Author | Zhao Ruoci
Edit | Liu Yang
On April 29, 2023, the first day of the May Day holiday, from the Bund and Hongya Cave to Datang Never Sleeps City, scenic spots across the country were full of tourists. "Everyone, everyone, everyone, you, everyone", "Is this year's May Day crazy", "May Day is expected to be 240000000 people travel", even Weibo hot search also served as a May Day holiday travel atmosphere group.
What has been waiting for the May Day holiday for a long time is not only the tourism industry, but also the film industry, which has been waiting for a recovery. However, compared with crowded scenic spots, the cinema is not as lively as expected. "This year's May 1st gear is still not very good, there is no very unexpected dark horse." A staff member of a cinema in Jinan, Shandong, told "Leopard Change".
As a popular schedule in the second quarter of this year, a total of 19 new films such as "The King of the Long Sky", "So Many Years" and "Life Road Unfamiliar" were released during the May Day holiday, plus new films released one after another before May Day, which can be called "the most crowded May 1st file in history".
Affected by the epidemic on May 1st last year, the new films released were all mediocre at both the box office and word of mouth. This year, film and television companies have released a backlog of films in various schedules, waiting for the market to pick up.
However, the most crowded May 1st in history, why is there no audience "crowded" into the cinema?
1. The most squeezed May 1st gear is coming
If the Spring Festival file is a battle of confidence related to the recovery of the film and television industry, as the largest capacity between the Spring Festival file and the summer file, the May 1st file is the reserve before the sprint.
In the past three years, the film industry has been severely affected by the epidemic, and the number of filings in 2020 has declined month by month, with a total of 2,799 projects down 15% year-on-year; Flat at 2,800 units in 2021; But in 2022, it plummeted to the bottom of 1842.
According to "Caixin Weekly", after the Spring Festival, the news of new films being finalized has continued one after another, in order to better circulate, film and television companies need to grasp each schedule to clear inventory and recover money.
As of April 21 this year, there are 180 films scheduled for 2023, more than half of the total in 2022. Film and television companies have focused on the May Day holiday, and 19 new films are in the May Day file.
According to Maoyan Professional Edition, as of 8 a.m. on April 30, the box office list (including pre-sales) of new films in May 2023 exceeded 420 million yuan. In terms of ticket prices, this year's average ticket price hit the highest in three years. The average ticket price of May Day in 2021 is 37.8 yuan, 34.2 yuan in 2022, and 40.6 yuan this year.
In terms of themes, this year's May Day new films cover various themes such as action, crime, comedy, romance, animation and so on, including "King of the Long Sky" with the theme of test pilots, disaster action film "Shocking Rescue", crime movie "Prosecution Storm", cartoons suitable for watching with babies "New Pigman Movie Super Racing" and "Space Guardians".
Among them, the release of three large-scale commercial films "King of the Long Sky", "Prosecutor Storm" and "Shocking Rescue" has experienced twists and turns. On April 22 last year, the official Weibo of the movie "Procuratorial Fengyun" issued a statement announcing the withdrawal due to the "severe and complicated epidemic situation". Immediately after July, "Shocking Rescue" was withdrawn. "The King of the Long Sky", which was originally scheduled to be released on National Day, also announced the withdrawal of the file on September 27 last year.
After going through the finalization, withdrawal, and re-setting, the expectations of fans and fans for the movie have worn out most of it. Despite this, "The King of the Long Sky" starring Wang Yibo and Hu Jun still leads.
According to the real-time data of Lighthouse Professional Edition, the top five box office on the first day of May 1st are: "King of the Long Sky" 90.483 million, "Life Road Unfamiliar" 74.209 million, "So Many Years" 42.114 million, "Slam Dunk" 32.756 million, "Procurator Storm" 20.072 million.
Genre-rich films offer a variety of options, but why aren't audiences enthusiastic?
2. The fewer the new films?
Wang Xiao (pseudonym), the cinema manager of a cinema in Jinan, did not expect that on the first day of the May Day holiday, the only movie full in the theater was "Journey to the Bell Bud", which had been released for 37 days.
"On April 29, there was only one "Journey to the Bell Buds", and there was not a single seat left, and many middle school students had no time to watch it before, so they crowded into the May 1st gear to watch this one." Wang Xiao told "Leopard Change".
In contrast, the long-awaited "King of the Long Sky" is not as popular as Wang Xiao imagined, "There were 10 performances scheduled on the first day, there were too many performances, but the attendance rate was average. ”
This phenomenon is not unique. On the morning of April 30, the search of "Leopard Change" found that in the three theaters of Lumière Cinema, Womei Cinema Changying Store and Jinyi Cinema City Shuangqiao Store in Changyang Tianjie, Chaoyang District, Beijing, the scheduled films of "The King of the Long Sky" were 19, 13 and 19 respectively, but the attendance rate was not as optimistic as expected, there were almost no full screenings, and some performances even sold only a few sporadic copies.
