"Manjiang Hong" hit 5 billion at the box office, and Zhang Yimou returned to the top

Today, the box office of director Zhang Yimou's new film "Manjiang Hong" has exceeded 2 billion, breaking the director's single-film box office record. Coupled with the recent strong demand for movies, the film's box office will continue to rise, and there is a possibility of impacting 5 billion. The success of "Manjiang Hong" at the box office is not only the credit of the film's highly suitable type and schedule, the theme is quite novel, the quality is good, and it is easy to trigger topic discussion, but also the collective innovation of Zhang Yimou's team under respect for the needs of the audience.

Author | Cheng Fei (Author of Cultural Industry Review, Researcher of Sanchuanhui Cultural Tourism Research Institute)

Editor: | time

Edit the | peninsula

Source | Cultural Industry Review

This Spring Festival cinema is very lively, and there has been a long-lost phenomenon of full seats and crowds. As a frontrunner, at 14 o'clock on January 26, that is, 4 days and 5 hours after its release, the box office of "Manjiang Red" officially exceeded 2 billion, with more than 38 million moviegoers, temporarily ranking 28th in the total list of single films in the Chinese film market. The second year of junior high even surpassed "The Wandering Earth 2" and became the single-day champion.

The single-day box office of the reverse decline made the final box office of "Manjiang Red" full of imagination. From the current trend, there is no suspense to break 3 billion, it is only a matter of time to break 4 billion, and Maoyan even gave a forecast of 4.508 billion.

△Source: Maoyan Professional Edition

Impact 5 billion

Combing the Spring Festival films from 2016 to the present, it can be seen that the box office of "Operation Red Sea", "The Wandering Earth" and "Hello, Li Huanying" is similar to the trend of "Manjiang Red", these four films are all films in the early stage of release, single-day box office is not dominant, and in the later period, there was a single-day box office reversal, surpassing all competitors in the same schedule to hold the box office daily crown, and finally reached the top of the box office champion. In addition to "Manjiang Hong", the remaining three films have a minimum box office of 3.652 billion (Note: Operation Red Sea) and a maximum of 5.413 billion (Note: "Hello, Li Huanying"). The total number of passengers is between 92.99 million ~ 121 million, and the average ticket price is 39.27, 44.62 and 44.73 in ascending order.

Combined with the box office data of the first four days of release and the final results of "Operation Red Sea", "The Wandering Earth" and "Hello, Li Huanying", a simple estimate of the final box office of "Manjiang Red" can be made.

Make a minimum estimate first.

After calculating the final average ticket price of "Operation Red Sea", "The Wandering Earth" and "Hello, Li Huanying" and the average ticket price from the first to the fourth day of the new year, it was found that the final average ticket price was 7.38%, 9.06% and 9.36% lower than the average ticket price of the four days before the release, respectively, a decrease of nearly 10%. Taking 90% of the average ticket price of the first four days of "Manjiang Hong" can be used as an estimate of its final average ticket price, that is, 47.4 yuan. Judging from the trend of the first four days of release, the number of single-day people in "Manjiang Hong" is about twice that of "Operation Red Sea", and it has increased day by day, indicating that the final number of viewers of "Manjiang Hong" will definitely exceed "Operation Red Sea", that is, no less than 92.99 million times. Then, the final box office of "Manjiang Red" will not be less than 4.4 billion.

△Figure 1 Single-day box office four days before release (data source: Maoyan Professional Edition)

Combined with the box office trend, a relatively accurate estimate is made.

Figure 1 shows that the daily box office trend of "Manjiang Hong" is relatively smooth, and the reversal is smaller than that of "Hello, Li Huanying" and "The Wandering Earth". Although the single-day box office size is now similar to "Hello, Li Huanying", considering that there is also strong competition from "The Wandering Earth 2" in the same period, it can be estimated that the probability of "Manjiang Red" having a steep reversal trend like "Hello, Li Huanying" is small.

△Figure 2 Number of single-day moviegoers in the four days before the release (data source: Maoyan Professional Edition)

At the same time, Figure 2 and Figure 3 show that in terms of single-day box office size and number of moviegoers, "Manjiang Hong" is significantly higher than "The Wandering Earth" and "Operation Red Sea", and the same as "Hello, Li Huanying", so the final number of people may be between "The Wandering Earth" and "Hello, Li Huanying". If the number of people of "The Wandering Earth" is taken as the standard, the final box office of "Manjiang Hong" is 4.977 billion, and if the average number of people of "The Wandering Earth" and "Hello, Li Huanying" is used as the standard, the final box office of "Manjiang Hong" is about 5.356 billion.

