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Hollywood in China may really be the end of an era

Hollywood in China may really be the end of an era

It is difficult to break the "imported blockbuster" of 1 billion, and it is facing the problem of regaining the trust of the audience.

Text/Pang Hongbo

Hollywood is already a new era in China.

As one of the Hollywood IPs with the highest visibility in the domestic film market, the total box office of the "Fast and Furious" series has surpassed the "Avengers" series, becoming the total box office champion of imported series films in Chinese film history.

It is precisely because "Quick" itself is synonymous with sales, so it is difficult to imagine that a Hollywood imported blockbuster is now extremely difficult to sell for 1 billion in the domestic film market.

In fact, for the movie itself, the 141-minute ultra-long length is not unexpected, and the tedium of the plot is not surprising, but the most unexpected thing is the audience's rapid abandonment of such a super popcorn movie. And this year, after the impact of the epidemic factor was greatly reduced, Hollywood performed hard in the domestic market, and I have to sigh that it has been two eras.

1

—Who doesn't watch "Quick"? —

The audience watching "Fast and Furious" is too "old".

Hollywood in China may really be the end of an era

In 2009, "Fast and Furious 4" was introduced in the mainland, with a box office of 27.478 million. By 2017, the box office of "Fast and Furious 8" had soared to 2.67 billion, nearly 100 times.

In just a few years, "Fast and Furious" has become one of the best super IPs in the domestic film market. However, with the beginning of 2018, the mainland film market has gradually entered a stage of rational development, and the box office of the "Fast and Furious" series has also shrunk.

In 2019, "Fast and Furious: Special Ops" was launched as a spin-off of this IP. But the box office results of this spin-off work are obviously not comparable to the main story. The film's global box office of 761 million is nowhere near "Super 7" and "Super 8", and also lower than "Super 6" in 2013. But in 2019, the mainland film market is at its peak. Big IP coupled with the appeal of Johnson and Statham, this foreign story got 1.434 billion box office in the mainland, which also made the mainland film market the largest box office in the world.

But no one expected that "Fast 9" would be completely "released" in logic, because the film's global box office was not even as good as "Fast and Furious: Special Ops", and it was also slightly lower than "Fast and Furious: Special Ops" in the mainland film market. But at least "Super 9" also got 1.392 billion box office in the mainland, ranking fifth at the annual box office.

And this year, after completely getting rid of the impact of the epidemic, "Fast 10" is predicted to have a box office of just over 800 million, not only unable to enter the 1 billion club, but also the best ranking in the semi-annual box office ranking may also be the seventh.

According to the user portrait analysis of Maoyan Professional Edition, through the analysis of wanting to see the portrait, the proportion of "Super 10" under the age of 24 is the lowest in the series of movies since relevant data was available, and the proportion of age over 30 years old is the highest since the series has data. This shows that from the perspective of ticket purchase intention, the appeal of "Super 10" to young users has not performed well in the same series. The so-called elderly users over 30 years old are more looking forward to "Super 10".

Hollywood in China may really be the end of an era

However, from the perspective of ticket purchase portraits, "Super 10" has the highest proportion of age under 24 years old in the series, on the contrary, the proportion of age over 35 years old is the lowest in the series. This shows that although "Super 10" attracts more attention from elderly users, the conversion rate of ticket purchase is not high, but young audiences under the age of 24 perform well in the proportion of age.

Therefore, on the whole, "Super 10" attracts the attention of elderly users before its release, but these 30+ users are not the main audience of the film market, and the actual willingness to buy tickets is not strong.

In addition, from the current top three box office of the large market, users under the age of 24 want to see users, and the age proportion of "Super 10" is the lowest. In the ticket portrait, "Super 10" has the lowest proportion of years under 24 years old, and the highest proportion of people over 30 years old. The horizontal comparison also shows that in the current film market, "Super 10" is more attractive to elderly users, and it is not attractive among the main audience and young audiences in the market.

Therefore, the audience of "Super 10" is "old", and it lacks sufficient appeal to the main audience, coupled with mediocre word-of-mouth, it naturally has a mediocre response in the market.

2

—Why isn't "popcorn" fragrant? —

The audience began to "lose focus" of the popcorn.

Hollywood in China may really be the end of an era

In fact, the reputation of "Super 10" is not a collapse, but it is relatively mediocre. The long length and boring plot do make it difficult for the film to have a high reputation, but the "family man" under the roar of the engine basically meets the audience's psychological expectations for this film. It's just that for the current market audience, "Super 10" has neither the so-called audiovisual feast far beyond other films nor the ultra-high reputation that can exceed the audience's expectations, and this "neither" and "no" determine the fall of this film from favor.

After three years of the epidemic, the biggest "sequelae" is that audiences are more cautious in their choice of watching movies. Especially with the change of entertainment consumption habits in the past three years, it is difficult for the audience to buy tickets on "feet" for a "popcorn" that lacks driving force but is lengthy. This is also the first major problem encountered by Hollywood imported films in the mainland.

Hollywood popcorn blockbusters have always been an important engine in the development of the mainland film market. Up to now, there are a total of 36 imported films with a box office of more than 1 billion in film history, and 22 have contributed in the three years from 2017 to 2019, accounting for 60% of the total. This is also in line with the background of the rapid expansion of the mainland film market, and Hollywood blockbusters are naturally the easiest content to "acquire" in the extensive stage of fully sinking the entire mainland market to obtain incremental users.

