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"Love is delicious", "added" in the cinema

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On November 26, 2021, the online drama "Love is Delicious" was launched on Tencent Video in a low-key manner. On April 15, 2023, the film version that gathered the original cast officially landed in major theaters.

The year and a half in between, long is not long, short is not short, after all, it is enough for a project to completely complete the transformation of "drama transformation", but it will also make people feel as if they saw it all yesterday when mentioning the friendship and drama life of the women in the play.

However, for a "drama reform" project, word-of-mouth controversy and the suspicion of money are two mountains that can never be bypassed. Whether it is "Want to See You", which just "consumed feelings" in high controversy and low word-of-mouth at the beginning of the year, or classic IPs such as "Three Lives and Three Lives and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms", "Step by Step" and "Why Sheng Xiao Silent", which were popular in the drama version and mute in the early years, most of them failed to achieve a double harvest of word-of-mouth popularity. Therefore, in everyone's tacit understanding, "drama reform" has always been a kind of risky creation that is not welcomed in the film industry.

But the original team's light "Love is Delicious" does not seem to be afraid of this curse, and the mission and ambition given by "big IP, big hit" in past drama adaptations are not obvious in this film. Although the current score of 7.8 on Douban is indeed not a surprise compared to the word-of-mouth reputation of 8.1 points in the drama version, it is already an unattainable height if it is placed on a number of "drama reform" works in the past.

"Love is delicious", "added" in the cinema

But is that satisfied? Is there any other reference value for the original IP-based path based on "Love is Delicious"?

A "drama fan limited" plus more carnival

In fact, as a movie without IP support and adapted from an original online drama, whether "Love is Delicious" has a viewing threshold is one of the topics that "non-drama fans" pay more attention to. In terms of Bone Duo's personal experience, in the process of watching the premiere, there is always a lack of urgent science popularization such as "the three of them are girlfriends" and "he is her ex-boyfriend".

So frankly speaking, for a "non-drama fan" who does not understand the relationship between the characters, character personalities and love-hate entanglements of the drama version, the lack of a synopsis and the "sense of sequel" that follows the story of the drama version immediately set an invisible threshold for the movie "Love is Delicious".

"Love is delicious", "added" in the cinema

Fortunately, this is not a sci-fi film or a suspense story, so even so, it can basically be gradually entered into the drama in a simple and clear plot. But from God's point of view, the refreshing feeling of "mastering" the relationship between the characters and the story line is only enjoyed by drama fans, which is why "Love is Delicious" will be called "the carnival of drama fans".

In the movie, Chen Zhengdao and his partner Xu Zhaoren basically continue the drama version's observation of the unique color of "women", and also appropriately integrate relatively modern social topics such as "unmarried pregnancy" and "online dating chat". In Liu Jing, Xia Meng, Fang Xin, three heroines with different styles, we can also feel the core theme of "facing up to the flaws or imperfections in the characters' personalities". It can be said that whether it is the sense of life in which girlfriends complain about each other, or the "backfired" horse catching bridge in the relationship between the sexes, the vivid realism brought to the audience remains unchanged.

"Love is delicious", "added" in the cinema

Therefore, "the same as the drama" has become the after-view of most drama fans. Behind this evaluation, half of it is the recognition of the stable performance of the main creative team, and the other half is a slight regret for the "lack of freshness", which is the embarrassing situation that "drama reform" cannot escape.

Although netizens commented sharply after the screening, "Dating software cannot brush high-quality men all at once, and most fitness trainers cannot read and study every night", this does not hinder the practical significance of "Love is Delicious" in promoting the progress of women's films and female audiences liberating themselves. Especially after the drama version won a small victory as a dark horse, the main creators were not led by "market orientation" for greater traffic and gimmicks, which is precisely the rare point of "Love is Delicious" in the cinematic treatment.

"Love is delicious", "added" in the cinema

Not to mention anything else, as a non-main theme film that rarely shows the slice of urban life in the epidemic era through the lens, or even a buff-filled light comedy female "drama modification", the fan limit of "Love is Delicious" may really have a more long-term record value.

The "suspicion of money" that cannot be escaped

Although in the process of watching the movie, everyone's emotional ups and downs are highly consistent with the feelings of the three sisters Liu Jing, Fang Xin and Xia Meng, when you come back to your senses after the scene, you will find that "Love is Delicious" still can't escape the "suspicion of money".

