"Ant-Man 3" is also rotten, is Marvel still saved in China?

On the third day of release, as of the release of Poison Eyes, "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Frenz" (hereinafter referred to as "Ant-Man 3") had just reached 120 million at the box office.

Compared to the previous game, this is certainly not a good result. 2015's "Ant-Man" and 2018's "Ant-Man 2: The Wasp" had a box office of 272 million and 430 million in the first weekend in China, respectively, and the new work shrank by not a star. In terms of word of mouth, "Ant-Man 3" has a Douban score of 6.2, which is lower than all works before the fourth phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, making it difficult for its subsequent box office to have momentum.

Despite this, "Ant-Man 3" is also in much better shape than "Black Panther 2", which has been released for almost two weeks, but the box office is only 101 million, and it took only two days for the single-day box office to be surpassed by "Ant-Man 3", which has the opportunity to become the lowest-grossing Marvel movie in the mainland since 2011. Of course, "Black Panther 2" was released overseas at the end of last year, and many core fans may have seen it, so most people's expectations for Marvel's return to the mainland debut are more on "Ant-Man 3", which will be released simultaneously in North America. And the defeat of "Ant-Man 3" made Marvel's road back more bumpy.

Black Panther 2

The Marvel movies that have been in the mainland film market for nearly four years, and the front and back feet knocked on the door of return, happen to be "Black Panther 2" and "Ant-Man 3", I have to say, there are still some subtle meanings.

In the setting of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they are the end of the fourth phase and the beginning of the fifth phase, respectively. In the first three stages, Marvel films that gradually raised the ceiling of the mainland film market were introduced, but in the fourth stage, they did not reach the domestic market, and their film quality department was also questioned by fans. The fifth stage, which was supposed to open a new chapter, now seems to have failed to get off to a good start at home.

More coincidentally, in the Marvel movie solo hero IP, "Black Panther" and "Ant-Man" are the two with the lowest and highest proportion of the box office in the Chinese market in the global market, respectively. In short, this is probably the two Marvel superheroes that domestic audiences have the least preference and most favorite.

But regardless of the successes and failures of the past, the market uses the most direct feedback to suggest that after nearly four years of empty windows, maybe everything will have to start all over again.

Chinese audiences love Ant-Man?

When it comes to Marvel superheroes, most domestic audiences may have a better impression of Iron Man and Captain America, but if you look at the box office of the movie, the ant talent that is not too noticeable is the leader.

"Ant-Man" and "Ant-Man 2" both accounted for nearly 20% of the Chinese box office, except for the "Avengers" series, which are the two highest single-hero movies, and the lowest, since the first phase of Marvel, is "Black Panther".

Source: Box Office Searchlight, Box Office Unit: US Dollars

The first stage of Marvel movies (from "Iron Man" to "Avengers") is in the period of IP awareness cultivation in China, and the domestic film market itself is still in the early stage of development, with limited market capacity, single-person superhero films have no box office of more than 200 million, and the box office proportion in the global market is also below 5%. Now the high-profile Iron Man and Captain America are Marvel movies entering the Chinese market at this stage.

Since "Avengers", the second phase of Marvel movies (from "Iron Man 3" to "Ant-Man") has reached the domestic box office level between 300 million and 800 million, and the third phase (from "Captain America 3" to "Spider-Man: Far From Home") is the most familiar blowout period for most audiences, and the average box office of 9 solo hero movies can reach 900 million.

Therefore, the box office results of the two "Ant-Man" in China are more like "the predecessors planted trees, the descendants took advantage of the cool" - after the cognitive foundation of the Marvel Universe was laid, it won the favor of the domestic audience.

From the market environment when "Ant-Man" and "Ant-Man 2" were released, the reason for this "favor" can also be found. Both "Ant-Man" followed closely after the "Avengers" series, which coincided with the moment when domestic audiences were enthusiastic about Marvel movies. Its release time is after the National Day file in 2015, and the end of the summer file in 2018, both of which are moments when the big schedule has brought hot markets and lacks competitors in the same period.

