Author| Mia
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"The Most Squeezed May First Gear" finally ended, "Life is Unfamiliar" and "The King of the Long Sky" led the champions and runners-up with 510 million (cumulative box office 550 million) and 470 million respectively, and the producer, Han Han's Tingdong Pictures, became the biggest winner.
According to the report of the Lighthouse Research Institute, a total of 18 new films were released in May 1st this year, with a total box office of 1.519 billion yuan, ranking third in film history; the box office on the first day was 310 million, the start was lower than that of 2018-2021, and then the box office on the second and third days continued to decline, and the box office was more than 300 million for four consecutive days during the period. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism estimates that the total number of domestic tourism trips during the May Day holiday in 2023 will be 274 million, recovering to 119.09% of the same period in 2019 on a comparable basis. The tourism fire has made the distribution of ticket warehouses in the May Day stall similar to the Spring Festival return to hometown, and the proportion of visitors from other places is nearly 40%, an increase of 4 percentage points, and it has returned to the order of 1.5 billion.
During the period, the film has a relatively good reputation, and the content type is diversified, representing that the film industry has released a relatively strong recovery signal, and at the same time continuously reversed the decline, proving the endogenous resilience of the industry and the audience's viewing habits are still there, which opened the first shot of the sentinel war for the next summer file.
However, what needs to be seen is that the explosion of May Day tourism has diverted the audience to a certain extent. From the box office data, the epidemic caused theater closures in 2022 to be negligible, with a box office performance of 1.519 billion in 5 days, lower than 1.674 billion in 2021 and 1.527 billion in 4 days in 2019. The number of moviegoers in the first four days totaled 32,553,800, compared with 38,757,100 in 2021 and 35,093,600 in 2019. From the perspective of social media popularity, the volume of May 1st is not very large, and it has not really broken the circle and reached the level of heated discussion among the whole people. In general, there are mixed feelings in the May 1st program, and the voice of former film director Zhang Hongsen has aroused widespread attention in the industry.
Tingdong left and right to "go to Han Hanhua", "Life Road is Unfamiliar" counterattack "King of the Long Sky"
People need comedy, and the comedy genre is just a need for every holiday.
This has been proven time and again. Last year, "This killer is not very calm" as the only comedy theme in the 2022 Spring Festival file, with a box office of 2.7 billion became the biggest dark horse, largely inseparable from the type dividend, in the film shortage of the Mid-Autumn Festival "Brother, Hello" key extension, the film can get 547 million box office, but also related to the public's urgent need to go to the theater to "laugh".
And during the family celebration period, whoever makes the audience "can't laugh", its box office results will "can't laugh" - this is the case with "Four Seas", which is rated as "obscure and not funny". In the post-epidemic period, the general mood in society is more inclined to light comedy and healing genres, which is why this year's two Japanese comic big IP showdowns, "Journey to the Bell Buds" beat "Slam Dunk". And the counterattack of "Life is Unfamiliar" once again proves this.
Before the release, the main theme of air combat "The King of the Long Sky" from publicity to pre-sale, have steadily overwhelmed other films, with a score of more than 80 million to become the pre-sale champion of the May 1st file in the past 5 years, Maoyan wants to see the number of people is also leading alone, regarded as the champion of the schedule ticket seed player, previously scheduled and then changed, last year's National Day Wang Yibo fans have organized a number of huge private venues, but also increased the popularity of the film. After the official release, the final box office of "King of the Long Sky" was lower than expected, while "The Road of Life is Unfamiliar" was higher than expected. This is due to the latter's comedy genre precision positioning advantage.
Directed by Yi Xiaoxing and starring Qiao Shan, Fan Chengcheng, Ma Li, etc., the comedy "Life Road is Unfamiliar", I want to see the number of people and pre-sales, originally belongs to the second echelon. Whether it is from the director label or from the starring lineup, it is a solid "pure comedy" positioning, which fits the holiday mood and has a certain box office appeal. From the trend point of view, the proportion of films increased from 10.7% on the first day to 17.3% the next day, and the single-day box office increased from 34 million yuan on the first day to nearly 80 million yuan the next day, and the expected box office landing point was raised to 1 billion +.