However, three years have passed, first, the epidemic has completely changed the original consumption habits of theater viewing, and second, the mainland film market has stagnated and grown at the user level, and there has been a large-scale loss of existing users. In the surviving user groups, imported popcorn with obvious shortcomings in content is naturally no longer the first choice for theater viewing.

Therefore, after experiencing the embarrassment that the real generation is not as good as the outside world, "Fast 10" is difficult to break 1 billion this year and completely tear off the "fig leaf" of Hollywood's traditional popcorn.

Nowadays, in addition to several series of IPs with long vitality, Hollywood has long become the main direction of attack. However, what is quite surprising this year is that the extremely good reputation of "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" has not performed satisfactorily in the mainland market. This "superheroic blockbuster" with a Douban score of 8.5 points is currently less than 600 million at the box office. From the perspective of global box office, the current global box office of "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" has reached 572 million, of which the North American market is 242 million, accounting for 42.3%, while the mainland market only contributes 71.47 million, accounting for only 12.4%.

Hollywood in China may really be the end of an era

After this year's Spring Festival, a number of Hollywood blockbusters are scheduled to enter the market. Among them, "Black Panther 2" and "Ant-Man 3" only contributed 106 million and 272 million box office respectively. In Maoyan Research Institute's "New Changes in the Spring Festival Film Market After 2023", it is mentioned that after three years of Marvel movies, fan stickiness has declined. Moreover, the conversion rate of young audiences under the age of 20 has decreased, and the cultivation process has resumed.

In the original high-growth mainland film market, Hollywood "popcorn" is both a guarantee and the first choice. However, in the current film market, mainland audiences are extremely harsh on imported films. "Brainless Popcorn" has been gradually abandoned by mainland audiences, and superheroic blockbusters with explosive word-of-mouth may also become niche carnivals.

There is a complete "gap" between mainland audiences and Hollywood, and it is probably a reality that only sporadic blockbusters can sell in the mainland.

3

—Blockbuster China Depend? —

Hollywood blockbusters need to reconfront a new dilemma of the world's largest box office but insufficient contribution.

Hollywood in China may really be the end of an era

"Fast and Furious 7" as a pinnacle of this series, its return on investment is very considerable. Through a production cost of $190 million, it finally got $1.511 billion at the global box office. But in recent years, the cost of several films has been rising, but the global box office has been shrinking. From the perspective of return on investment, it is no longer optimistic.

But "Fast 10" is not the "last dance" of the series, the upper and lower parts of the finale will become a "trilogy", and the spin-off series "Fast and Furious: Special Ops" will also develop a sequel. But in terms of the current reputation of the film and the global box office performance, even if it continues to be developed, the commercial return of this series will be greatly reduced.

In fact, for such super popcorn, the Chinese market has become an important source of global box office. In the early days of the mainland film market, even many "special popcorn" relied on the Chinese market to come back to life. But now, Hollywood's decline in the Chinese market has actually greatly compressed the living space of Hollywood blockbusters, and even increased the risk of Hollywood popcorn losses.

It is reported that the production cost of "Super 10" has reached an exaggerated $340 million, but the current Chinese market is $120 million. In the North American market, the first day reported a close of $28 million, down nearly $2 million from the 2021 "Fast and Furious 9" box office of $29.86 million on the first day of North America. This performance of "Fast 10" was the worst local premiere performance since "Fast and Furious 3" in 2006. Meanwhile, the $67.5 million in the opening weekend was also lower than the $70.04 million for Super 9.

"Super 9" cost $200 million to produce and $721 million at the global box office. And "Fast 10", whose cost has risen sharply, is now inferior to "Super 9" at the box office, and you can imagine how tragic the final box office landing point and return on investment of this film will be.

"Super 8" in 2017, "Fast and Furious: Special Ops" in 2019 and "Super 9" in 2021 are the world's largest box office box office, but this year's "Super 10" is likely to end this trend.

Hollywood in China may really be the end of an era

From 2020 to the present, only 4 imported films have exceeded 1 billion at the box office. Among them, 2 are from 2021, when the impact of the epidemic is relatively small, that is, in 2020, 2022 and 2023 to the present, and only two imported films have exceeded 1 billion at the box office in two and a half years. These two blockbusters broke 1 billion, "Jurassic World 3" was the first blockbuster to experience the "restart" of the epidemic in the first half of last year, and "Avatar 2" was the first blockbuster after the "restart" of the epidemic in the second half of last year. In short, these two films can break 1 billion, and in fact, they occupy a certain "natural advantage".

The 1 billion club is still an important indicator of whether a film is a blockbuster. Why the 4 imported films that broke 1 billion are cause people to worry should be compared horizontally. Because facing the impact of the epidemic is a problem faced by all films, since 2020, a total of 28 films in the mainland film market have exceeded 1 billion. The proportion of imported films in it is only 14.2%.

It can be said that the current Hollywood popcorn has ushered in a new era, and the combination of China and the West to help the Chinese market return blood is a common vision, but to achieve this vision, both sides are facing unprecedented challenges.

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