In addition to market environmental factors, the "Ant-Man" series also takes a lighthearted and humorous route in terms of content style, and comedy has always been a very popular genre in the domestic market. The setting of the small people's counterattack is also closer to the people than the general bitter superheroes, which are the elements that domestic high-grossing commercial films often have.

But overseas, especially in the North American home market, the box office performance of the "Ant-Man" series has been very poor. Although in the original comic, Ant-Man and Wasp are the founders of the Avengers and have a very high status, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ant-Man appeared very late, and did not appear in the first three "Avengers", lacking a fan base.

The series is also the lowest investment of all Marvel solo hero movies, and its own box office expectations will not be too high. Therefore, although the overseas reputation of the first two "Ant-Man" is not bad, the North American box office in the first weekend ranked second and seventh from the bottom in Marvel movie history.

In contrast, the "Black Panther" series is in complete contrast at home and abroad.

As the first superhero movie with black protagonists, it carried too much expectation from North American fans before it was released. After its release in 2018, "Black Panther" won the fifth consecutive weekend box office in North America, and fell by less than 50% in the first 13 weekends, eventually becoming the sixth film in North American film history. And the first-day box office of "Black Panther 2" even surpassed the previous work, and although it declined in the follow-up, it still ranked sixth at the global box office in 2022. But in China, "Black Panther" only collected 662 million, which is the lowest box office film in the third phase.

Unlike the first two "Ant-Man", which were unanimously praised at home and abroad in terms of word-of-mouth scores, "Black Panther" has obvious differences in domestic and foreign word-of-mouth. The Douban score of "Black Panther" is 6.5 points, which is the lowest score of all Marvel films before the fourth stage, and "Black Panther 2" has fallen to 5.5 points, only higher than the 5.4 points of "Thor 4: Love and Thunder". The two works scored 79% and 94% respectively on the popcorn index of Rotten Tomatoes, which represents the audience's rating. The reason is also obvious, the domestic audience is not interested in the film issue, and even has an antipathy to the politically correct tone of Marvel movies.

Obviously, the failure of "Black Panther 2" in the domestic market is not surprising, but the mediocre performance of "Ant-Man 3", which should be "favored", makes people more worried about Marvel's future in the Chinese market. In the process of gradually returning to the right track in the domestic film market, the introduction of films is bound to pay more patience.

Marvel has to plant trees again

The mainland defeat of "Ant-Man 3" is the epitome of Marvel's failure in the fourth phase. The absence of the domestic market has gradually made the incremental audience cultivated by Marvel in China gradually lose the habit of watching movies, and the quality of the fourth phase of the film itself has not been recognized by domestic core fans.

From the number of ratings of Douban entries, we can get a glimpse of one or two. A total of seven films in the fourth phase are all added together, with only 1.47 million ratings, while "Doctor Strange", which has the largest number of ratings for single hero movies in the third stage, has 1.579 million in one film. In other words, once the theater opportunity is lost, the number of viewers of Marvel movies in China may be less than seven.

Even this group of core fans who are still interested in watching the film score are quite critical of the quality of the fourth stage of the film. According to the statistics of Houlang Movies, the Douban scores of Marvel's first and second phase films are all higher than IMDB, and none of them are lower than 7 points; In the fourth stage, the situation was completely reversed, and the Douban score was all lower than IMDB, and none of them scored above 7.

Source: Houlang Films

Of course, this is inseparable from the quality of Marvel's content output in the fourth phase, and its box office and word of mouth in the global market have declined. Perhaps the core reason is the radical strategic adjustment of parent company Disney during the epidemic.

Under the shadow of the epidemic, film and television production itself has been suspended, but Marvel has still launched 11 series and 7 movies in two years, and the overall production pace is much faster than before, which is bound to make the polishing of individual content more urgent.

Former Disney CEO Bob Chapek also appointed Karim Daniel as chairman of Disney's media and entertainment distribution division, and Daniel monopolized power during his tenure, controlling the financial and final decision-making power of various studios including Marvel and Pixar, causing great dissatisfaction among the company's executives and creators.

