Can the "all-or-nothing" summer file break records?

The popularity of "All or Nothing" has made the summer of 2023 another reassuring pill. At present, the box office of the film has 1 billion+, and the single-day box office on weekdays has also maintained at about 150 million, and the final box office prediction of Lighthouse Professional for the film is as high as 4 billion, and the second half of the summer file seems to continue to be hot.

At present, there are still 20 days before the end of the schedule, and the box office of the schedule is approaching 16 billion before the press release, and then there are several new films such as "Learning Dad" and "I Passed Through the Storm" to be released, and the Qixi file is also coming, "Burning Winter" and "Oblivion" may have the opportunity to absorb another wave of box office - under the continuous high viewing enthusiasm, breaking the record of 17.778 billion created by the summer of 2019 may not be difficult for this summer.

The schedule situation is very good, sweeping away the haze of the epidemic for three years for the film market. Under the new situation, new phenomena have also occurred, many rules have quietly changed, some methods still work, some experience has failed, before the industry speculated about where the film market will go after the epidemic, this year's summer file may be a new observation sample.

"Learning Dad", "I Passed Through the Storm", "Burning Winter", "Missing and Forgetting"

Unpredictable summer slots

The explosive growth of the broader market in June may have foreshadowed the hot summer season this year. According to Tuopu data, the box office of the large market in June achieved the first year-on-year increase since the epidemic, with a total box office of 4.13 billion, and the monthly box office was second only to the same period in 2019, an increase of 115.1% year-on-year in 2021, and the number of moviegoers was 105.567 million, a year-on-year increase of 99.6%.

Among them, the super hit "Disappearing Her" contributed the most, accounting for 41.2% of the box office, followed by Hollywood blockbusters "Transformers: The Rise of the Power Warriors" and "Spider-Man: Across the Universe", accounting for 14.4% and 8.2% respectively. It is not uncommon for "Disappearing Her" to beat Hollywood blockbusters, and it is the norm for the box office of imported sub-account films to decline year by year, coupled with the high degree of discussion on the topic of "Disappearing Her", Hollywood blockbusters have fewer advantages.

Source: Lighthouse Pro

Compared with July, when foreign films are avoided to protect domestic films in the past, the confidence of domestic films seems to be more sufficient than in previous years. "Disappearing Her" continued to play its advantages, "Chang'an 30,000 Li", "In the Octagon Cage", "The First Part of Fengshen " and many other blockbusters appeared at the same time, jointly won a total box office of 8.715 billion, an increase of 148.5% over 2022, the market hit a new year-on-year increase in the past ten years, and at the same time refreshed the box office record of 6.97 billion in film history in July 2019.

Among them, Yu Wei, "Disappearing Her", released on June 22, appeared in July, won 335 million box office on July 1, and then exceeded 100 million at the box office for 5 consecutive days, accounting for more than 50% of the box office and the proportion of films, seeing that it was about to win the July box office championship, another dark horse appeared: on July 8, "Disappearing Her", which maintained the crown for 17 consecutive days, was overtaken by "Octagonal Cage".

The media forecast of "In the Octagon Cage" before the screening generally did not exceed 1 billion, but with three rounds of large-scale screenings, the box office accumulated 420 million, helping it to increase the number of films on the first day of release to 26%, and with the help of the reverse decline of the daily box office, it finally became the box office champion in July, winning 1.92 billion box office.

Compared with the menacing of "Disappearing Her" and "In the Octagon Cage", "Chang'an 30,000 Li" takes a steady and steady path. There was only a one-day screening on July 2, but with a good reputation, it won a single-day box office of 21.326 million and won the box office champion of animated films in 2023. In time for the summer, the parent-child viewing advantage is obvious, and the box office continues to climb, receiving 1.53 billion box office, breaking the box office record of chasing light animation.

"Disappearing Her", "In the Octagon Cage", "Chang'an 30,000 Li"

Also accumulated step by step with word of mouth is "The First Part of Fengsheng". After many years of deposition, it was finally set, but the audience's expectations were generally low, and the screening effect was not satisfactory, and the release day did not usher in a big explosion, accounting for 17.8% of the films and 26.3% of the box office, far lower than the medium-sized investment "Disappearing Her" and "In the Octagon Cage", and even released 4 days, the box office proportion was also equalized by "Chang'an 30,000 Li", which was released two weeks earlier. Fortunately, after a week, the first wave of audience feedback appeared, with mostly praise, and "Fengshen Tap Water" used Erchuang to reverse the disadvantages of "Fengshen Part I" and complete the double reverse decline in box office scores.