△Figure 3 Average single-day ticket price in the four days before the release (data source: Maoyan Professional Edition)

This shows that as long as it surpasses "The Wandering Earth" in the total number of moviegoers, "Manjiang Hong" will enter the 5 billion club. The box office trend and the above analysis indicate that this possibility is very large.

Up to now, there are 4 movies with a box office of more than 5 billion on the total list of the Chinese market (Note: "Changjin Lake", "Wolf Warrior 2", "Hello, Li Huanying", "Nezha's Demon Child Descends"), and there are 4 movies in the range of 40~5 billion (Note: "The Wandering Earth", "Detective Chinatown 3", "Avengers 4", "Shuimen Bridge of Changjin Lake"). The first film with a box office of more than 4 billion appeared in 2017, and the first film with a box office in the range of 40~5 billion appeared in 2019. In addition to 2020, which does not have a box office of 4 billion +, since 2019, the box office of 4 billion + can be ranked third in that year (Note: "Avengers 4" box office 4.249 billion, ranking third at the box office in 2019), third (Note: "Detective Chinatown 3" box office 4.545 billion, ranking third at the box office in 2021) and first (Note: "Changjin Lake Water Gate Bridge" box office 4.067 billion, ranking first at the box office in 2022). It seems that "Manjiang Hong" is most likely scheduled for the top three of the year in 2023. As for whether it can win the annual box office championship, it depends on the final box office and the performance of other films this year.

△ Films with more than 4 billion box office in the total box office list of Chinese films (Source: Maoyan Professional Edition)

"Manjiang Hong", which exceeds 4 billion and may even be 5 billion, not only refreshes the single-film box office record directed by Zhang Yimou, but also does not differ from the total box office of his previous 13 commercial genre films. "Manjiang Red" is more likely to enter the top three at the annual box office again, and the last time was 2006's "Full of Gold Armour".

It can be said that "Full River Red" allows director Zhang Yimou to return to the top of the box office.

Zhang Yimou is one of the most important directors since the marketization of Chinese films. Before 2010, the domestic costume blockbuster he created was a representative of domestic head films, repeatedly breaking box office records. For example, "Heroes" in 2002 had a box office of more than 250 million, accounting for 12.9% of the total box office in the two years from 2002 to 2003 (Note: The screening period of "Heroes" spanned 2002-2003), and a single film can account for more than 10% of the box office in two years, which is a very strong appeal. Another example is 2006's "Full of Gold Armour", which once again broke the record for a single film with a box office of nearly 300 million.

However, after 2010, Director Zhang's box office appeal continued to decline, and he did not eat the dividends of the rapid expansion of the Chinese market. Since 2010, Zhang Yimou has directed and released 9 films, except for "Manjiang Red", only 2 have exceeded 1 billion, the first is "The Great Wall" in 2016, and before that, there were 25 films in the Chinese market that exceeded 1 billion, and the second was "Above the Cliff" 5 years later. The remaining 6 movies all have a box office of more than 100 million. This is not a bad result for the average director, but he was once a market leader.

In addition to the box office not being able to enter the top ranks, there are also word-of-mouth controversies, such as the prostitute of "Jinling Thirteen" for a virgin, and the form of "Shadow" is greater than the content. But this year's "Manjiang Red" eliminated all controversy. Compared with the high reputation and "low" box office of "Sniper", the high box office and low reputation of "The Great Wall", "Manjiang Red" truly achieves a win-win situation between box office and word of mouth.

So why did "Manjiang Red" become a new breakthrough.

From the product side, the first is suitable, the second is novel, the third is interesting, and the fourth is quality.

First, watching comedy during the Spring Festival is no more appropriate than this year.

In 2022, we have witnessed too many heavy moments, and this year's Spring Festival is the first time after the epidemic that you can truly be free from the virus, isolation, masks, etc., reunite with your family, and watch movies together in the cinema with confidence, and the audience's demand for comedy has reached a peak.

Although "Manjiang Hong" mixes suspense, costume and other styles, the core is comedy, and the director said that making the audience laugh is an important purpose of creation. "Manjiang Hong" highlights "joy" from many aspects such as actor configuration, lines and body performances and plot reversals. Actors can be called the team building of Chinese comedians, Shen Teng, Pan Binlong, Wei Xiang, Yue Yunpeng are all well-known comedians, although Lei Jiayin and Guo Jingfei have participated in many dramas, but variety shows, interviews and other funny clips of the two have been circulated. Lines such as "Death-free Gold Medal Inevitably Die", "Little Abacus of Big People", Shen Teng's Zhang Sledgehammer Wall crying "can't do it" and other physical actions, as well as black humorous reversals, all made the audience can't help but laugh, and the audience laughed from time to time during the screening.

Second, the costume historical blockbuster is novel enough for this audience.