On April 27, the movie "King of the Long Sky" Weibo sent a war report to celebrate the total pre-sale box office exceeding 100 million, Lighthouse Professional Edition data shows that the box office of "The King of the Long Sky" was 75.01 million on the first day of release, and the single-day box office was 97.2788 million the next day.
Although "King of the Long Sky" leads other movies on May 1, "Slam Dunk", which was previously released on weekdays, had a box office of 94.206 million on the first day.
The box office of "Slam Dunk" released earlier has approached 500 million
The situation of "The King of the Long Sky", which is leading the May 1st program, is already like this, and the situation of other unpopular films is even less optimistic. "We also want to arrange more films, but we really can't sell a few tickets, especially "Shocking Rescue" and "Countdown to Say Love You", which are a bit stretched."
Wang Xiao said that at the end of the first day of the May Day holiday, they changed their film scheduling strategy, appropriately reduced the number of new May Day films, and added a few more films of "Journey to Bell Bud", "Super Mario Brothers" and "Titanic".
According to Maoyan Professional Edition, from April 29 to 30, the proportion of films in "King of the Long Sky" decreased from 29.2% to 24.1%, a total decrease of 5.1%, and the scheduling rate of new films "Prosecutor Fengyun", "Countdown to Say Love You" and "Shocking Rescue" all declined. But "Slam Dunk" increased its rate by 5.3%.
At present, "The King of the Long Sky" and "Countdown to Say Love You" and other new films Douban have not yet been scored, from the evaluation point of view, there is a polarization phenomenon, most of the hot comments are "the film rhythm is tight, the plot is very burning and tearful" "The effort of the test pilot is worthy of more people to see" and other five-star praise, but there are also one-star evaluations.
Wang Xiao said bluntly: "May Day new films, half of the films may come to circle a wave of money, without considering the subsequent word of mouth." ”
For the film side, "one-time harvesting" can certainly allow some funds to return for a short time, however, films such as "Slam Dunk" and "Journey to the Bell Bud" can maintain their popularity in the cinema, and the fundamental reason is that the quality continues to ferment word of mouth.
3. Short video marketing is a double-edged sword
When it comes to word of mouth, whether it is the warm-up period of the movie or after its release, film marketing is already inseparable from short videos. The publicity of the May 1st film has also been warmed up on the short video platform for a long time.
Recently, some media photographed Zhang Xincheng and Sun Qian appearing at the door of the hotel, suspected romance exposed, Zhang Xincheng took Sun Qian's hand and went straight to the front desk of the hotel. Zhang Xincheng still looked back from time to time, and his vigilance was very strong! ”
The perspective of the canopy and the dubbing of the gossip Taiwan media, many netizens who brushed the short video almost thought that they had eaten "real melon". In fact, this is a topic created for propaganda in the movie "So Many Years".
Looking back on previous years, romance films are a popular theme in the May 1st file, and "Your Wedding" will be highlighted in the May 1st file in 2021. This year, the two romance films "So Many Years" and "Countdown to Love You" have become competitors, and the marketing of "So Many Years" on Douyin can be described as sparing no effort. As of April 30, the Douyin account of "So Many Years" has accumulated 714,000 fans and 39.232 million likes, and netizens in the comment area have posted their movie tickets.
During the film screening, short video marketing has also become an important publicity tool for film and television companies. For example, the previously released "Loyal Dog Hachiko" opened a dog special session and released live clips on the short video platform, which caused a group of pet-loving audiences to watch movies. The new May Day film "Life Road Unfamiliar" also adopted a similar technique, releasing a clip of the audience crying at the viewing scene, and some netizens asked curiously: "Is it good?" Can I go see it with my parents? ”
Undoubtedly, the integration of long and short to fight is a major trend in the film and television industry today. According to the "Research Report on China's Online Audiovisual Development (2023)", the number of short video users in mainland China has reached 1.012 billion, and the average daily usage time exceeds 2.5 hours. For the film and television industry, it is impossible to ignore this huge traffic.
However, not all TikTok marketing will play a positive role, and excessive marketing will eat away at movie word-of-mouth.
For example, for the "rumor-mongering marketing" of "So Many Years", some netizens said: "Looking at the entertainment industry, this is the first official such publicity. At the same time, some netizens expressed puzzlement: "Scandalous hype for the box office will have a negative impact on both sides, and this publicity method is too exaggerated." ”
Ye Xin (pseudonym), who is engaged in the film and television marketing industry, told "Leopard Change": "Many audience reactions on Douyin are also a marketing method, and most of them are prepared in advance. For example, some films will arrange actors to cry in the audience, specially set up a camera to shoot this scene, and put it on Douyin to use 'tear gas' as publicity, even if this is a bad film that makes people cry at all. ”
On the second day of the May Day holiday, there was still no movie topic to detonate social networks, whether it was marketing or box office, this year's May Day file was still almost meaningful.