Although July's domestic films do not lack stories of counterattacks, there are exceptions. The new film "Warm" directed by Dapeng was expected to be quite high before the screening, but on the first day of release, the box office accounted for 29.9%, slightly lower than the 30.4% of the scheduled film, and the attendance rate was only 11.8%, the market performance was not good, and the box office forecast dropped from the previous range of 1.6 billion to 2.3 billion to 1 billion. What's more regrettable is that "Warm", which originally thought it could be screened for a long time and walked out of the upward box office curve, encountered greater challenges in August.

"Heat" box office data Source: Lighthouse Pro

"All or Nothing" stole all the limelight on the day of its release, 15.4% of the films won 34.1% of the box office, and the attendance rate reached an astonishing 51.7%, and finally received 172 million box office, winning the box office crown, beating "Megalodon 2: The Abyss" that had just been released for 2 days; By the next day, the box office of 179.3 million set a new single-day box office record for the point screening in Chinese film history; The 3-day pre-sale box office (including point screening) exceeded 500 million, and the box office exceeded 1 billion in 3 days of official release, "All or Nothing" took the box office with a high attitude, and the summer file pattern was reshuffled.

It can be seen that this schedule has changed a lot, and the movies that seem to be not selling before the screening have great potential after the screening, and the movies that are expected to sell well at the box office have died down, and all the previous predictions and trends no longer seem applicable. And all this has long been traced.

Constantly changing publicity strategies

All the "miracles" actually laid the foreshadowing in the short video position early.

According to QuestMobile, the monthly active users of short videos reached 958 million in May 2023, and the growing user base provided a battlefield for movie marketing to show their talents. As early as June, "All or Nothing" has begun to warm up in advance on the Douyin platform. The third video released by the account has achieved good results, the video of "Jin Chen playing the beautiful dealer" has 865,000 views and 37,000 comments, and then the account has successively released movie plot materials, detailing the brainwashing and murderousness of overseas fraud, and the number of views continues to rise, among which, "Wang Chuanjun reproduces brainwashing famous lines" has become an account hit, with 5.408 million views.

Not only "Desperate", the explosive effect of "Disappearing Her" also benefited from the help of short videos, from the early stage of "Wen Yongshan femme fatale" to "Zhu Yilong's shaving head acting skills", step by step, completing the popularity of the movie breaking the circle, with a cumulative number of account views of 14.076 billion.

It is not difficult to imagine that market- and audience-oriented theatrical films are bound to refer to the pre-screening topics and popularity of the film, so the number of golden performances on the screening day of "All or Nothing" accounts for 32.5%, and the number of golden performances on the release day of "Disappearing Her" accounts for 35.7%, ranking in the forefront of the summer file, which cannot ignore the blessing brought by the volume of the short video platform.

If the sinking strategy of the short video is the coverage and publicity of the target audience by the film side, then the second creation of the other branch of the short video is a targeted promotion of the audience themselves to the social circle. In 2015, the "tap water miracle" of "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage" allowed the film market to witness the potential of spontaneous publicity by the audience for the first time, and eight years later, the "power of tap water" became even stronger in the same summer season.

The box office of "The First Part of Fengshen No. 1" did not exceed 50 million on the first day, and compared with "All or Nothing", which exceeded 100 million on the day of screening, the market performance was not good. However, with the passage of time, the number of moviegoers increased, and under the spread of acquaintances, the crisis was improved, and the audience jumped out of the traditional and outdated propaganda narrative of the film, focusing on hot memes such as "Proton Muscle Man" and "Chopping a Knife to Help Wen Taishi Return to the Dynasty", and carried out spontaneous publicity on various platforms in an entertaining way.

According to the data of Lighthouse Professional Edition, the age of the audience of "Fengshen Part I" is the main audience, accounting for 49.4%, which is higher than "Warm" with the theme of young people's sports street dance as the background, 42.3%. While the main "Generation Z" audience has a certain consumption strength, they are good at using the Internet to complete the second creation and win the publicity advantage, which also won a reversal opportunity for "The First Part of Fengsheng".

In response to the "tap army", the film side quickly adjusted the direction of publicity to cooperate. On July 29, the official released a documentary to expose the acting training process of the proton group behind the scenes, which not only satisfied the audience's curiosity about the proton group, but also made the audience emotionally identify with the long-term preparation behind the scenes; On the other hand, the film side listened to the suggestions of netizens and arranged for the Feng Shen Proton Group to dance in Liu Genghong's live broadcast room on August 8, and the "Feng Shen main creative group was a guest in Liu Genghong's live broadcast room" that night rushed to the hot search, causing 24,000 discussions on Weibo.

The effect of public opinion is reflected in the box office, the predicted box office of "Fengshen Part I" has been raised from the initial 1.3 billion to 2.2 billion, an increase of nearly 1 billion, and in the current 23 days of release, "Fengshen Part 1" has exceeded 1.8 billion.

Hot memes such as "Naran Hakimi" and "Fei Xiang Business Yinyu" received a response from the main creator in the roadshow, which aroused the audience's good feelings, and the importance of the roadshow was vividly reflected in "The First Part of Fengshen ". Similarly, other movies in the summer file have also made great efforts, and each family has done everything in its power to carry out roadshow promotion in combination with its own film characteristics.