The mainstream market prefers works that can bring strong emotional resonance, and the two major emotions just need one is "laughter" and the other is "crying". More and more films are beginning to experiment with the fusion and innovation of comedy elements. ——However, the "tear-jerking" element has been repeatedly baptized by short video crying film routine marketing, and it is close to the danger of overdraft.
From the perspective of the target audience, "Life Road Unfamiliar" and "King of the Long Sky" are mainly female audiences and audiences in fourth-tier cities, or there is a certain degree of overlap. There is a voice that believes that Tingdong's rare "left and right fighting" in the same schedule may be caused by the pressure of gambling performance. Judging from the final result, it was the main producer Fang Tingdong Pictures and its founder Han Han who laughed to the end. In addition, the second producer of both films is Ali department.
The differentiated layout of these two films also reflects the growth and changes of Han Han and Tingdong Pictures to a certain extent. The "road trilogy" of "After the Meeting", "Riding the Wind and Waves" and "Flying Life" has a strong "Han Han label", including small-town youth, racing drivers, golden sentences, etc., which have won 628 million, 1.046 billion, and 1.728 billion box office respectively, and Han Han's own shortcomings in directing ability have gradually been exposed. After "Four Seas", which collapsed in word of mouth and suffered miserable losses from investors, Han Han reduced the frequency of his personal appearances as a director and increased the frequency of stealth behind the scenes.
He has successively served as a producer for "Fame and Fame" and "King of the Long Sky", and the directors of the two are Liu Xunzimo and Liu Xiaoshi, who have shot a number of aircraft carrier aviation themed promotional films. The configuration of "well-known producer + new director" has been verified by the market many times, which can control costs and bring more resources. And betting on May 1st is much smaller than betting on the competition pressure and publicity costs of the Spring Festival stall.
From the perspective of investment actions, in addition to investing in "Never Expected", "Kill the Wolf and Greedy Wolf", "Relieve Worries Grocery Store", "The Last Night on Earth", "Sunshine Robbers", etc., in recent years, Tingdong Film has been deeply bound to Wanhe Tianyi, producing Liu Xunzimo's "Rise to Fame" and cooperating with Yi Xiaoxing, who ran away. Judging from the results of the multi-point decentralized layout, the dark horse "Rise to Fame", which won 926 million box office, made Tingdong Film make a lot of money, and the box office of "Life is Unfamiliar" that went straight to 1 billion + also exceeded expectations.
And the blockbuster "King of the Long Sky" joined by "Top Gun" and top Wang Yibo is a genre that Tingdong Film has been scarce in the past - the main theme action film. "Visual effects big scenes" such as stall tail spin and fighter missile launch can improve the industrial level, Bona is in the lead, the main theme commercial film is the diversification and expansion of the content layout, marking the gradual maturity of the young film company's production capabilities, testing the waters and accumulating experience in new fields, which is more conducive to further "de-colding", improving the problem of audience aesthetic fatigue, attracting more incremental markets, and balancing the risk of content simplification.
Tingdong's diversified layout of "de-Hanhua" continues. It is reported that Tingdong Pictures' first youth love film, adapted from the novel "I and the World Only One You Are Apart", "Missing and Forgetting", is tentatively scheduled to be released in the summer. In addition, the completed "Flying Life 2", the small-town teenager theme "Life Skin Bag" and the sci-fi theme "Driving a Shooting Star" approved this year are also in preparation.
Former film director talks about "supply-side reform", when will May 1st become the top?
Throughout the entire schedule, although the number is large, the volume is not large. More new films became cannon fodder. In addition to the "double strong", the youth literature IP adaptation film "So Many Years" ranked first in the number of views on Douyin, ranking third in the schedule with a box office of nearly 200 million, replicating the success that light has always had in small and medium-sized youth romance films. "Old films" such as "Slam Dunk", "Bell Bud Journey" and "Super Mario Bros. Adventure" rushed into the top ten of the box office list, and strongly fermented a wave of IP potential energy in five times.
