Author| Mia
Edit| Akagi bottle
When DC Aquaman, Peacemaker, Marvel Captain Marvel, DC Wonder Woman, Black Adam, Charlize Theron, Jason Statham come together and bomb and fly as always, and finally everything will always fall on "family", you will realize that the "Fast and Furious" series is back.
"Fast and Furious 10" (hereinafter referred to as "Fast and Furious") released on May 17 still continues the taste of "popcorn cool films", physical laws do not exist, "dead and resurrected" is already a routine operation, and even "went wrong to the superhero film set". Originally, the series was planned to end in the 11th part, and at the premiere of "Furious 10", "Donald" Vin Diesel said that "Furious 10" is not the penultimate part, but the first part of the series finale trilogy, which means that "Fast and Furious 12" will be the final chapter.
But in the domestic market, after the withdrawal of director Justin Lin, Dwayne Johnson failed to return, with the decline of its own appeal, "Furious 10" has been difficult to replicate the 1.392 billion results of "Furious 9", the opening results of the zero point field, the popularity of public opinion compared with the previous work has declined, and its predicted box office landing point is currently 700 million +.
Like people, IP has a period of birth, growth, peak, and decline. Although the turn from prosperity to decline is inevitable, the revelation remains. What is it that this series of IP, which is investing more and more than 20 years, has been filmed into a "series of TV series" with more than 20 years and ten episodes, and its vitality is always tenacious?
22 years of IP growth from B-grade films to A-grade films
For a long time, the "Quick" series has been regarded as a model for the development of series IP, and the experience is also worth learning in China.
Back in 2001, Universal Pictures executives only approved $38 million to invest in a B-grade drag racing action film without stars and famous directors that didn't look like a big hit - they never expected that this project would become Universal's signature and eventually sold $200 million+ worldwide. Chinese director Justin Lin took over the third part, and the focus of the first three films was more inclined to the niche element of "racing", but "Furious 3" encountered box office Waterloo, so from the fourth part began to transform into a "sea, land and air commercial action blockbuster", adding more hand-to-hand combat action scenes, spies and other elements.
Vin Diesel, the starring of "Fast 4" who is also the producer, is deeply bound to it and has become the soul of the series IP. The "family" during the "Fast and Furious 5" period gradually took shape, and the potential energy of the entire series continued to accumulate, until the death of Paul Walker, the core star of "Furious 7", "See You Again" harvested countless tears, helping "Fast and Furious 7" break the curse of the sequel against the trend and reach the highest peak of the entire series' box office performance, with a cumulative global box office of $1.5 billion, ranking eleventh in global film history. Since then, the "Quick" series has never returned on the road of emphasizing "logging tiredness" and "family feelings".
In Hollywood, which is usually "the end of the trilogy", what does it rely on to survive 22 years and 10 films to sell? First of all, the aesthetic of the whole series is simple and rough enough, adrenaline rushing, recognizable, attracting male audiences, Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham have joined successively, strengthening the labelling of the series "bald tough guy, iron triangle brothers"; The series is also becoming more and more "spectacle", from parachuting in a sports car, to driving a sports car and nuclear submarine racing on the ice, to crashing satellites into space; In addition, to catch up with the boom of Hollywood's "series universe" at that time, its IP also tried to create derivative films, launching "Fast and Furious: Special Ops", and the animated series "Fast and Furious: Agent Speeder" to expand the vitality of IP.
The growth and evolution of the entire IP, in fact, is also accompanied by the process of Hollywood diversification, ethnic minorities gradually have more right to speak, the entire series is more global, the team is different in race and background, and there is a lot of space to be explored. For the leading actors, "Fast and Furious" allowed them to make a career leap from ordinary actors to A-list superstars. Justin Lin directed the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and ninth parts of "Fast Furious", two Chinese directors Justin Lin and Wen Ziren, with this series, have a commercial masterpiece that sold well at the box office and entered the mainstream vision, especially the latter, which is famous for horror films, has achieved its first transformation.
The Chinese market has always been a very important market for Fast and Furious. "Furious 4" is the first to be released, and the box office of "Furious 5-8" reached 251 million, 413 million, 2.423 billion, and 2.67 billion respectively. The Chinese box office of the two films 7 and 8 accounted for 22.5% and 30.5% of the global total, surpassing North America, which may also be the reason why "Furious 10" was released in North America ahead of schedule and in China at the same time as overseas markets.
It is very popular in the country for certain social reasons. At that time, it was in the stage of rapid economic development in China, the car buying tide in second- and third-tier cities broke out, countless young people were curious about drag racing, in addition, it was also in the stage of China's theater and screen blowout, and the "Quick" IP witnessed this stage, and the box office and public influence rose step by step.
It's just obvious that the epidemic has changed the pattern of the domestic and foreign film market in the past three years, the appeal of Hollywood has declined, and the proportion of domestic films at the box office has increased significantly. After the poorly received "Furious 9", to "Furious 10", the box office is only half of the previous work. "Furious 10" also tried hard to add more Easter eggs that evoked memory killing, but it still could not solve a fundamental problem: the IP is gradually aging, and the main audience is mainly 30+ years old, which cannot attract young people. After the peak "Fast 7", in fact, the global box office of 8 and 9 has declined, but this IP of more than 10 films can already be regarded as longevity and outlier.
