Author| Weinika
Editor| Li Chunhui
Today, discussing the Spring Festival stalls has become extremely difficult. It seems that as soon as the mouth is spoken, there is a position first, and whoever speaks is like a profit transmission. Although the Spring Festival stall has always been a battleground for soldiers, it is rare to tear up and distribute it and report complaints. Unfortunately, the box office battle of the Spring Festival file is obviously more exciting than the plot of the movie. So much so that the discussion is focused on the former, and so far there is no real hot meme and content hot discussion about the movie itself.
The Spring Festival file in the screening hall has thousands of words in pink and black, and passers-by have nothing to say. The Spring Festival file outside the screening hall is like a suspense drama, one reversal after another, and I don't know how to win or lose until the end.
At the earliest, "Nameless" led the pre-sale of the Spring Festival file, a dark horse posture, but the result was just a false shot, and it was dumb before it really played; Then, the industry-predicted supergiant "The Wandering Earth 2" took the position as scheduled, leading the pre-sale and first-day box office, but lost the box office crown on the second day of release; "Manjiang Red" unexpectedly counterattacked "The Wandering Earth 2" on the third day and won the current Spring Festival total box office championship;
Other second-tier films in the Spring Festival file were all wiped out, and the box office even fell after "Bear Haunted, Accompany Me "Bear Core".
January 27 is the last day of the long Spring Festival holiday, and the Spring Festival stall has come to an end, and the overall situation seems to have been decided. But the "post-Spring Festival file" period has just begun, and the variables are still not small - the 2021 Spring Festival film "Hello, Li Huanying" is precisely in the "post-Spring Festival file" to become the total box office champion of that year.
Obviously, the film side also thinks so. At present, "The Wandering Earth 2" has just announced that it will open a national roadshow, and "Manjiang Red" also continues to have topic marketing actions, and fans of the two films have torn up the Weibo hot search because of the dispute over the arrangement. It can be seen that the final box office landing point of the two films is still very variable, and who is better will not be revealed until the end.
And the most curious thing about Hard Candy Jun is: obviously from the perspective of Douban, Maoyan and other platforms, the scores of the two films are almost the same, aside from pink and black, there is no obvious gap in their folk reputation, what is the cause of those Jedi overtakes in the arrangement and box office? What happened to the two films "Manjiang Red" and "The Wandering Earth 2"?
Pink and black wars
Regardless of the reputation of the friends around you who are researching, in terms of data, "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Manjiang Red" are the top two in word of mouth among all Spring Festival films. The Douban score of both films is above 8 points, and now "Manjiang Red" has dropped to 7.7 points. "The Wandering Earth 2" Maoyan and Taoqiao ticket scores are 9.4 and 9.6, and "Manjiang Red" is 9.6 and 9.4. Overall, there is little difference in scores between the two.
In other words, the gap in word of mouth between the two films is not large enough to influence the box office.
Therefore, in the case of word-of-mouth can not pull the gap, the box office quickly surpassed the gap, this phenomenon really confused passers-by. On the Internet, there are more and more voices comparing and discussing the two films "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Manjiang Red".
Hard Candy Jun noticed that in the discussion of the two films, there were more and more suspected "rhythmic" remarks. Those who are familiar with the operation of rice circles know that many professional fans or big V marketing numbers who take money to do things often publish some remarks that are praising one step on one and deliberately stepping on to create contradictions, so as to guide a certain public opinion trend they want.
From the fans of the two movies accusing each other of locking the scene, the ghost field in the morning and evening, issuing tickets to change their names, and being maliciously refunded, forcing the seven major film parties of the Spring Festival file to jointly issue an announcement saying that it was malicious rumors; And then to the two fans tearing each other to arrange films, and even the online violence theater manager. "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Manjiang Red", which originally had no word-of-mouth gap, are now more and more like falling into a pink and black war, and people can't hear the real voice and can't see the truth of the box office.
The negative evaluation of "Manjiang Hong" mainly focuses on the starring Yi Yangqianxi and the male perspective of the film.