In addition, more than 10 films, in addition to the low-grade "Pigman Movie" that is standard on holidays, "Prosecutor Storm" and "Shocking Rescue" are directed by Hong Kong directors Mak Siuhui and Peng Shun, but the actor configuration is not "Hong Kong", the theme and lineup are not very attractive to the audience, and the box office landing point is in the order of tens of millions, far inferior to the above-mentioned Japanese comic IP old films, and "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" released after the holiday. Although Marvel's appeal has declined, Yu Wei is still there, as the finale of the rolling guide trilogy, it has won the "highest opening score in history" on the three major platforms of Douban and Maotao, and it is likely to reap the "best results of Marvel" since the beginning of the year.
The winner of the May 1st file has just been mentioned, and in contrast, several films have failed miserably during the schedule. "Countdown to Love You", which fought against "So Many Years", was affected by the previous word-of-mouth storm of starring Chen Feiyu, coupled with alleged plagiarism, the CP marketing of the Beijing Film Festival was weak, and only won 20 million + box office. During the period, the Douban score was as high as 7.5 points, ranking first, and "Changsha Nightlife" directed by well-known screenwriter Zhang Yi is another frustrated, and its cumulative number of films has just exceeded 10 million.
The film is produced and distributed by Xiaoxiang Film, China Film, Huaxia Film and other "national character teams", and the film's strong regional attributes, unclear positioning and title raise the threshold for breaking the circle, although it is starring Zhang Jingyi and the top Zhang Yixing, it does not help. - Proving that popularity is often difficult to translate directly into box office.
Zhang Ji, the director and screenwriter of "Changsha Nightlife", said: "The arrangement can be described as bleak, with only 1.8% on the first day of release. It's something I've never encountered in my career so far. To be honest, I was completely confused. Although in front of my team friends, I deliberately remain calm, making people think that I am not sad or unhappy, but in fact, my heart is divided. ”
In addition, the film also triggered former film director Zhang Hongsen to release a 2,000-word long article to pay attention to the film's "supply-side reform problem". The table that indicates the problem is "Or frame the big theme, cram in a lot of content that should have been deleted at the script level, and make the metal shell bigger and stronger; Or use the heavy industry that has been learned or can be used to help, and become a heavy weapon to fight with the outer film; Or borrow some mature typological means, coupled with localized and manual flower work, in an attempt to create the simplest traffic spectacle; Or stand on the commanding heights of moralism, directly sell imported art film coats, and then a handful of local dust storms and sand in Mengshan to show the sad ending of art films. That is, "directly take the big theme, clone type, soil method innovation, artificial style, large is strong deterrent, small is actuarial".
He believes that "the head has heavy industry high-tech, the tail has a utilitarian configuration, and the largest and most important part that represents the essence of the film in the middle is painfully lost!" In other words, waist films are losing their living space. Structural problems such as the inequality of heat and cooling accumulated in the past few years have gradually emerged, and these are the challenges that the industry will face in the future.
This issue was also mentioned in the dialogue between economist Guan Qingyou and Tan Fei this year: "Internationally, we see that in fact, like North American movies, it is also weak... The second film as a medium, it does have the crisis of aging. "Internet dramas, short videos, social media, games, script killing, and even ChatGPT are diverting viewers. How to release productivity, the key to reforming the supply side is to "loosen the constraints on creation, and the second is to create a loose market environment".
Back to the entire May 1st gear, the weakness of the external voice may also be related to the lack of head companies and head projects. Light sent "So Many Years" and Wanda sent "Countdown to Say Love You", both of which only tested the waters with small and medium-sized films. Compared with the Spring Festival, Summer and National Day stalls, the May Day stall is small in size and not fully developed, and it faces the problem of diversion of tourists every year, and its theme color is not clear. The head film companies often do not lay out the May 1st file, but bet on the three major schedules of key projects. Only when a big dark horse that can break the ceiling of the box office appears, can it inject more confidence into the May 1st file.
Looking to the whole year, "recovery" is the inevitable main trend and keyword of this year, but this process will take some time, and at the same time, it will also require some innovation and accurate judgment.