Hollywood blockbusters are in decline, and publicity is somewhat responsible

Rhino Entertainment Original

Text|Xiaofu Editor|Park Fang

Six days after its release, the cumulative box office of "The Little Mermaid" will pass the 20 million mark, and Hollywood movies have once again encountered a market crit in China.

After being "sung" for more than three years, Hollywood movies seem to have really ushered in a total rout in the Chinese market. Among the films to be introduced in 2023, two of the top three box office films are Japanese films, and Hollywood films that used to be able to compete head-on with domestic films have now completely lost their momentum.

Behind this, on the one hand, the transformation of the audience group, on the other hand, the lack of Hollywood film publicity has become more and more impossible to ignore. Compared with the grand publicity scale of the two Japanese films "Journey to the Bell Bud" and "Slam Dunk" in the mainland, Hollywood movies that once frequently attracted attention have not had a decent publicity move for a long time.

This cliff-like reduction in the scale of publicity has also accelerated the process of Hollywood films in the mainland to a certain extent.

Hollywood publicizes the four-board axe

As the largest overseas market for many Hollywood films outside North America, China has been a major publicity center for Hollywood blockbusters for a long time. Many films attach more importance to the promotion of the Chinese mainland market than Japan and South Korea, which are also important Asian countries.

In the past, the publicity methods commonly used in Hollywood blockbusters can be roughly classified into four types.

First, the Chinese premiere.

This used to be the favorite way for Hollywood blockbusters to promote on the mainland. Most Hollywood sub-accounting films of a certain size will set up a China station in the global roadshow, and the film's main creative team will go to Beijing, Shanghai and other cities to hold Chinese premieres.

During this period, most of the main creators who come to the mainland will also participate in some promotional activities with Chinese characteristics, such as visiting tourist attractions such as the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, or tasting Chinese food at different times and trying traditional Chinese folk activities. While promoting the film, it also created a wave of social hot spots.

In this process, Hollywood films will also cooperate with domestic mainstream media platforms to invite creators to participate in various interview programs to further increase the exposure of the film in China.

It seems that the routine is bad, but the Chinese premiere has always been the most efficient means of promoting Hollywood blockbusters, killing two birds with one stone.

Second, localized materials.

All kinds of materials are an indispensable basic means for each film promotion period, when the object becomes a Hollywood blockbuster, in addition to the simultaneous release of North American materials, many films will also produce some localized products for the Chinese market.

For example, the most commonly used Chinese style posters belong to the low cost but good effect. If you encounter a reliable artist and excellent ideas, you can also use low cost to leverage big hot spots.

The promotional song of the Chinese film is also the choice of many Hollywood blockbusters. This mode of operation is usually to work with singers with similar promotional periods to create a new song before the release of the movie, so that the song and the film promotion can kill two birds with one stone. Like the honeymoon period of Hollywood movies in China, some films will launch multiple promotional songs. Similarly, there is a supporting lineup in the star version, which is also for the two-way empowerment of stars and films.

However, compared with the previous two localized publicity cooperation, there is also a slightly chicken cooperation promotion, the film China promotion ambassador. This kind of marketing method that does not have but forcibly establishes a connection is simply created for traffic artists. The two-way rush of fans and artists can also become a popularity bonus for Hollywood movies.

Third, offline activities.

Offline events are also good gimmicks. For example, "Warcraft", which grossed nearly 1.5 billion at the box office in China, planned a Warcraft movie theme exhibition a year before its release, using original props, live-action scale models, free VR experiences and other props and equipment to attract the attention of many emotional players.

There are also a large number of commercial blockbusters such as "Spider-Man: Homecoming", "Beauty and the Beast", "Pirates of the Caribbean 5" and "Ace Agent 2: The Golden Circle" are also on the eve of release, and some mainland high-tier cities have been selected to open offline themed film exhibitions.

Fourth, advance point screening.