Other problems include the cost of continuous "drag racing", the cost of "Furious 5" exceeded 100 million US dollars for the first time, 7 to 9 reached 190 million US dollars, 250 million US dollars, "Furious 10" cost as high as 340 million US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 70%, becoming the highest in history, and Vin Diesel's personal influence is too great, the difficulty of returning the cost and the risk of content control increase; Repeatedly Cue Paul Walker, back and forth pouring "family chicken soup", it is inevitable to "stir-fry cold rice", and "science fiction" also brings the risk of "plot reputation out of control", and many viewers question the setting to reduce intelligence.
It is not only "Quick" that falls into the homogenization dilemma, but also a large number of series of IP and Hollywood assembly line products. Self-renewal is the only solution, there is no other way.
520 files exist in name only, how many imported films can be played this year?
Under the strong impact of "Fast 10", this year's 520 files have also become a real existence. In addition to an imported Japanese movie "The Rest of Your Life" starring Nana Komatsu and Kentaro Sakaguchi, there is only one "Please Don't Trust Her" starring Zhang Ruonan and Wu Yuhan.
The former has been released in Japan last year, network resources have flowed out, and in recent years, except for "Bouquet of Love", which has the highest type and a box office of nearly 100 million, most of the Japanese live-action movies have hovered around 20 million at the box office, far less than the performance of Japanese comic IP.
The latter was completed in 2021, originally scheduled to be released in the mid-autumn festival last year, suddenly withdrawn, is a remake of the Korean film of the same name romantic comedy, director Yang Yuanhan was originally a happy twist actor, and his last "Lie Detector" Douban only had 2.8 points, so the film's reputation is not optimistic. After the same type of opponent "So Many Years" is promoted to May Day, there may be a certain bonus under the blessing of the schedule.
It is worth noting that this summer's season has ushered in a large number of Hollywood imported films since June, and the "Domestic Film Protection Month" no longer exists. ——The market influence of domestic films and imported films has been reversed, and protection months are no longer needed.
After "Fast 10", there will be many imported films relayed into the June 1st file, but the volume is not very large. At the end of May, there was "Dream House" directed by Spielberg, produced by Ampelin Entertainment, and also deeply bound by Alibaba Pictures, which won the Best Feature Film and Best Director awards at last year's Golden Globe Awards, and has a limited audience as a "semi-autobiography". In addition, "Sword Art Online Attack: Twilight" is mainly aimed at Japanese comic fans, the live-action version of "The Little Mermaid" is the most out of the circle is the black heroine casting controversy, in recent years Disney's animated adaptation of live-action movies are not optimistic, so these films may hover in the tens of millions of box office range.
The June 1st file will usher in three imported animations with a box office of 100 million, Sony's "Spider-Man: Across the Universe", the regular guest "Doraemon: Nobita and the Ideal Town of the Sky" on June 1st every year, and Miyazaki's classic re-screening of "Sky City", the word-of-mouth quality and box office range of the three films are relatively stable. "Transformers 7: Rise of the Power Warriors" in the second week of June is likely to become the largest imported film in the entire June.
In the third week, the DC superhero blockbuster "The Flash" was released simultaneously in the mainland and North America, and at the same time, the new Pixar animation "Crazy Element City" created by the "Dream Travel" and "Spiritual Journey" team was released, all of which have high word-of-mouth expectations, but there are certain challenges in breaking through their own box office ceiling. Among other blockbuster new films, "Mission Impossible 7" and "Indiana Jones 5" have not yet been finalized, and director Nolan's new film "Oppenheimer" has released Chinese posters, but there is still no exact news of the finalization. In addition, August will also usher in the Sino-US co-production "Megalodon 2".
To sum up, judging from the imported films that have been finalized this year, although there are many of them, there are not many that can be hit. This is related to the change in market taste, but also to the quality of the imported film itself. Hollywood's "sequel dependence" can't stop, and 9 of the top ten box office films in the United States last year were sequels, which means the lack of original ability. This year, Disney announced the development plans for "Frozen 3", "Toy Story 5" and "Zootopia 2".
In the post-epidemic era, imported films still play an important role in enriching content supply, balancing the cold schedule, and cultivating viewing habits. However, to date, there has not been an imported film that has exceeded 1 billion, and the current annual ticket title of imported films is won by "Journey to the Bell Buds".
The domestic market is not that it no longer needs imported films, but that it needs new impactors, dark horses and surprises such as "Journey to the Bell Buds" and "Slam Dunk". "Guardians of the Galaxy 3", which is being released, has become the current "Marvel highest" this year with its "best reputation in history". From the meaning of "activating the market", "Journey to the Bell Bud", which has exceeded 800 million, may be the best imported film in terms of youth, of which the audience under the age of 20 accounts for the highest proportion, and the audience under the age of 20 and 20-24 years old has reached a staggering 35.5% and 31.8% respectively. It also brought a rare incremental market of the post-00s, and its duel with "Slam Dunk" became a showdown between the post-00s and the post-80s, and it turned out that the former won.
When will the next imported film blockbuster appear? Will it belong to the "senior IP" "Transformers 7" or "Mission Impossible 7" that are also 16 or 27 years old? A question mark is needed.