Wen 丨 Liang Jialie
On February 18, the box office of "The Fallen Man of the Mountain Road" exceeded 10 million, becoming the sixth online movie to enter the ranks of 10 million accounts this year, and the next film with 10 million accounts may be born in "Into the Coffin" and "Northeast Beasts".
Compared with the number of online movies exceeding 10 million in the same period of the previous two years, 2023 is obviously falling behind, which is closely related to the background of cost reduction and volume reduction in the film and television industry, the scale of content has been reduced, and the proportion of high-box office films will naturally decline. But the good news is that the results of efficiency and quality improvement in the online film market are also obvious, and the Douban score of most online films in the Spring Festival file has reached more than 6 points.
In 2022, the online film market will also emerge with many high-scoring works, such as "No One in Sight" and "Special Hero Huang Jiguang", behind the word-of-mouth jump, what is more important is actually the breakthrough of the theme represented by these films, such as martial arts films and main theme films are rarely touched by online movies in the past. The breakthrough of the market in the genre of the subject may become a key turning point in the wave of online movies in this round of cost reduction, efficiency reduction, quantity reduction and quality improvement.
Online movies in cost reduction and efficiency increase
Up to now, in 2023, there have been six films "Sniper King: Assassination", "Paper Man Returns to the Soul", "Look Up and See Joy", "Sniper: Reverse War", "Northeast Farewell to the Heavenly Group 2" and "The Fall of the Mountain Road Man" have exceeded 10 million at the box office, of which "Sniper King: Assassination" is the only part of the account to break 20 million. This result is slightly inferior to last year, and in the same period of 2022, eight films such as "Strange Talk of Longyun Town" and "I am not the god of wine" have entered the ranks of tens of millions of points.
The retreat in the number of high-box office films is mainly due to the sharp decrease in the scale of new films, taking the Spring Festival file as an example, 2023 is the year with the lowest number of new films in the online Spring Festival file in the past three years, compared with 20 in 2021 and 14 in 2022, there are only 8 new films in the online movie Spring Festival file this year. It is not difficult to see that last year's wave of cost reduction and efficiency improvement in the film and television industry also radiated to the field of online movies.
However, from the production reduction of nearly half, but the distribution of tens of millions of films is only two less than last year, it can also be seen that the resilience of online movies is more sufficient, which has actually been reflected in 2022. In 2022, a total of 394 online movies will be launched on video platforms, a decrease of 157 compared with 2021, but the number of moviegoers in the industry is increasing, in 2021, the number of moviegoers of the ledger champion "The Legend of the Hunter of Xing'anling" was 11.07 million, and in 2022, the number of viewers of the ledger champion "Strange Tales of Yin Yang Town" was 16.75 million.
In 2023, the high resilience shown by the online film market is mainly related to the improvement of film reputation and the development of the business model of series development. From the perspective of word of mouth, the Douban score of "Paper Man Returns to the Soul" reached 6.5 points, and the Douban score of the two comedies "Look Up to See Joy" and "Northeast Farewell to the Heavenly Group 2" reached 6.3 points, compared with last year's Spring Festival file, there are few works in "Zhang Sanfeng", "Longyun Town Strange Talk" and "Old Jiumen's Qingshan Begonia" that reach the passing line. In the process of reducing costs and production, the industry's breakthroughs in efficiency and quality improvement are obvious to all.
From "Paper Man Returns to the Soul", which has set a new high reputation in the Spring Festival file of online movies in the past three years, it is not difficult to see the evolution of online movies in content creation. For example, the director chooses a four-stage structure to accommodate the beginning and turn of the story, and uses different colors to set off emotions in the four stories of paper children, paper wives, paper sacrifices, and paper dreams, and in the presentation of horror, less traditional Jump scare forms are used, but with the help of details hidden under light and shadow and lens design, character micro-expressions, props metaphors, etc. to set off the atmosphere.
The screenwriter of the film has his own independent thinking on "Chinese horror", the theme of "Paper Man Returns to the Soul" is actually a family tragedy caused by feudal superstition, it tells a typical Chinese horror story, in the screenwriter He Sanqi's view, the so-called "Chinese horror", neither a coffin paper man, nor a ghost practice, but the late Qing and early Min era, in the face of injustice and darkness when the face of injustice and darkness that numb and speechless face.
Of course, the work "Paper Man Returns to the Soul" has advantages and shortcomings, such as the face-painting of character shaping, the lack of suspense in the plot direction, etc., but from the perspective of script neatness, logical self-consistency, and the degree of service and elaboration, it has reached the passing level, which is a rare work of heart in many online movies.
In addition to the breakthrough of quality, the serial development of IP is also the key to stabilizing the box office of online movies in 2023 in the context of volume reduction. "Sniper King: Assassination" and "Northeast Farewell Heavenly Group 2" can stand out in the Spring Festival file and successfully enter the tens of millions of points list, all of which are inseparable from the foreshadowing of the previous work, in 2022, "The King of Snipers" has a cumulative account of 32.57 million, and "Northeast Farewell to the Heavenly Group" has a cumulative account of 26 million, and the recognition and influence accumulated by the previous work have become the key to the breakthrough of subsequent series of works.
