This month's "Black Panther 2" and "Ant-Man and Wasp: Quantum Frenz" continued to perform less than expected, making Marvel movies that have been away from the Chinese market for three years appear "out of order". Compared with looking for the reasons for box office "failure", the results are more noteworthy - direct split box office losses, difficulty in activating the market in the off-season, and it becomes more difficult to stabilize annual output, on the whole, the current loss of its "failure" to China is greater than the gain. In this case, domestic stakeholders are required to stabilize the number of introductions and appropriately adjust marketing strategies to stimulate the normal market effect of Marvel movies.
Author | Cheng Fei (Author of Cultural Industry Review, Researcher of Sanchuanhui Cultural Tourism Research Institute)
Editorial | time
Edit | peninsula
Source | Cultural Industry Review
As of this Friday, Marvel's new film "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Frenzy" has grossed $264 million worldwide, being the global box office champion last weekend and the weekly champion in major film markets such as North America, China, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Mexico, Indonesia, Germany, Brazil and Australia. From the perspective of global performance, it is in line with the consistent dominance of Marvel movies.
△ Weekend (February 17-19) box office champion in major regions of the world
However, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Frenzy performed less than expected in the Chinese market.
After the release of "Spider-Man: Far From Home" on June 28, 2019, the Chinese market experienced a "vacuum period" for Marvel movies for more than three years. During this period, all six superhero movies in the fourth phase of the Marvel Universe missed the mainland market, including the solo films of the old heroes - Thor, Black Widow and Doctor Strange, and the new heroes - Shangqi and the origin of the Eternals.
At the beginning of this month, "Black Panther 2: Long Live Wakanda" was released on the mainland, but this film has been screened globally as early as last year, and can only be regarded as an "appetizer" for Marvel heroes to return to China. "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Frenzy" is screened simultaneously in China and the world, which is the real return of Marvel movies after three years, and it is also the beginning of the fifth phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has aroused a lot of expectations since it was finalized.
However, the box office did not show the expected performance. As of the 24th, "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Frenz" has been released for a week, with a cumulative box office of 180 million yuan. Although it won six single-day box office championships, the highest single-day box office was only 53 million, and the lowest was less than 10 million. On the 24th, it was squeezed out of the box office crown by the newly released Hong Kong film "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer", and next Friday, the Hong Kong action film "Broken Network" starring Kwok Fucheng and Yam Dahua will be released, and the follow-up trend of "Ant-Man and Wasp: Quantum Frenz" will be more "deteriorating".
At present, the final box office forecast given by Maoyan is 291 million, which is very poor in previous Marvel movies.
Starting from the finale of the first phase - "Avengers", Marvel movies have exceeded 300 million at the box office in the Chinese market. Among them, the lowest box office of a single movie is 342 million (Note: "Thor 2", released 3 days behind North America), the highest is 1.417 billion (Note: "Spider-Man: Far From Home"), "Ant-Man and Wasp: Quantum Frenzy" will refresh the box office floor of solo movies. It will also be the lowest value of the "Ant-Man" series, with the first two films in the series grossing 670 million and 831 million respectively, several times that of "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Frenzy".
△ Overview of the box office of Marvel movies in the Chinese market
As a return work after a three-year absence, "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Frenzy" is less than expected, coupled with the achievement of "Black Panther 2" only exceeding 100 million, people can't help but sigh that Marvel movies may no longer attract Chinese audiences, and the once big box office has "failed".
The reasons for the "failure" are many, both endogenous, such as the patterning of the plot (Note: superhero movies follow the traditional plot formula of American blockbusters, that is, the chosen ordinary people grow up with the help of family, friends or mentors, and eventually accept their mission to defeat the villain and uphold justice) and aesthetic fatigue caused by similar universal values; There are also exogenous, such as the plot fault caused by the absence of the mainland film market in the entire fourth stage. However, since "failure" has become an established fact, we should pay more attention to the consequences of "failure".
Marvel movies are not only the representative of superhero movies featuring science fiction and special effects, but also the representatives of Hollywood blockbusters and imported films, and from the perspective of economic benefits, their box office "failure" has a great loss to the Chinese market.
First of all, China is the "main force" of box office losses
The scale of box office losses can be explained by the current billing rules. Usually, Marvel movies will be introduced in the form of a split account and jointly distributed by China Film and Huaxia. The distribution of accounts is divided proportionally by taxation, film special fund, film party, distributor and theater parties, namely Marvel Studios and its parent company Disney Pictures, and distributors are China Film and Huaxia.
△ The share ratio of some Marvel movies (Source: Maoyan Professional Edition)
Maoyan Professional Edition shows that at present, Marvel movies adopt a fixed share ratio, with the proportions of filmmakers, distributors and theaters being 22.93%, 24.8% and 52.27% respectively, and the share of Marvel Studios and its parent company Disney Studios is only 22.93%.
