After "Chang'an 30,000 Li", has the road of chasing light narrowed or broadened?

The fundamental hindrance to the "jump" of the box office of "Chang'an 30,000 Li" may be the key to whether there is a story that can "break the circle". But the 168-minute ultra-long biopic, whether "Chang'an 30,000 Miles" narrows or broadens the road of chasing light animation, is actually a very worthy topic to explore.

Text/Pang Hongbo

This is probably the hardest film to evaluate in the summer so far.

"Chasing the Light 30,000 Miles" is undoubtedly a domestic animation that pushes both "long board" and "short board" to the extreme. First of all, in terms of visual effects, this may be one of the best masterpieces of domestic animation in visual effects. Secondly, the restoration of the style of the Tang Dynasty through animation is obvious to all. From the external production level, "Chasing Light 30,000 Miles" not only maintains the consistent quality of chasing light animation, but also constantly seeks technological breakthroughs and progress.

But at the same time, the record 168-minute length is even "unprecedented". For a traditional theatrical commercial animation film, this not only tests the audience, but also tests the return on investment ratio of the film.

For commercial films, there has always been a bad logic to find an excuse for art when talking about business, to use the guise of feelings when talking about art, and to talk about the "face" of culture when talking about feelings.

"Chasing the Light" can indeed see that domestic animation is still improving, but for a genre branch that still needs to consolidate its core audience and continuously raise the overall box office magnitude, the step seems to be a little too big.

1

—The "Three Most" of "Chang'an 30,000 Li"—

No innovation can be too "unconventional".

For "Chang'an 30,000 Li", the most fatal thing is that this may be a domestic animation with a difficult return on investment to calculate. Most domestic animations are relatively difficult in the current market. Especially for "frame-expensive" animated films, if they want to improve their visual presentation, they need to invest in cost budget.

"Chang'an 30,000 Li" is indeed an animation with excellent visual effects, whether it is the restoration of the style of the Tang Dynasty or the presentation of war scenes after the Anshi Rebellion, it can be regarded as the highest level of domestic animation at present. But the advantages cannot completely cover up the shortcomings, and the "three most" of "Chang'an 30,000 Li" are still the pain points of this movie.

Record length is not just a test for the audience. 168 minutes not only broke the historical length record of domestic animated films, but also tied for the longest record holder of animated films in the entire film history. For animation itself, there are many market pain points, coupled with the public's "innate prejudice" against domestic animation, it is not easy to have a favorable competitive position in the fierce summer season.

The main creator also mentioned in an interview that they could make "Chasing the Light 30,000 Miles" into a more commercial version with a duration of 100 to 120 minutes, but because this film is the beginning of the "New Culture" series of chasing light, according to the needs of the theme, it was decided to present it in a super long length of 168 minutes. Leaving aside the ideal and original intention of chasing light, simply from the perspective of the length of 168 minutes, it obviously does not meet the market law of global theatrical animation films in 2023.

It has caused certain troubles to the audience for national comics that urgently need to "break the circle". At the same time, for "frame-expensive" animated films, each increase in frames means an increase in costs. 168 minutes is already equivalent to the sum of the duration of two theatrical animations, which means that "Chang'an 30,000 Li" is one of the most expensive works in the current animation system. Therefore, the length of the film is too long, which also means that the pressure on the commercial return of the film has increased sharply.

Although Chasing Light believes that the "sense of mission" of the national comic is in him, he is willing to make a 168-minute ultra-long animation. But in the past, whether it was "New Legend" or "New God List", several animations had great box office pressure, if the newly launched "new culture" still cannot get out of the quagmire of "returning to the original", then how far can the "sense of mission" continue to promote the chasing animation?

More importantly, there are actually two more features under the "longest" shell, one is "the most scattered" and the other is the "most virtual". For biopics, the most taboo thing is not to control the capacity, resulting in the entire film telling a not "big" epic in an extremely long space.

"Chang'an 30,000 Li" certainly has merit, whether it is the presentation of the picture or the restoration and expression of the style of the Tang Dynasty and even the wind bones, it has made many audiences shine. But in a story with a huge time span, the whole story is actually too loose.

The main creator crosses the narrative through two story lines, and the intersection point is the friendship between Gao Shi and Li Bai. But in the process of constant recollection, the story lacks enough conflict and tension. The entire movie is a "memoir" of Gao Shi and Li Bai for most of the time, and the two have repeatedly cycled from acquaintance to farewell to reunion for decades. At the same time, there are a total of 48 Tang poems in the movie, but there is an extremely dense "collection of Tang poems" in the lack of a sufficiently tight plot.

For some audiences, the "Chinese romance" of "Chang'an 30,000 Li" was felt in one sentence after another "Tang poetry recitation". But if the entire narrative is compressed, will it be impossible to present the Tang Dynasty scroll that the creator hopes to restore in a more rhythmic story?

"Chang'an 30,000 Li" has actually built a higher barrier behind the "giant" built by the "giant" of 168 minutes + 48 Tang poems. An animated film that conforms to the commercial rules of theatrical animation films may not necessarily fail to achieve the current effect of "Chang'an 30,000 Li".

2

—The "trap" of chasing the light—

"If we don't do it, others won't do it."

This is actually a "self-touch" that many domestic film producers will fall into, especially when the film market gradually matures, the creation of more completed genre films must need more "early adopters", and in this process, many film parties forcibly carry a certain type of progressive mission on themselves.

