal, this Spring Festival stall is still in a state of "stall", and for small and medium-sized theaters, life is still not good.
Driven by 8 new films in one go, statistics released by the National Film Administration on February 7 show that the box office of urban cinema films in the Spring Festival in 2022 (January 31 to February 6) was only 6.035 billion yuan, which was nearly 2 billion yuan lower than last year's Spring Festival box office.
At the same time, the number of moviegoers in this year's Spring Festival slot was only 114 million, compared with 160 million in 2021, down 29%.
Can the price reduction still be exchanged for the box office?
Behind the continuous loss of theater audiences is the complaints of consumers on social media about the "high ticket prices" of this year's Spring Festival. According to the statistics of the lighthouse professional edition, this year's Spring Festival stall can be called "the most expensive in history", with an average ticket price of nearly 58 yuan, much higher than the 49 yuan and 45 yuan of the Spring Festival stall last year and the previous year.
During the Spring Festival holiday, the "ridiculously high Spring Festival ticket price" was once scolded on Weibo's hot search, which made many viewers have a rebellious psychology. Many people have said: "This year's Spring Festival stalls do not plan to go to the cinema, anyway, there are many ways to entertain, it does not matter whether you watch movies or not." ”
At the same time, the quality of the spring festival movies has been complained by many people as "far inferior to last year". After the release of "Hello, Li Huanying" during the Spring Festival in 2021, not only did the box office soar, but the Douban score also reached a high score of 8.3. In this year's Spring Festival films, "Sniper", which has a relatively small number of films and moviegoers, won the highest score of Douban, but it was only 7.7 points.
High ticket prices and the lack of quality content, as well as the diversion of online entertainment platforms, have become the reasons why audiences "fled" the cinema during the Spring Festival.
After netizens called for Zhang Yimou to "make up tickets", "the schedule of "Sniper" has indeed increased compared with before, but it is not as hot as the online speculation, and the attendance rate is still limited." Yi Hang told Caijing Tianxia Weekly that his theater schedule is still controlled at 3-4 times a day, and it will not exceed 5 at most." "After all, the golden seven-day holiday of the Spring Festival has passed, and the box office of "Sniper" may not be able to get another significant jump."
On February 5, Sniper announced that it would cut the minimum settlement price with the theater and circled another wave of fans for itself.
Previously, the minimum issue price of each version of "Sniper" in class A cities (including the four first-tier cities in the north, upper, Guangzhou and Shenzhen) and B city (other cities) was 40 yuan / person and 35 yuan / person, respectively, after the price adjustment, the settlement standards of these two types were reduced by 5 yuan, that is, the minimum settlement price was reduced to 30 yuan / person.
While the lowest settlement price doesn't represent the amount of fare that the audience can buy, it does mean that under the agreement, theaters can't sell tickets below that price. This also provides space for theaters to increase the schedule and reduce ticket prices. At present, in some theaters, the ticket price of "Sniper" has been reduced.
Although "Sniper" spared no effort to improve the box office, there is still a big gap compared with "Watergate Bridge". However, the latter does not seem to intend to give it any chance to counterattack, and on February 8, it also announced that the minimum settlement price will be lowered, and the minimum will fall to 30 yuan per person.
In this regard, young playwrights and directors xiang Kai said: "This year's Spring Festival movie tickets soared, which obviously triggered strong dissatisfaction and market rebound from the audience. The film industry needs to return to calm and rational thinking. Although "Sniper" expresses a gesture to the audience with the behavior of price reduction, it is not enough to rely on the price reduction of one or two films, and it also needs the producer and the theater to wake up together and strive to save the audience's heart. ”
This article is originally produced by AI Finance and Economics, an account of Caijing Tianxia Weekly, without permission, please do not reprint it on any channel or platform. Violators will be prosecuted.