△ The distribution ratio of the box office of Marvel movies that can be divided
It should be noted that the above split ratio is for the divisible box office. At present, China's box office generated by the cinema screening market will be given priority to collect a 3.3% business tax and a 5% film special fund, which each film needs to pay, and only after removing this part can the box office be divided. After accounting for taxes and special funds, the proportion of Marvel movies in the total box office is actually 21.03%. Taking the highest grossing Marvel movie "Avengers 4" as an example, of the 4.25 billion box office, the film can be divided into about 893 million, and the remaining 33.57 are all "intercepted" in China and distributed by Chinese theaters, distributors and governments.
△ The distribution ratio of the total box office of Marvel movies
The billing rules and proportions show that the biggest beneficiaries of Marvel's box office are Chinese theaters, followed by China Film and Huaxia, and then Hollywood filmmakers. Although China is the second largest box office in the world for Marvel movies after the North American market, the low share of the budget has led to the box office revenue actually entering the film side is not high. On May 11 last year, Disney's CEO publicly stated that Disney is confident to leave the Chinese market, and one of the important reasons is that the proportion of Chinese markets is lower than that of other markets.
On the contrary, as the "beneficiaries" with the largest proportion of the share of revenues, theaters and distributors in the Chinese market have become the biggest "victims" of the "failure" of Marvel movies. From the perspective of direct economic benefits, Marvel movies no longer attract Chinese audiences, and the biggest headaches are theaters, China Film and Huaxia.
Secondly, it is more difficult to activate the market in the off-season, and the schedule reference of small and medium-sized domestic films is reduced
Before the epidemic, the Chinese market had formed a fixed schedule order, that is, domestic films were released on holidays such as Spring Festival, National Day and Summer Vacation, and the market was dominated by domestic blockbusters, and imported films usually could not be "squeezed" into these schedules. The rest of the market off-season, such as March, April, September and November, sees the release of imported blockbusters. Its main functions are two, one is to activate the market, so that the market is more balanced in light and peak seasons. The second is based on the schedule adjustment function generated by activating the market, which is specifically manifested as a reference for the schedule selection of small and medium-sized domestic films.
The box office results show both the function of activating the market, and the schedule reference function is more hidden, but also more important. In theory, the film side will choose the market peak season to set the file, but the reality is that small and medium-sized domestic films in the Spring Festival, National Day and other market seasons usually cannot be squeezed in, and even if they can barely squeeze in, they are easy to become cannon fodder. Therefore, to retreat to the second, choose the schedule is not popular enough, but there is a certain market popularity of the time period to set, can not only avoid competition with the head domestic films, but also rub the market heat. And before and after the release of imported movies, it is the best choice. In fact, small and medium-sized domestic films usually refer to the schedule of imported blockbusters and choose to avoid or follow.
The avoidance strategy is relatively safe and avoids head-on competition with strong imported blockbusters. However, there are also side effects, and it is easy to have two different states of bunching and vacuum before and after the release of imported films. For example, on the Friday of the week before the release of "Avengers 4", 6 domestic films were released at the same time (Note: a total of 8 new films, namely "Like a Shadow", "Transformation Gang", "Adventures in Magical Land", "Realm", "Escape Knight of the Graduation Trip", "Hello Beijing", "Beidou Fengyun", "Flowers on the Ridge", including 2 imported films), and on Friday two weeks before the release, 9 domestic films were released (Note: a total of 10 new films, They are "When the Prayer Ends", "Best Boyfriend Evolution", "Desire Game", "Care About You", "My Pet is an Elephant", "So It Is", "Distant Madrigal", "Feifan Memory", "The Sea Breeze Blows Through Zero Ding Yang", "The Code Whisperer", including 1 imported film), and on the Friday after the release, only three domestic films "Killed a Sheep", "Cloud-shrouded Peak" and "I Work as a Police Officer in the Community" were released, and then 8 new domestic films were released on Labor Day, which is not a lot for a small long holiday. In short, whether it is a pile before the release of imported films, or a vacuum after release, the film party has a reference - the release date of imported films is determined, and then flexibly changed according to market changes.
The follow-up strategy is more bold, it seems that it will compete head-on with imported blockbusters, and there is a risk of being "crushed", but it can actually take advantage of the market heat brought by imported films. For example, on May 18, 2018, the domestic film "Living Together in Time and Space" was released on the same day as the imported films "A Quiet Place" and "Daylight", only one week after the release of the strong film "Avengers 3", but the film successfully released the box office and word of mouth on May 20 with the help of the market heat brought by "Avengers 3" and the content differentiated from the above three imported films, and finally won 900 million box office.
