Author | clearly
Edit | fig
After 1,320 days, Marvel blockbusters have reappeared in mainland theaters.
On January 17, the news of the official announcement of "Black Panther 2" and "Ant-Man 3" came out, which instantly set off a wave of climax in the Marvel fan group, and #Two new Marvel films are scheduled in the mainland #The topic rushed to the hot search.
According to the statistics of "Interface News", as of February 3, the number of officially announced films in China in the first half of the year has reached 33, reflecting the improvement of the "limit fixation" situation, and after the epidemic is controlled, the normal rhythm of publicity is recovering. Although the volume is basically not very large, the addition of various genres such as superhero, Japanese comics, and Hong Kong films is conducive to further heating the market, promoting audiences of many ages to return to theaters and restore their viewing habits.
As of press time, "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Manjiang Red" still firmly occupy the single-day box office champion and runner-up, the new film "Black Panther 2" just broke 20 million on the first day, ranking third, and "Black Panther 2" 8 million pre-sale box office (lighthouse statistics as of 10:30 am on the 7th), obviously not very high. A number of media have given a forecast landing point of about 200 million. After three and a half years, the market environment and audience preferences have changed a lot. Super hero old, can you still eat?
The "Red and Black" of the Spring Festival file, 33 new films in the first half of the year are finalized
This Spring Festival file with the strongest reputation and "the second highest box office in history" still has many regrets: due to the appearance of top stars such as Yi Yangqianxi and Wang Yibo, the rice circle culture invaded the Spring Festival file, the "pink and black war", public opinion storms, under the battle of one star and five stars, "Nameless" became the latest Douban score. The official blog of "Manjiang Hong" issued a statement saying that the so-called "ghost field" and "stealing the box office" are nonsense.
If "Manjiang Hong" itself has content problems such as female portrayal controversy, suspense reversal and so on, the official operation problem has become more questioned by the outside world. For example, the official blog of "Manjiang Hong" posted the "Jing Kang shame" when the sentence was wrong, and the "unwarranted" was criticized, and then sued the big V, for a period of time, almost every day was "Manjiang Hong" and "The Wandering Earth 2" tearing each other related entries. Caught in negative public opinion, the "dual-core drive" has become an either-or stand and tear each other, and the joint statement of the seven film parties cannot be stopped, which undoubtedly hurts the benign competition order and development environment of the film industry to a large extent.
The spotlight is mainly on the "double strong", and the frustrated get much less attention: "Deep Sea", which was originally regarded by the outside world as a dark horse, was eventually expected to have a box office of 800 million +, and failed to land in the summer file with higher adaptability, and at the same time, the emo part of the story, script problems, and Japanese comic reference controversies made this beautiful national comic movie fail to play a better level. The animated films with the highest return on investment, the most stable performance, and even the highest box office and third place in the series belong to the low-age family fun "Bear Haunted".
Fortunately, the public opinion war did not directly hurt the box office trend, with the end of the Spring Festival holiday, a large number of young people returned to first-tier cities from second- and third-tier cities to start working, and first-tier cities became the main box office. Not driven by high ticket prices or even slightly reduced ticket prices, the number of moviegoers and viewing enthusiasm has been effectively mobilized and restored, this year's Spring Festival file reputation has enhanced its endurance, after the holiday continues to heat up the market, in addition, the post-Spring Festival file has not shown the usual "empty" film desert scene, from the number of new film supply, content type richness, this year's film market has obvious signs of recovery.
After the Spring Festival file, the upcoming small schedule "Valentine's Day file" poured into 6 films with love elements, continuing the tradition of "super long titles", of which "Can You Don't Leave Me" led with 172,000 people who wanted to see it; "Sadness That Can't Shed Tears" starring He Lantuo, Cai Fanxi, Wang Yaoqing and Xu Guanghan also has a certain volume; "Black Panther 2" may receive holiday blessings, and there may be a small climax in the big market on the day. This year's Qingming Festival holiday is only one working day, and the Qingming file no longer exists, so the new film will be further dispersed, and the phenomenon of "off-season" film shortage and uneven hot and cold outside the schedule will be improved.
In Hong Kong films, "When the Wind Rises" directed by Weng Ziguang and starring Tony Leung and Kwok Fucheng has been released on February 5, and "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer", which broke a number of box office records in Hong Kong, will be released soon, "Crisis Route", "Operation Moscow", "Sneak", "Mr. Red Carpet", "Goldfinger", "Internet Disconnection", "Drug Sweep 3", "Temporary Robbery", "Insider" and so on have also been set.
But from another point of view, these Hong Kong films to be screened also show an obvious phenomenon of "actor breaking the generation". Andy Lau, Kwok Fucheng, Koo Tianle and others frequently appear in the starring list, and the new generation of filmmakers is weak in succession.
The number of imported films in the new films has significantly recovered and increased, including Japanese manga films, "Your Name" and "Weather Child" director Makoto Shinkai's new work "Suzuya Journey", and the re-screened "Detective Conan: The Undead of Baker Street", all of which have a stable audience in the anime circle. Marvel and DC Super English account blockbusters have appeared for a long time, which has a lot of attraction for young audiences and audiences in first- and second-tier cities. Today's "Black Panther 2" is released, on February 17, "Ant-Man 3" will be released simultaneously in China and the United States, DC's "Thunder Shazam!" Wrath of the Gods is scheduled for March 17.