However, the situation has now turned around. At the end of last year, Bob Chapek stepped down and served as Disney's CEO for 15 years, and Robert Iger returned to Disney after advocating the acquisition of Marvel Studios. One of the first things he did when he took office was to change the organizational structure, fire Daniel, and re-delegate the content business to the studios.

Marvel Studios CEO Kevin Feige also said at the press conference of "Ant-Man 3", "Now we are reorganizing the fifth and sixth phases, and I am conceiving the seventh phase, I will participate in the design of specific stories." "A renewed focus on content development is an essential part of Marvel's turnaround.

In the background of the decline in content, the audience has another layer of "hostility" towards Marvel movies than overseas audiences. The insulting controversies of "Shang Qi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" and "Doctor Strange 2" have deducted a lot of "impression points" to Marvel. In addition to the "impression score", the actual score also has the difference in the tastes of Chinese and foreign audiences. Although it is the consensus of fans that the quality of most of the fourth phase films is not as good as before, in the "three worms in the same frame" "Spider-Man: No Return of Heroes", you can see the most significant differences in the evaluation of domestic and foreign audiences.

This film scored 8.2 points on IMDB and grossed $1.92 billion at the global box office, ranking the most of all Marvel's solo hero movies, with a score of only 6.6 on Douban. "Our Lady" and "low intelligence" are the words most mentioned in the short commentary. In essence, the narrative of commercial films that domestic and foreign audiences can adapt to is indeed different, and the "Easter egg card" and "sentiment card" that Marvel movies are best at have declined in acceptance by domestic audiences after repeated use, and diversified mining should be carried out at the story level of a single film.

Of course, it is far more than Marvel that is not satisfied in China, and since 2020, the performance of imported films in the domestic film market has not been optimistic. Changes in audiences' viewing habits have kept the priority of imported films behind.

According to Maoyan Research Institute's "2022 China Film Market Data Insights", in the three years before the epidemic, the average viewing age of the top ten sub-accounting films was about 28.1 years old, and in the three years after entering the epidemic, the average viewing age of the top ten sub-account films rose to 28.5 years old, 29.8 years old and 30.3 years old, respectively.

This means that in the past three years, the main audience of imported films has almost always been the same group of people, and the youth trend culture built by overseas series of films represented by Marvel in the past seems to be "failing" for the new generation of young people who grew up in the epidemic era.

The reason for the "failure" is not difficult to imagine, in the past, Hollywood blockbusters took "visual spectacle" as the biggest selling point, but under the multiple influences of film audiovisual technology for many years without substantial breakthroughs and the improvement of the special effects level of domestic films, it is now difficult to rely on "visual spectacle" alone to occupy too high weight in movie viewing decisions.

"2022 China Film Market Data Insights" pointed out that since 2019, a clear trend is that audiences pay more attention to the performance of "plays", especially in films that focus on "production". In 2022, in movies where the mention rate of "production" is higher than the average, the proportion of audiences mentioning "plot" can reach 2/3 of the sum of "production"; in some large-budget films, the audience's attention to "plot" has even equaled production performance such as special effects and scenes.

Not only that, the superhero movies represented by Marvel emphasize both honey and arsenic for IP sequels. The lack of innovation has become another major original sin of imported films. According to the "2021 China Film Audience Survey Report", when talking about their impressions of imported films, 25.3% of the interviewed audiences believe that "there is no novelty and cannot be compared with previous years", and 28.1% of the interviewed audiences believe that "the gap between the head domestic films and imported films is getting smaller and smaller".

From these perspectives, in order for Marvel to continue the past glory in the mainland film market, it needs to pay more attention to drama and innovation, as Robert Iger said when he returned to office, "glorify and respect innovation as the foundation of our life." ”

"Avengers 5" will not appear until the sixth stage, and Marvel's single-player superhero movies can no longer just "take the cool" and "plant trees" like the previous "Ant-Man". Only the emergence of a groundbreaking single film, like "Iron Man" that year, can make a new generation of young people become Marvel audiences and be popular for another decade.

The old road may be difficult. But in the past few years since the epidemic reshaped the world, how many things can escape starting all over again.