Rhino Entertainment Original
Text|Xiaofu Editor|Park Fang
Is the theatrical market still the best home for theatrical films?
For most films, the answer is still yes. The film has spent more than a hundred years to prove its indispensable value, it has carried the development of the times, the impact of TV and streaming media, and it is still one of the favorite entertainment methods of ordinary people.
But for some small-budget films, the answer becomes uncertain.
From the end of the Spring Festival to the present half a month, the new theatrical films released can almost be called completely wiped out. Of course, there are objective factors in the failure of the two Marvel blockbusters to introduce blockbusters, but the frustration of domestic films is somewhat cruel.
Among them, the performance of the two new films on Valentine's Day is more memorable to us. A year-round one of the best incremental schedules, two romance films aimed at the ritual sense of the schedule fluttered quietly, and not many viewers even stood up to scold "bad films". And like these two films, nameless small-cost theatrical films have always been in the market.
In our opinion, the performance of these small-cost films in the theatrical market may really be inferior to that in the online film market.
Online movie, counterattack success
This is not for nothing.
Or take "Sadness That Can't Shed Tears" as an example of the two films released on Valentine's Day this year.
The film currently has a cumulative box office of 48 million +, aside from the additional publicity costs, the current rough calculation of the film's box office is more than 16 million.
On the other hand, online movies, just looking at the new films released this year, there are currently two films in the ordinary accounting project that have exceeded this number at the box office, among which the best-performing "Sniper King: Assassination" has reached 22 million + at the cumulative box office.
The contrast is so stark that we don't need additional analysis.
And online movies have proven their market potential to us many times in the past two years.
In the first two years, about 20 online movies could get 20 million points every year. The box office of head projects such as "The Legend of the Hunter of Xing'anling" and "Strange Tales of Yin and Yang Town" has reached the order of 40 million +, and the current box office ceiling "Ghost Blowing Lamp: Xiangxi Secret Collection" has won 56.827 million points of box office, roughly calculated according to the proportion of the film's account, which is equivalent to a theatrical domestic film with a box office of more than 150 million yuan.
Now there are still some head online movies, and even voluntarily abandoned the theater market, such as the number one seed of this year's online movie Spring Festival file, Donnie Yen led the martial arts film "Dragon Babu: The Legend of Qiao Feng", which is a standard theatrical configuration film. Although it did not choose to be released in mainland theaters, the film has achieved good box office performance in Hong Kong and many countries and regions.
In the mainland, at present, the box office of "Dragon Babu: The Legend of Qiao Feng" in the on-demand period of cloud cinemas has reached 9.576 million yuan. Roughly converted proportionally, it is equivalent to a theatrical film with a box office of more than 25 million. Next, after the end of the 35-day on-demand billing period, the film will also enter its 180-day membership billing period, according to the performance of last year's cloud cinema project, the box space of the film in the membership billing stage will be stronger.
It can be seen that online distribution is really not as bad as imagined. This distribution model is enough to become a new channel for the return of capital and profit for some theater projects.
In the cinema market, the threshold has been raised
Speaking of theatrical films, the elimination of these small-cost projects by the market is itself commonplace.
Whether it is a commercial film or a literary film, if there is no attractive creative team, IP, and no super suitable schedule or excellent content quality, in the theater market, the possibility of a small project turning over against the wind is minimal. Not to mention the many speculators who rubbed the schedule, even last year's word-of-mouth dark horse "Hidden in the Dust", if you don't get the tap water of Douyin users in time, it is difficult to get the script of the counterattack.
Sometimes, even a medium-sized project with a passing score or higher may end up regrettably because the audience does not buy it. Just like the Hong Kong film "When the Wind Rises Again" released some time ago, a well-known director with a well-known actor was miserably hit by the box office Waterloo.
Of course, for such a slightly larger project, regardless of the success or failure of the box office, it is unrealistic to transfer the network hastily. But small-budget films are different.
In comparison, many small-scale films lack budget, well-known creators, marketing capabilities, and may even lack content quality sufficient to support counterattacks, and the sales of projects may not be as good as the current head online movies. In addition, in recent years, audiences in the theater market have become significantly more cautious in purchasing tickets, and the evaluation standards of films and the sensitivity of film ticket prices have been improved to a certain extent.
In this way, some small projects that rely heavily on schedule and type bonuses are bound to be more difficult to "cheat" the box office in the theater market.
In contrast, the online film market is significantly more tolerant of small-cost projects.
First of all, most online movies still use the more traditional billing according to the effective number of views or viewing time, and the head films that are confident in the quality of the project can also be webcast in a single-film payment mode. Compared with the ticket-buying business model of the cinema market, the entry threshold of the online film business model is relatively low.
Secondly, in the audience dimension, it is also an objective fact that the aesthetics of the main audiences of the online film market are relatively lagging behind. This may seem like a shortcoming of the online film market, but from another perspective, it also reflects that online movie audiences are more inclusive of some projects, and it is also conducive to differentiated competition for online movies.
For example, the thriller "The Village of the Underworld", which was silently released last week, from the title to the poster, shows a strong temperament of domestic horror films, and from the few evaluations, the film is an anti-Japanese movie wearing the skin of a horror film, and there is a suspicion of selling dog meat with a sheep's head. Up to now, the cumulative box office of the film is only 3.66 million, which belongs to the scraps in the theater market. But if the same content is placed in the online film market, relying on the gimmick of genre elements, I believe that the market feedback should be more positive.
In addition to these two traditional advantages, the industry has continued to upgrade in recent years, and it is also constantly injecting new confidence into practitioners. In recent years, video platforms such as iYouteng have continuously optimized and upgraded their operations and business models to further improve the industry ecology of online movies.
It is true that more and more mature creators and well-known actors are joining the track. Thanks to the improvement of the entire industry environment, today's online movie genres are becoming more and more diverse, the audience is gradually expanding, and the overall reputation of its projects is slowly rising. Online movies have long changed from a pool of stagnant water to a pool of living water, attracting more and more outstanding film and television talents.
However, it should be noted that the few obstacles in front of the road of hospital transfer network are the temperament of the project. Compared with the theatrical market, the online film market has a larger proportion of male audiences and more distinct project preferences. It can be seen that a number of head webcast projects that have won the dragon mark, such as "Fortune Diary", "Journey", "Snow Mountain Flying Fox Treasure of the North of the Sea", basically have genre elements that male audiences love.
The compatibility between online movies and male themes and commercial films is particularly high, on the contrary, if it is a female romance film or a literary film, the probability of standing out may be very low.
But in general, the current online film distribution model is still worth becoming an alternative to small-scale theatrical films.
For the online film market, it is important to concentrate on high-quality projects, and if there is an opportunity to absorb more types of projects, it is also a matter conducive to the development of the industry. For the small-scale theatrical film and online film market, this new distribution idea is likely to become a win-win.
If three years ago, when faced with the same problem, Rhino Jun would never have suggested that theatrical movies be transferred to the Internet. But today, three years later, we feel that the time is ripe.