The second Dragon Boat stall in history: Good domestic commercial films are still scarce

Strictly speaking, the "Dragon Boat Stall" is not a special significance of the big stall, it comes from the Dragon Boat Festival small long holiday on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, and the time will often fall in the summer stall (June to August) and become part of the big stall.

But because of this, the "Dragon Boat Stall", as an outpost of the summer stall, can often also give a good look forward to the "big war" of the summer stall in July and August, which is a typical "above weekdays, below the big stall" schedule. So, this can bring enough reference meaning.

In 2023, the Dragon Boat Festival stall has seen some good phenomena.

According to the data of Lighthouse Professional Edition, the 2023 Dragon Boat stall will finally report 909 million box office, which can rank second in the Dragon Boat Festival in the past year, which is not much different from the highest water level of 912 million in 2018.

Compared with the previous "imported blockbusters" rushing to the forefront, this Dragon Boat Stall, "domestic commercial films" occupy a prominent position in the report card, the champion of the schedule "Disappearing Her" won 508 million box office, "I Love You! followed with 106 million.

At a time when imported films have initially returned to normal at the level of "release rhythm", this achievement is more meaningful than the "stagnation period" of imported films in the previous two years.

July is approaching, the fiercest competition of the summer stall is coming, and this Dragon Boat stall has achieved a good look in many aspects. What's more, "Disappearing Her" and "I Love You! The strategy in the selection of themes and schedules can also find a reference for many domestic films, and provide reference ideas at the level of project establishment and distribution.

Finally not bunched

Don't underestimate the "second in history" result of this Dragon Boat Stall. Before the arrival of the Dragon Boat Festival, even many people in the industry did not dare to place too high expectations.

There is a source of pessimism, and the previous Qingming and May Day short holidays, the film box office market did not bring the expected benefits. Take a "small long holiday schedule" May 1st gear, although the result of 1.518 billion can rank third in history, second only to 2021 and 2019, but considering that many of the previous May Day put 3 days, and this year is 5 days, after converting to a single-day calculation method, the data is at a disadvantage compared to 2017 and 2018.

Poison Eye once pointed out in the schedule analysis of May 1st that too many new films are piled up, although they show a rich trend in the type of supply, but in this case, only a few are destined to reap the expected results.

In other words, there are films that could have been adjusted to daily weekend releases, and the box office that could have been obtained has been diluted and wasted.

This is an inevitable result, and it is also a common problem when we talk about schedules. This problem has been partially solved in this Dragon Boat Show, a very important reason is that the Dragon Boat File itself is backed by the existence of the summer file, and many films are forcibly put into the "Dragon Boat Stall" is unnecessary, and the distributor will not have a strong will.

Therefore, in fact, only "Disappearing Her" and "I Love You" chose to enter this Dragon Boat Stall! and "Don't Call Me God of Gamblers" 3 films.

"Disappearing Her" "I Love You! "Don't Call Me a God of Gamblers"

In terms of final results, this Dragon Boat stall won 909 million box office, becoming the second in the history of the same period, second only to 912 million in 2018, and higher than 785 million in 2019. For reference, in 2021 and 2022 during the epidemic period, the box office of the Dragon Boat stall was 468 million and 179 million, respectively.

From the perspective of box office distribution, two-thirds of the 909 million went to "Disappearing Her" and "I Love You!" These two films, the results of the two are 507 million and 106 million respectively.

Among them, the suspense film "Disappearing Her" belongs to the continuation of the ideas of the "Manslaughter" series, and is another work produced by Chen Sicheng, which is adapted from the Soviet film "The Trap for the Bachelor" released in 1990, with a mature story foundation and a fairly complete commercial film background.

I love you! is a movie that focuses on the theme that movies do not often focus on - the love of the elderly, and has handled "Get Out!" Tumor Jun", "Animal World", "Send You a Little Red Flower". This time, he also continued his own thinking, trying to explore the theme of emotion and life and death in a relatively warm tone, which was well received by the industry and the audience.

I love you! 》

In contrast, "Don't Call Me "God of Gamblers"", although Zhou Yunfa sits, only received 29 million box office during the collapse of quality feedback. At a time when "word-of-mouth affects performance" is becoming more and more established, it is really normal.

Quality "domestic commercial films"

According to the Douban score, "Disappearing Her" and "I Love You! " is basically maintained in the "7 points" and "8 points", referring to the theme and audience, the box office difference achieved is also reasonable, plus the score is in the failing grade of "Don't Call Me "God of Gamblers", the three seeded players in this Dragon Boat Stall, the results achieved are basically in line with today's market judgment.

What is more worth mentioning is the "domestic" attribute.

Before the epidemic, in addition to the "summer outpost", another indicator of the Dragon Boat stall was the "imported blockbuster testing ground": according to the historical data of Lighthouse Professional Edition, the box office champion and runner-up of the Dragon Boat stall (total box office of 785 million in the schedule) in 2019 was "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" (box office 221 million during the schedule), "Godzilla 2: King of the Monsters" (163 million in the schedule); the box office champion of the Dragon Boat stall in 2018 (total box office of 912 million) was "Jurassic World 2" (box office 723 million during the period); in 2017, the Dragon Boat Festival (total box office of 760 million) ranked first and second at the box office of "Pirates of the Caribbean 5" (box office 479 million during the period) and "Wrestle! Dad" (box office 145 million during the period).