Other noteworthy new films include "Chinese Table Tennis Jedi Strikes Back", which was withdrawn from the Spring Festival file to February 17 and released on the same day as "Ant-Man 3". In April, there was "Space Exploration Editorial Department", produced by Guo Fan and won the highest score of 3.8 in the 2021 Pingyao Film Festival, whose main audience is film fans; The comedy "Dragon Horse Spirit" starring Jackie Chan, Liu Haocun and Guo Qilin, the comedy "Life Road is Unfamiliar", the air combat main theme film "The King of the Long Sky" starring Wang Yibo, and the crime prosecution theme "Procuratorial Fengyun" are all scheduled for May 1st, and the suspense film "Disappearing Her" has been set for the Dragon Boat Festival.
After three and a half years, the "post-Spring Festival file" of Marvel is no longer supported
"Black Panther 2", which has won a global box office of 842 million US dollars and ranked in the top 3 of the North American box office list last year, failed to stand up in China, which is expected.
Due to the unfortunate illness and death of the original film starring Chadwick Boseman, as the finale of Marvel's fourth phase, "Black Panther 2" tells the story of a generation of Black Panther T'Challa after the death, Wakanda Princess Su Rui with wisdom and courage, growing into the story of the second generation of Black Panther, the film was released in North America last November, many domestic audiences have seen the network resource version, and the release time lag greatly affects the box office performance of the film. The score of 5.7 points on Douban also means that its reputation is not optimistic.
The IP influence of these two films itself is relatively limited compared to other superheroes, considering that the previous work "Black Panther" achieved a box office of 662 million yuan in Chinese mainland in 2018, and the first part of "Ant-Man" was released in China in 2015, with a box office of 671 million yuan, "Ant-Man 2: The Wasp" was released in 2018, with a box office of 831 million yuan, its IP popularity is higher, and "Ant-Man 3" is the opening work of the fifth phase of Marvel, and China and the United States are released simultaneously, there is reason to believe that "Ant-Man 3" will be better than " Black Panther 2 achieves better results.
In the past, due to the humiliation of China, changes in the macro situation, and other complex factors, from "Black Widow", "Shangqi and the Legend of the Ten Rings", "Eternals" to "Spider-Man: Homeless", "Doctor Strange 2" and "Thor 4", Marvel blockbusters have been absent in China for several years, breaking the "viewing continuity" and emotional stickiness of Marvel fan groups.
It should be recognized that even if the number of imported films breaks out again, it will face a more popular and competitive market for domestic films. Bona Chairman Yu Dong's statement in December last year that "Avatar 2 is not suitable for Chinese audiences" and "looking forward to Wu Jing movies" rushed to the hot search, he believed: "American movies are more about making science fiction heroes and animation heroes, and these are gradually far away from today's Chinese film viewing habits, which leads to Chinese audiences will prefer domestic films, like film and television works that revolve around Chinese stories, conform to Chinese national conditions and Chinese culture." ”
As the threshold for Chinese audiences continues to rise, top special effects are no longer the only factor that triggers audiences to enter the theater, they value the storyline and the power of emotional resonance, as can be seen from the fact that the box office of the sci-fi blockbuster "The Wandering Earth 2" is not as good as "Manjiang Hong". And cultural differences determine that Hollywood blockbusters are destined to be limited in emotional resonance, "Avatar 2" failed to explode at the initial box office, but slowly recovered later, although there are unfavorable factors to catch up with the domestic audience's "collective first wave of yang", but also cannot deny the factors of changes in audiences' viewing preferences.
The Chinese market, which has the world's first number of screens, is still very important for both Disney and Warner. According to Refinitiv, the market expects the company's Q1 revenue to be $23.359 billion, up 7% year-on-year, and movie box office revenue will drive the company's revenue growth. At present, the global box office of "Avatar 2" has exceeded 2.1 billion US dollars, and the Chinese market has contributed 245 million US dollars, with a share of more than 10%. Shanghai Disneyland's recovery this year will also drive its recovery.
As early as the former head of Disney, Bob Chapek, said that "given China's low box office share relative to the rest of the world, we are very confident that even without China, if our films are still difficult to release there, it will not hinder our success", which caused controversy in China, and after changing the old head Robert Iger, the outside world also paid considerable attention to whether he could improve his relationship with the Chinese market.
"Black Panther 2" and "Ant-Man 3" are important signs of Marvel's blockbuster returning to the Chinese market. It is rumored that "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" has been successfully reviewed and will be released simultaneously in North America on May 5. The peak era of "Avengers 4" at the box office of 4.25 billion and topping the list of imported films has passed, and the homogeneous superhero blockbuster has caused aesthetic fatigue among the audience to a certain extent.
If superhero blockbusters want to break out again, the most fundamental thing lies in story innovation and word-of-mouth improvement.
Whether or not imported films can return to the golden age, what is certain is that, at least for domestic practitioners, after a few years of struggling at the trough, this year is a year of hope. The Spring Festival stall is a good start for the whole year, and the temperature continues to the "post-Spring Festival stall", and it may not be too long to reproduce the scene of full and queuing for entry.