But in fact, compared with the results of "Want to See You" "breaking 100 million in 4 days and 300 million in 15 days", the performance of "Love is Delicious", which is also a "drama reform", is still more than 10 million in 4 days after its release, which is somewhat shabby.

According to Maoyan's prediction, 20 million will become the final box office ceiling of "Love is Delicious", what is this concept? At the same time, "Titanic", which is undergoing the nth round of re-screening, predicts that the box office will be nearly 60 million, in contrast, the current film side has less than 4 million "Love is Delicious", and it is really impossible to say what money it has circled.

"Love is delicious", "added" in the cinema

And it is not reasonable to compare the benefits of the two movies regardless of the appeal and the degree of breaking the circle of the series itself. After all, for a "drama reform" work, how the drama performs fundamentally determines the basic audience of the film version. In addition, the specific box office performance will also be affected by multiple factors such as schedule, actors, and subject type.

In fact, after watching "Love is Delicious", Bone Duo recovered the memory of spending twenty or thirty yuan on a movie ticket ten years ago, and it took less than two hours to relax and immerse himself in crying and laughing. But today, expensive ticket prices are not proportional to time, transportation costs and the emotional value that the film itself can provide, and people are increasingly eager to try their best to find a balanced value for money in more impactful and shocking content.

"Love is delicious", "added" in the cinema

Among them, the first to be "abandoned" is "Love is Delicious", which has an obvious audience orientation (young, feminine), no traffic actor blessing, limited influence of the drama itself, and the publicity characteristics are not eye-catching enough, and it can wait until the film is released to watch on the small screen. Therefore, "Love is Delicious", which has nothing but drama fans, is not destined to take a blockbuster road.

However, although it is impossible to escape the suspicion of "circle money", the 7.8-point "Love is Delicious" still submitted a word-of-mouth answer to the established impression that "drama changes are bad films".

"Love is Delicious" can be tasted again

Usually for "drama modification", substitution is the default taboo, because it will destroy the "original". For example, the film version of "New Step Scary" starring Chen Yihan, Dou Xiao and Yang Youning, the film version of "Why Sheng Xiao Mo" starring Huang Xiaoming and Yang Mi, and the film version of "Three Lives and Three Lives and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms" starring Yang Yang and Liu Yifei are all big IPs, but they have all been questioned from the casting stage.

"Love is delicious", "added" in the cinema

After all, no matter how high the appearance of the new lineup, once the replacement will inevitably "touch" the white moonlight status of the original in the audience's heart, a mistake is to "destroy the classic", this "original YYDS" idea "Huan Zhu Gege" has no way of using it. So this is also the reason why the "original cast" such as "Love is Delicious" and "Want to See You" can get a little more fan preference above their own level.

But in fact, the arrival of all members is often an ideal state that can not be encountered, such as "Love is Delicious", which itself has a good popularity and reputation, and the actors are not the top of the continuous drama, and the atmosphere of the group is harmonious and happy to cooperate, so there is the possibility of full staff pairing, and the ceiling of the subsequent sub-billing drama "Twinkle and Twinkle Star" that will meet everyone on the big screen is this truth.

"Love is delicious", "added" in the cinema

But like "Ignite Me and Warm You", Chen Feiyu, Zhang Jingyi and other starring actors have obviously achieved a soaring, and Chen Feiyu was also affected by peach news during this period, and the subsequent two big-screen romance films are waiting for verification, so the original cast of the movie version may not be able to do what fans wish.

"Love is delicious", "added" in the cinema

If "Love is Delicious" is measured by market standards, the film is not a success. But looking deeper, "Love is Delicious" is still a benchmark work that stabilizes the reputation of "drama reform". At the same time, Chen Zhengdao is also pondering the updated development direction, such as abandoning the past persistent pursuit of dramatic tension and revealing his true colors in the chick movie that suits him, or after filmization, continue to explore more possibilities of the drama IP of "Love is Delicious" in the form of seasonal and annual broadcasts.

In fact, with Feng Xiaogang's second test of the water in "North and South" and "Echo", Zhang Yimou officially announced the first online drama "League of Legends", the phenomenon of movie directors turning to making online dramas has become more and more common. It's just that Chen Zhengdao, who took the lead on this road, has already picked the fruit in the fertile soil of online dramas, and has also taken "Love is Delicious" to achieve a free return on the two roads of movies and dramas, as for whether this attempt is worth learning, it is also necessary for the creators to review "Love is Delicious".

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