During the epidemic, some objective reasons hindered the production capacity of films around the world, as well as the domestic introduction of imported blockbusters (especially last year). However, this situation has recovered in 2023, and before the Dragon Boat Festival, it is "The Flash", "Transformers: The Rise of Super Warriors" and "Spider-Man: Across the Universe" and other imported blockbusters occupying the forefront of hot topics.

Of course, because of the dislocation of the release time, this Dragon Boat stall cannot simply be regarded as a "victory for domestic films", assuming that commercial blockbusters such as "Transformers: The Rise of Super Warriors" just in time for the release of the Dragon Boat Festival, perhaps the box office pattern may be similar to previous years, of course, we cannot exaggerate this year's pattern changes.

However, in the case of the recovery of the competitive environment, domestic commercial films can achieve such results in the Dragon Boat Stall, and the positive enlightenment must also be mentioned - we really need to actively introduce "blockbusters" to create a reasonable and fair competitive environment for imported films; At the same time, we cannot close our eyes to the changes in the tastes of a new batch of audiences and make good use of the maturity of the entire domestic commercial film system.

In any case, regardless of the size of the schedule, the cinema on holidays still has the role of the entire film market to find "incremental audiences", which has been emphasized many times in the discussion of the Spring Festival file over the years, combined with the trend of word-of-mouth to guide the movie, "high-quality domestic commercial films" has become an important bearer of this mission.

Chen Sicheng's team, which has the successful experience of "Manslaughter", can obviously see this. And from the perspective of lineup and production, "Disappearing Her" has also been upgraded to a certain extent, even more in topic production, although it is a remake of a Soviet film 30 years ago, but the core and presentation of the story is modern, whether in terms of story selection or content production, I have to admit that this team's leading understanding of domestic commercial films, "Disappearing Her" reversed the decline the day after its release, at present, Maoyan Professional Edition predicts that the total box office has exceeded 1.6 billion.

"Disappearing Her"

"I Love You!" has a higher reputation. is another idea, because it aims at "elderly love", a scarce and popular topic in the market, but not so pleasing at the commercial level, "I Love You! " was originally a work between the author's film and a pure commercial film, and it won more than 100 million box office during the schedule, which is also a fair achievement.

Compared with director Han Yan's previous works, from the very beginning, the box office of this film may be difficult to surpass "Send You a Little Red Flower", but the combination of domestic film business and the author's expression obviously has quite positive significance.

At least, both films show that excellent domestic commercial films will still be in a scarce state, and the investment of this type of capital and talent is a good choice in terms of cost performance and future trends.

From the Dragon Boat stall to the summer stall

It is worth mentioning that there is another "dark horse" worth mentioning separately in this Dragon Boat stall - this is the realistic theme work "In the Octagon Cage" directed by Wang Baoqiang.

"In the Octagon Cage"

The film was officially released on July 6, but it had already opened a large-scale screening before its release, and in fact participated in the competition for the Dragon Boat Festival. As of noon on June 25, "In the Octagon Cage" has garnered more than 67 million box office. The box office is second to "Transformers" in the third week, ranking fourth in the Dragon Boat Festival.

Wang Baoqiang, who received this box office during the film, combined with the word-of-mouth reputation of the point screening, picked up the guide tube again, may usher in his new masterpiece, which is also a "turning over" as a director. Some people have already regarded it as a strong competitor after the start of the "core period" of the summer stall in July, and at the same time, it also proves the forward-looking role of the Dragon Boat stall on the summer stall.

The film is adapted from a true story, directed and acted by Wang Baoqiang, telling the story of a person and a group of children "redeeming each other". In fact, choosing such a large-scale screening is itself a manifestation of sufficient confidence in word of mouth. Judging from the current calendar, this will be one of the most watched films released in early July.

After that, some typical summer works will arrive one after another, including Chasing Light's animated film "Chang'an 30,000 Miles" (July 8), the imported action film "Mission Impossible 7: Fatal Reckoning (Part I)" (July 14), the fantasy blockbuster "Fengshen Part 1" (July 20), the comedy "Super Family" (July 21), the imported topic work "Barbie" (July 21) and so on.

By the end of July and the beginning of August, there will be Dapeng's new work "Heat" (July 28), Jason Statham, Wu Jing leading the Sino-US co-production "Megalodon 2: The Abyss" (August 4), the animated film "I Am Nezha 2: The Return of the Hero" (August 12) and so on.

It can be defined that the Dragon Boat Festival, which is included in the broad summer file, does make a good start for this summer file that has been poured into the market recovery, which proves the demand for domestic commercial films at the market level, and also sets a sample for the production and distribution of commercial films themselves.

Under the fully competitive market, we need to continue to strictly examine the sincerity of domestic commercial films, and we can also give them some confidence that "the times have changed subtly".