Since Yi Yangqianxi's examination incident, he has fallen under a huge handle of public opinion. As soon as he comes out, the editor is a black spot under attack, and even himself and the projects he participates in have become symbols of "capital" and "mysterious power". Judging from the box office of "Manjiang Hong", this "black spot" will not affect the choice of mature age groups and passers-by audiences, but it is extremely vocal on the Internet.
In addition, traffic fans themselves can also cause passers-by to resent. In this year's Spring Festival, Wang Yibo and Yi Yangqianxi fans poured into the rating website to score data, and there was also some controversy, which may make it difficult for the audience to see the objective evaluation of the film in the early days.
And criticizing the story is too male and suspected of disrespecting women, which touches the thunder of the current hot feminist thought, and it is easy to incite the dissatisfaction of the female group. Therefore, when Yang Li, who was promoted as a "women's rights representative", published her praise for "Manjiang Hong", she was attacked by some netizens. I have to say that this is actually not a patriarchal feminist right, it is the usual trick of tearing up the rice circle - taking words out of context, buttoning big hats, and then announcing to the world.
The public opinion attack on "The Wandering Earth 2" mainly focuses on the three-hour duration and literary drama.
The short video is full of video clips of running to the toilet more than a dozen times in three hours, and it is really unbelievable to say that they are all spontaneous productions - we ordinary people are not so frequent in urinating, and we cherish movie ticket money. The attack of the literary drama is relatively simple and direct, mostly summarized by "boring" and "sleepy", and there is no need to say what specific problems the plot has.
No matter how high the reputation of a movie, there will be criticism, but some outrageous jokes are widely spread, which is obviously Blackwater's "intentional". The duration of "The Wandering Earth 2" is indeed long, but the movies in the Spring Festival file are not short. "Manjiang Hong" is only 14 minutes less than "The Wandering Earth 2", but the paragraph of running the toilet only appears in large numbers on "The Wandering Earth 2", can it be that watching "Manjiang Red" can also replenish the kidney?
To be fair, the two movies can have the current reputation, should have their own merits, and they are not the best, they can meet the needs of various types of audiences, as a Spring Festival entertainment activity do not feel bad after watching.
Now deliberately open a gap in word of mouth, step on one, although it can create public opinion topics and receive certain attention, but it may not help the long-term development of the box office. This kind of public opinion operation with a strong sense of tearing in the rice circle is easy to fall into the situation of persuading passers-by and viewers. Wouldn't it be a pity if it ended up disappearing like a traffic circle?
Publicize the gap
"The Wandering Earth 2", as a supergiant in this year's Spring Festival file, is the same as "Detective Chinatown 3" in the 2021 Spring Festival file, obviously has the advantage of IP sequel, but it has fallen into the strange circle of tortoise and rabbit racing.
Its Maoyan and Taobao ticket dual platforms exceeded 1.21 million want to watch, far ahead of other films, proving that the audience's expectations in the early stage have always been high. It is clear that he won on the propaganda launch running line, but why did he still lag behind in the follow-up?
The embarrassment of "The Wandering Earth 2" had some clues during the pre-sale. In the early stage of the pre-sale, it was left behind after "Nameless" and "Manjiang Red", and only in the later stage did it surpass the top. Proving the absolute lead of "The Wandering Earth 2", there are some subtle changes in the approach of the Spring Festival file.
Judging from the box office data of the first two days, the box office of "The Wandering Earth 2" in first, second and third-tier cities on the first day of its release is better than "Manjiang Red". But from the second day, the box office of "The Wandering Earth 2" in first, second, third and fourth-tier cities has declined. "Manjiang Red" has increased in the first and second lines, and the third and fourth lines have also declined.
On the third day of release, there was an official watershed, and the box office of "Manjiang Red" in the third- and fourth-tier cities suddenly reversed the decline and grew strongly. This may have a lot to do with the adjustment of the publicity strategy of "Manjiang Red".
Judging from the hot search keywords in the early stage of "Manjiang Hong", the focus of the publicity is on the two leading actors Shen Teng and Yi Yangqianxi.
But from the second day of its release, "Manjiang Hong" began to focus on "comedy" elements, and the poster materials of various platforms were marked with a slogan of "enough suspense and laughter to the end". #Manjianghong is suspenseful enough to be funny#, #Zhang Yimou hopes that Manjianghong can make the audience laugh 30 times#etc. on Weibo hot search, #Manjianghong which clip is the funniest#, #All Douyin is walking in Manjianghong style #Climbing on Douyin hot search.