The golden age of costume blockbusters was before 2010, and "Heroes", "Red Cliff", "Night Banquet", "Ambush on Ten Sides", "Painted Skin" and so on were all at the forefront of the box office that year. But at that time, there were few cinemas in China, and the habit of watching movies had not yet been cultivated, and there were not many audiences who had really entered the cinema to see these costume blockbusters. After 2010, the number of costume blockbusters decreased, and what was more deadly was that the reputation was very poor, and even became synonymous with domestic bad films, such as "Asura" in 2018 and "Turandot: The Origin of the Spell" in 2021. Coupled with the return of realistic films in recent years, good-quality costume blockbusters can be said to have disappeared in cinemas.

Focusing on the Spring Festival file, in recent years, it is mainly based on the main theme war films and comedy films, and the last time costume historical elements appeared in the Spring Festival file was "Detective Pu Songling" in 2019. However, due to the low quality of the film, the final box office was only 160 million, and the spread was not high. This year, "Manjiang Hong" puts the background of suspense and comedy in the Southern Song Dynasty, and the unique and close to the ancient costumes, decorations, etiquette, etc. of the Southern Song Dynasty allow the audience to appreciate the beauty of traditional culture on the big screen, meeting the needs of many young audiences who love ancient culture, and it is also a "counterattack" to some costume dramas in recent years that do not respect basic history, indiscriminately change the service of specific dynasties, and even Yanhua and Westernization.

Third, the fun of deconstruction, to put it bluntly, is the fun of making terriers and playing terriers.

Making memes and playing memes have long become an important promoter of popular culture, memes, that is, interesting topics. Whether a movie can be popular out of the circle and to what extent it is out of the circle is closely related to the number and spread of memes. Before there are painful "crying terriers" such as watching movies such as "The Ex", "Sad Stories Than Sadness" and "Life Events", and then there are actor memes such as "Content", which are all interesting topics with high transmission and can boost the box office.

The author came out of the cinema, many viewers were still discussing Yue Yunpeng's funny lines, and the ultimate task set by the plot - listening to Yue Fei's last words was jokingly called reciting poetry by netizens. Since yesterday, some netizens have archeological that the "True Story of A Fei" in the 15th episode of "Dragon Gate Dart Bureau" has similarities with the plot of "Man Jiang Hong", and began to create terriers and play terriers on the brain hole of the screenwriter ten years ago. With the popularity of "Manjiang Red", more new memes will appear.

Fourth, "laughing" also requires quality.

The Spring Festival should watch comedy, but not embarrassing comedy, farce. Compared with the pure comedy "Exchange Life" in the same schedule, "Manjiang Hong" has quality in drama and performance. Nearly 3 hours in length, the plot is not dragged, and the rhythm of several reversals is also well grasped. The performances of Zhang Yi, Lei Jiayin and Shen Teng have received many positive reviews, and Zhang Yi's demeanor and walking have also been on the hot search. The only traffic star, Yi Yangqianxi, is tearing off the label of traffic without acting skills.

From the creative side, it is an innovation that accurately grasps the needs of the audience

The immediate need of mainstream moviegoers is good content.

For the public, the plot is logical, and the story is clearly told, which is good content. Stars, directors, publicity and special effects can only capture the hearts of some audiences in the market segment. The audience votes with their feet, the content is good, whether it is a new director who is unknown or an old director who has made a bad film, the audience will pay. Poor quality, no matter how strong the appeal was before, the audience will still be merciless.

Previously, Zhang Yimou's stagnation at the box office was precisely in the content. The co-production "The Great Wall" was considered unpopular and lacked logic, and the ink-style "Shadow" was also questioned when it was released, the form was greater than the content. Commercial films are aimed at a wide audience, and first and foremost is a logical and clear story. As a representative of the fifth generation of image aesthetics, Zhang Yimou has always paid more attention to the creation of image style in his creation. And this time "Manjiang Hong", in terms of lighting and photography, is not as sophisticated as before, seriously uses a linear narrative to advance the plot, clearly tells this Zhongyi story four years after Yue Fei's death, coupled with dense laughter, it is a qualified Spring Festival screen "feast" for many audiences.

It is also Zhang Yimou's innovative work.

In addition to the innovation of returning to the historical route of ancient costumes, suspense, history and comedy are put on a plate, presenting the main theme of loyalty and patriotism, and it is also a new exploration of the main theme of movies in recent years in addition to military, war, and action. There are also Henan Yu opera and drums as a cutscene soundtrack, and traditional houses as video spaces, all of which are quite innovative.

Today is the fifth day of junior high school, and "Manjiang Hong" has booked the box office champion of this year's Spring Festival file, and also booked the annual head movie seat in 2023. 20 years ago, the top director who started the marketization of Chinese films returned, looking forward to his next film.