Spot screening is a common publicity method for domestic films, but it is not easy to achieve for Hollywood films. In fact, it was not until 2017 that China opened up the in-house screening of Hollywood movies for the first time. Subsequently, it also continued to be screened in a few films such as "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter", "Alien: Contract", "Godzilla 2: King of the Monsters" and so on.

Compared with domestic films, Hollywood blockbusters have a higher threshold for internal screenings, and will encounter stricter restrictions in terms of screening time, number of screenings, and cities.

Therefore, compared with the first three publicity methods, the utilization rate of on-demand screening is relatively low.

Hollywood announced a big shrinkage

In the three and a half years since the epidemic, the introduction rhythm of Hollywood films has been chaotic, the market scale has become smaller, and this mature publicity game has also been suddenly beaten back to ten years ago.

First of all, the biggest change is the simplification of the Chinese premiere.

After the epidemic, due to the inability of Hollywood creators to come to China, many films changed their mainland premieres to remote connections, or directly held a small premiere without the participation of overseas creators. Without the most important creator face to face, the exposure rate as a premiere promotion will inevitably not escape a plummet.

Secondly, there is the reduction of local materials and offline activities.

Due to the overall reduction of the scale of publicity, even local materials and offline activities, which do not involve cross-border exchanges of people, have been forced to streamline. It can be seen that in the vast majority of Hollywood imported films since 2020, we can only see the most basic Chinese version materials. And considering the hidden danger of gathering people during the epidemic stage, various offline exhibitions have also withdrawn from the mainland market in stages.

The only thing that hasn't been affected too much may be the advance screening, and even more gameplay.

"Avatar: The Way of Water", released at the end of last year, is a Hollywood blockbuster with the highest expectations from the Chinese mainland audience in 2022, and this film was also rarely selected for exclusive screening in CINITY theaters after it was finalized, and it grabbed the "premiere rights" in the mainland ahead of IMAX, Dolby Vision and other theaters.

Coincidentally, the recent "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" and "Spider-Man: Across the Universe" two new Hollywood films also opened a small number of multi-city advance screenings before the release. Under the scale of Hollywood movie publicity, the screening has become one of the few cards in their hands.

However, due to the scarcity of the most critical exposure, even if the trick of point screening is offered, the publicity effect of many films is still greatly reduced compared with similar projects before the epidemic.

In the Maoyan and Taobao ticket want to see data, in the past decade, the want to see data of Hollywood blockbusters is in an absolute leading position in the introduction of films. However, this advantage was completely broken this year, and it was crushed in all directions by "Slam Dunk" and "Suzu Bud Journey", two Japanese films that were widely publicized in Chinese mainland. Even the "Quick" series, which has broken many market records, was firmly suppressed by opponents because of the lack of local publicity.

To a certain extent, the shrinkage of the box office volume of Hollywood movies is completely proportional to the shrinkage of the scale of Hollywood film publicity. And considering the worrying market performance of Hollywood movies today, it has become unrealistic to hope that Hollywood blockbusters will come up with a high budget for Chinese mainland publicity at this time.

Since the beginning of this year, the only film that has allowed us to see some improvement is the upcoming animated film "Spider-Man: Across the Universe". Hollywood animated films were originally "vulnerable groups" in localized publicity, but now, this film has become the strongest Hollywood film in Chinese mainland this year.

This film has recently released localized materials such as exclusive Chinese art posters and Chinese theme songs. In addition to cooperating with traffic-oriented singer Lu Han, the Chinese dubbing of the film also chose two young actors, Peng Yuchang and Yu Shuxin, to lead. On May 31, the film also opened a small number of screenings in 12 cities.

Although no key creator came to China to hold the premiere, "Spider-Man: Across the Universe" can already be regarded as the most comprehensive Hollywood movie in recent times.

In the environment where Hollywood movie publicity is almost dry, such a small progress is enough to attract our attention.

Will this be a warm-up signal for Hollywood movies in China?