However, at present, the scale of IP towards serial development in online movies is not large, except for "The King of Snipers" and "Northeast Farewell to the Heavenly Group", only "Once Upon a Time in Erlonghu", "Big Snake", "Boss Lady", "God of Violent Wealth", "Brothers Escaped", "Chen Xiang at Six and a Half" and so on are developing in the direction of serialization, of which there are very few series of works such as "Chen Xiang at Six and a Half", most of which are "The King of Snipers" and "The Past of Erlonghu" There are only two series of works.
The possibilities that come with type boundary expansion
Today, more than eight years have passed since iQiyi first proposed the concept of online movies in 2014, and online movies have ushered in a new turning point at the crossroads of reducing costs and increasing efficiency, reducing quantity and improving quality.
Looking at the 49 works in the list of tens of millions of points in 2022, it can be said that thrillers, comedies, and action films are divided into three parts of the world, and the box office of thriller themes is in the forefront, "Weird Talk of Yin and Yang Town", "Battle of Dragons and Snakes" and "Open Coffin" rank in the TOP3 of the list, and the box office ceiling of comedy and action films such as "Northeast Farewell to the Heavenly Group", "I Am Not the God of Wine" and "Detective" is much inferior. In the competitive landscape of the three-point world, the theme types of online movies have also undergone new changes.
In 2021, after "The Legend of the Hunter of Xing'anling" got a box office of 44.29 million, folk thriller online movies began to rise, such as "Open Coffin", "Mountain Village Fox Wife" and "Paper Man Returns to the Soul". The blowout of folk thriller online movies represents that domestic horror films have explored their own style, but the momentum of the same genre also needs to be vigilant. Although "Paper Man Returns to the Soul" performs well in 2023, the same type of "Corpse Catcher" currently has only 4.97 million at the box office.
In 2022, the theme of martial arts will also begin to emerge in the online film market, "Zhang Sanfeng", "Sky and Dragon Slayer Series", "Blue Face Shura", "No One in Sight", "Snow Mountain Flying Fox Treasure of Seibei" and so on are all in the category of martial arts films, from the proportion of film types throughout the year, there is still a gap between the number of martial arts films and popular comedy, thrillers, adventure films, etc., but it undoubtedly opens a new way for the diversification of online movies. In 2023, the style of martial arts is still continuing, and the cumulative account of "The Legend of the Seven Swords and Demons" has reached 13.72 million.
In 2022, there will also be a more special film in the online film market, that is, the main theme biopic "Special Hero Huang Jiguang", in terms of sharing the account, the film's box office of 10.33 million is not the top volume among many films, but the Douban score of 8.1 points has even crushed many theater movies. Whether it is the main theme film or a biographical film, it is rarely touched by online movies in the past, and the same is true for the 2023 platter-style movie "Look Up and See Joy".
Since the birth of online movies for more than eight years, the breakthrough in the genre of the theme is not large, and the low-cost restriction makes it prefer a wider market and easier to use small and broad comedy, thriller, etc., but from the perspective of the changes in the market since 2022, the current online movies have not only expanded in the niche genre of martial arts, but also incorporated the popular main theme and realistic themes of the theater into their creative scope, which may become an important watershed for online movies to make breakthroughs in narrative, aesthetics, and audiences.
So far, the highest record for online movie billing has been held by 56.82 million in "Ghost Blowing Lantern: Xiangxi Secret Collection", after 2020, no film has broken this record, and since 2020, the box office data of the annual ledger champion has been going all the way down. On the one hand, this shows that the influence of market head content is in a downward trend, and on the other hand, it means that online movies have entered a bottleneck period in terms of volume breakthrough.
After video website members enter the 100 million-level club, the increment of online movies is bound to gradually decline, but the current highest number of moviegoers of head films has not yet reached one-fifth of the membership size of video websites, so from this point of view, the industry's cake can still continue to grow. In the past two years, major video platforms have also made continuous efforts, such as iQiyi's update of online movie billing rules, Tencent Video's refined operation of online movie schedules, and Youku's establishment of an online movie marketing system.
These are crucial to the development of online movies, taking marketing as an example, compared with theatrical films, online movies have a weak foundation in marketing, such as "No One in Sight", "Special Hero Huang Jiguang" and other excellent works are very limited. However, whether it is the upgrading of the business model or the establishment of the marketing system, it is not to help the expansion of the online film market from the content dimension.
In the online film market, the rise of folk thriller movies and martial arts movies, as well as the emergence of main theme films and realistic films, will surely bring impetus to online movies to break through the inherent audience, which is the key to making the cake bigger from the content side. Of course, at present, new genres such as main theme films and realistic themes have not formed a scale effect, but with the acceleration of the integration process of theaters and networks and the increase of entrants, it may only be a matter of time before these new genres develop and grow.
Mirror Entertainment (ID: jingxiangyuler) original
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