From the perspective of the industry, this courage to "dare to be the first in the world" is commendable, but at the same time, you can also see that the innovation of many genre films is actually too extreme, and they set themselves difficult to explore possibilities in the market.

For the chasing animation that has achieved phased achievements in the market, it is natural to understand that the length of 168 minutes means the dual difficulty of scheduling and audience selection, and also knows that it means higher costs and greater pressure to return on investment. But because of the so-called self-endowed "sense of mission", chasing light animation still chose to face the difficulties.

National comics have indeed made great progress in just a few years, and chasing light animation has contributed a lot in the process of progress. Whether it is "New Legend" or "New God List", to some extent, through the continuous progress of adults to animation, it gives national comics the opportunity to cultivate the market. In 2019, after the appearance of the more than 5 billion "Nezha: The Devil Child Descends", the national comic completed the phased victory of the "box office peak", and the public's prejudice against theatrical animation, especially non-low-grade animation, gradually faded.

But the rise of national comics is obviously not only based on the box office "peak", the more important measure is the continuous rise of the magnitude of the head movie. 4-600 million is still a relatively "fixed" box office range for chasing light animation, whether it is the "White Snake" series released in the summer or the "New God List: Nezha Reborn" that bravely entered the Spring Festival file, can not jump out of this box office range.

The director of "New God List: Nezha Reborn" also mentioned in an interview with Yuemu that "3-5 animated films of more than 1 billion appear every year, so that it can be an ideal animated film living space." At this level, it means that the industry can absorb more talents, which is a relatively benign state. ”

But the reality is that at present, there are only 3 domestic animations in the entire history of Chinese films, and only 13 domestic animations have exceeded 1 billion at the box office.

At present, the box office range of "Chang'an 30,000 Li" may still be 400-600 million, but compared with the previous chasing animation, the market pressure of this film has only increased a lot. Although Chasing Light has opened its third product line "New Culture", the 4-700 million "Chang'an 30,000 Li" and the 1 billion+ "Chang'an 30,000 Li" are obviously completely different effects on the future market expectations of adult national comics.

The key to hindering the "leap" of the box office of "Chang'an 30,000 Li" is whether there is a story that can "break the circle". But the 168-minute ultra-long biopic, whether "Chang'an 30,000 Miles" narrows or broadens the road of chasing light animation, is actually a very worthy topic to explore.

3

—The rise of national comics cannot fight "shotguns"—

Adults should learn the "Bear Haunted" series instead.

In this year's Spring Festival, "Bear Haunted, Accompany Me "Bear Core" won 1.495 billion box office in one fell swoop, and became the third place in the current domestic animation box office in Chinese film history with its just need for the schedule. This also makes the box office of the single film of the "Bear Haunted" series enter a new range.

At present, among the top ten domestic animated films at the box office, the "Bear Haunted" series accounts for half. Every year during the Spring Festival, there is a big movie "Bear Haunted", and it has directly become the box office champion of domestic animation that year many times. In addition to this year's Spring Festival file, the box office champion of domestic animation in the entire film market in 2021 and 2022 also comes from the Spring Festival file "Bear Haunted", which is 595 million and 977 million respectively.

The entire industry is not "friendly" to low-grade animation, and there is a natural bias. However, after having a stable core audience, it continued to "break the circle" through technological progress, and finally exceeded the 1 billion mark in a single piece.

In contrast, in the early days of adult Chinese comics, through continuous visual style and narrative perspective to make a clear distinction from low-grade animation, which allowed many adult Chinese comics to quickly gain the attention of young people. But from "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage" to "Deep Sea" in this year's Spring Festival, only 8 works have passed the 500 million mark at the box office in 8 years, and no national comic box office has exceeded 1 billion for 3 years after "Jiang Ziya" in 2020.

How the core audience of national comics should be "compatible", whether it is "downward (lower) compatible" through a more complete typed narrative or "upward (older) compatible" through more in-depth content, is actually a choice question in front of national comics.

From the perspective of the "background", the Chinese film market is already at the point of recovery. At present, from the trend point of view, the stock audience is facing the loss in recent years, and mining increment is no longer the key direction at this stage; Imported films are basically "dysfunctional" in China, while domestic mainstream live-action films, whether traditional genre films or the main theme, are doing "upward compatibility" audience to break the circle. In this context, adults continue to "grab the market" with mainstream live-action movies, then success must be sporadic sporadic films, and it is difficult to have obvious changes in the large box office range.

In an interview with industrial media, the film side said that what "Chang'an 30,000 Li" wants to do is to cover more "audiences" who may not have the habit of watching movies in animation. "It's like some middle-aged people in their forties and fifties who may not go to the movies on a regular basis. Like our 'New Legend', 'New God List' series, etc., he may not be our target audience, but he is our target audience for "Chang'an 30,000 Li". ”

According to the ticket purchase portrait of Maoyan Professional Edition, compared with the top seven films with the highest box office of national comics, "Chang'an 30,000 Li" for the audience aged 30-34 is 15.9%, ranking fourth; 21.1% for 35-39 year olds, ranking second; 20% over 40 years old, ranking third. In the two age ranges of 20-29 years old, "Chang'an 30,000 Li" ranks in the middle and late segments. So from the data point of view, "Chang'an 30,000 Li" is not special in terms of audience attraction.

Perhaps through more extreme "innovation", the outside world has indeed paid attention to the new product line "new culture" of chasing light animation. But is the insurmountable box office range and the development trend of increasingly polarized long and short boards really a good thing for the current national comics?