Hard Candy Jun has discussed before that comedy is the easiest element to break into the sinking market. Because the comedy "Exchange Life" failed in word of mouth, the most favored comedy elements in the sinking market during this year's Spring Festival were extremely lacking. "Manjiang Hong" is equivalent to adjusting the publicity positioning in time and trying to win the market for comedy.
Judging from the hot search of "The Wandering Earth 2", in addition to the main visual effects technology, it mainly revolves around hardcore content marketing. For example, #Wu Jing was surprised that Zhang Chaoyang understood the structure of the wandering earth 2#, #looked at the wandering earth 2 and thought of the three-body #, #foreign scientist grandma said that she wanted to see the wandering earth 2#, #The wandering earth 2 is a reflection on the community of human destiny# and other hot searches.
But these are difficult to resonate with the sinking audience, and there is a high threshold of understanding. And overall, the visible publicity data of "The Wandering Earth 2" is not the level that a blockbuster should have. After its release, the topic marketing of "Manjiang Red" was obviously more than that of "The Wandering Earth 2". Up to now, "Manjiang Hong" has accumulated 1,030 hot searches on all platforms, while "The Wandering Earth 2" has only 780.
Who can have the last laugh?
It is undeniable that because of the duration, "The Wandering Earth 2" is indeed not cost-effective for theater managers, and there are certain disadvantages. If "Manjiang Red" and "The Wandering Earth 2" have little difference in word of mouth and little difference in attendance, the theater manager is more willing to arrange the "short" "Manjiang Hong". When the demand for the Spring Festival is greater than the supply, it is more cost-effective to arrange as many times as possible in a day. For example, if you row 7 "Manjiang Red", you can save a "Bear Haunted, Accompany Me "Bear Core".
Therefore, from the time of the release of the film war, "The Wandering Earth 2" did not have an advantage. On the first day of release, "Manjiang Red" was obviously a second-tier film, but the arrangement of films was at the same level as "The Wandering Earth 2", reaching 25%. And "The Wandering Earth 2" only has a 1% scheduling advantage. If the subsequent pre-sales of "Nameless" do not collapse and continue to lead, you should be able to get more scheduled films, because the length advantage of "Nameless" is more obvious.
It's a pity that the reputation of this year's short films has collapsed, and only two feature films are left to compete with each other - the 173-minute "The Wandering Earth 2" and the 159-minute "Manjiang Red".
These two are not the best choices for theaters - short sets and good reputation. This may also be why, the number of Spring Festival performances this year is significantly lower than that of previous Spring Festival stalls, and the total box office has fallen when the ticket prices are similar.
Although "Manjiang Red" temporarily counterattacks "The Wandering Earth 2", it is predicted to become a supergiant with a box office of 4 billion +, while the box office forecast of "The Wandering Earth 2" has fallen back to 3 billion +. But the two marketing wars continue, and there is still the possibility of a reversal.
First of all, "The Wandering Earth 2" must effectively target the sinking market. The marketing advantage of the first part of "The Wandering Earth" - the freshness and tearfulness of science fiction - is no longer obvious in the second part. And the general environment has changed, "The Wandering Earth 2" only does hardcore content technology marketing, it is easy to fall into the situation of "enclosure self-hi", it is difficult to resonate with more ordinary audiences.
Overall, "The Wandering Earth 2" lacks a unified and effective playing method compared to the first part. The current strategy of "Manjiang Red" is effective, mainly using comedy elements to enter the sinking market and divide the box office that should belong to comedy. "The Wandering Earth 2" is about to open the roadshow mode, but the road show alone has no effect - at present, "Exchange Life" and "Nameless" are still busy national roadshows, but the box office has no power to return.
The post-Spring Festival period has just begun, and if the laggards have the fighting spirit of "Tomorrow's War", they may not be defeated in the end. Hard Candy Jun expects to see surprises, and I hope to see a few hot terriers that really belong to the movie itself. Don't be "capital", "pink and black", "water injection", "big-character newspaper" and "lawyer's letter" every day, people don't want to watch any movies.