As a representative of imported blockbusters, Marvel movies naturally undertake the above two functions. Since 2013, Marvel movies have basically maintained the state of at least two releases per year, and concentrated in April and May of the first half of the year. From the chart below, in the three years of Marvel movies' absence, the monthly box office in April and May has seen a significant decline. Although there are other imported films released in these two months, such as "Godzilla vs. King Kong" (Note: it will be released at the end of March 2021, and the box sales are mainly in April), Marvel movies, as the head series of imported films, have a greater impact on the market.
△Box office trends from April and May 2013 to 2020
At the same time, without the market drive and schedule reference of Marvel movies, April and May in the past two years are the most "crowded" months for domestic films.
In April 2021, there will be five Fridays, with 5, 6, 5, 7 and 4 domestic new films released respectively. Compared with the April 2019 above, the entire April of 2021 is "crowded", and the subsequent May 1st file is more exaggerated, after the release of 4 domestic films on April 30, there are 7 domestic new films released the next day, and finally the entire May 1st file squeezed into 11 domestic new films, which is extremely crowded. Many filmmakers know that they are crowded but insist on releasing on May Day, because there is no Marvel movie release in April, and the market is not hot throughout April, so they can only concentrate on seizing the seemingly good May 1st file, and finally get together to intensify the competition.
If Marvel movies continue to "fail", there are fewer movies that can activate the market in the off-season and "lead" domestic small and medium-sized films to adjust the schedule.
Finally, there is more pressure to stabilize annual output, and more domestic waist films are needed
A healthy film market must not only have head movies as a guide, but also have a large number of waist movies to support. Although the head movies occupy more market share, the number of waist movies is of greater significance to stabilizing the market due to the high uncertainty of their output.
Since the epidemic, the annual output of China's film market has shown an overall downward trend, and the annual variation is large. But in recent years, the head movies have continued to break box office records and occupy a higher market share, in contrast, the overall trend of decline is mainly due to the sharp decline in the number of waist movies.
As shown in the figure below, since 2017-2022, the number of head movies with an annual box office of more than 1 billion, and the change trend of the number of waist movies of 1~1 billion, the number of waist movies has decreased even more, from more than 120 per year before the epidemic to less than 100 after the epidemic, and less than 70 in 2020 and 2022, which is about half of the three years before the epidemic.
△ The number of waist movies (1-1 billion) and head movies (1 billion+) from 2017 to 2022
The decrease in the number of waist movies is mainly due to the decrease in the number of market-attractive imported films, and Marvel movies, which are mainly distributed by accounts, are among them.
All Marvel movies released in China since 2017 have a box office of more than 100 million, of which "Spider-Man: Far From Home", "Captain Marvel", "Avengers 3" and "Avengers 4" have exceeded 1 billion, and the remaining 7 are in the 1-1 billion range. From 2017 to 2019, three Marvel movies were released every year, with a total box office of 2.203 billion, 3.883 billion and 6.701 billion, and the total box office of waist movies was 2.203 billion, 1.493 billion and 0. Before the pandemic, Marvel movies were effective, stable waist and even head movie composition.
There will be no Marvel movies released from 2020 to 2022, and the number of waist and head movies will decrease by a total of 3 per year, and the annual box office loss will be more than 2 billion. This year, although the number of Marvel movies has rebounded, "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" has been set for May 5, and "Captain Marvel 2" is expected to be released within this year. However, at present, Marvel movies show box office "failure", as well as new changes in the Chinese market after three years of absence, such as the audience prefers domestic films, then, if the overall market wants to return to the pre-epidemic box office sales level and reverse the trend of declining annual output, more domestic films with heads and waists are needed to fill it.
Given the greater uncertainty of the head film and the need for more top-level resources, the focus of filling the task should be on the output of the waist film. If you want to stabilize the market under the condition of reducing imported films, or imported films such as Marvel movies cannot play a normal market effect, you need at least 120 or so waist domestic films (Note: 2018 is the year with the fewest waist movies, a total of 122, as shown above), and the current situation is that in the three years of Marvel movies absent and the number of imported films reduced, the year with the most waist movies is 93, and there is a big gap between the two. If you want to catch up with this gap with domestic films, you need to improve the overall production capacity of films, which is more difficult to do in the short term.
epilogue
Whether it is from the profit of sharing accounts, activating the market in the off-season, or stabilizing annual output, we must pay attention to the phenomenon of Marvel movie "failure" and how to save it. At present, to maintain the stable development of the Chinese market, Marvel movies still need to shine, since Marvel's production policy cannot be changed, then domestic stakeholders can at least start by stabilizing the number of imports and appropriately adjusting marketing strategies.
!["Spider-Man: Heroes Of No Return" grossed more than $800 million the annual champion of "Chosin Lake" is not guaranteed[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)