The main creative collective of "Warm" danced in a frog costume by the West Lake, and jumped at zero point in Hefei, narrowing the audience distance through affinity; The roadshow station of "Octagonal Cage" chose Zibo, Xingtai, Kunming and other cities, Wang Baoqiang's previous accumulated popularity played a role, and the movie reputation gradually sank and fermented - the offline roadshow site can create more publicity topics, and then cooperate with online publicity to radiate to more audiences, and the effect is adaptable according to market response.

"Warm" Roadshow Source: Dapeng Dong Chengpeng Weibo

However, in the face of the fiercely competitive summer file, it is also necessary to create opportunities on the distribution side, which also reflects another major phenomenon of this year's summer file - point screening.

In the past, point screening was a small volume of movies that earned a little life from the arrangement of films through the word of mouth, but now no matter what size of the film will be screened, and the screening time is getting longer and longer. Through point screening, word-of-mouth diffusion is carried out, and the effect is obvious for the early arrangement of the film.

"I Love You!" will be released on June 21! " on June 10, 11, 17, 18 14:00-20:00, as a feature film with the elderly as the protagonist, not dominant, with the praise of the screening period, the box office on the first day of the film was 27.53 million, the box office accounted for more than the Hollywood blockbusters "Transformers: The Rise of the Power Warriors" and "The Flash".

I love you! 》

But the expanding screening has also attracted some controversy. Among them, "In the Octagon Cage" was the first to be controversial, with three rounds of screening half a month in advance, which was complained as "basically seizing the living space of other officially released films in the same period"; The same doubts also gave "All or Nothing", the box office is amazing, but the point screening is still the same, and there is no lack of controversy on social media about large-scale screening and preemptive filming.

In general, this year's summer file is relatively rich in gameplay at the publicity end, and it seems that the data of traditional dimensions such as pre-sale and want to see is losing its predictive role, but this also shows that the audience's attention and discussion are completely determining the expectation and post-screening trend of a film, and whoever grabs the audience's attention has a chance to win.

What kind of movies do audiences pay for?

One of the more obvious phenomena this year is that there are more discussions about summer movies than in the past, and related topics are frequently pushed to the top of the hot search lists on social platforms. The topic of "Disappearing Her" "Disappearing Her Peerless Sweet Drama" ranked second on the Weibo hot search list, with 250 million views, and then "Desperate Bet" and "Wang Chuanjun Worshiping Buddha Famous Scene" attracted netizens to imitate on Douyin, with a cumulative playback of 48.008 million.

The meaning of these topics before the screening is only to attract the audience's attention, and after the attention is converted into the box office, the audience who have seen the film will again promote the excitement of the topic, in this case, the topicality of the film is particularly important.

As summer hits, "Disappearing Her" and "All or Nothing" are smart in their choice of social hot spots. "Disappearing Her" starts from many topics that can attract female audiences such as online loans, love brains, and scumbags, while the story of "All or Nothing" focuses on the frequent fraud cases in Southeast Asia in recent years, and the film topics, plots and reality are intertwined, which not only satisfies the audience's viewing entertainment, but also gives the audience the opportunity to release their desire to express.

However, unlike in the past, the explosive models of the summer file in previous years, such as "I Am Not the God of Medicine", aroused the audience's attention to the medical system and caused the whole people to cry, "Nezha: The Demon Child Descends" blood, "My life depends on me", "Wolf Warrior 2" ignited patriotic enthusiasm, these relatively traditional positive emotions are not consistent with the direction of discussion behind this year's popular topic - behind the "wife murder case" and "fraud case" on social topics, there is more anger and panic, and this year's summer file proves, Anger and fear can also be "strong emotions" that can bring high box office.

"Disappearing Her", "All or Nothing"

It's just that high topics do not mean good word of mouth, unlike the double high of the box office of "I Am Not the God of Medicine", "Disappearing Her" has been mired in controversy since its release, word of mouth and box office are inversely proportional, the Douban score fell from 7.5 to 6.4, but the box office rose all the way to 3.5 billion. However, in most cases, positive word-of-mouth is still a box office booster, and this summer's high-grossing films such as "Warm" and "In the Octagonal Cage", the Douban score is above 7 points.

Even, "Chang'an 30,000 Li" and "Feng Shen" turned over with word of mouth, all the way against the fall, driving the box office to continue to rise, "Chang'an 30,000 Li" is the most obvious, the score has experienced a triple jump, jumping from 8.0 all the way to 8.3, released for a month, under the super hit, still able to maintain the box office proportion in the top five camps.

Correspondingly, bad films have completely lost the market in this summer file. The market is no longer bluffed by publicity gimmicks, and once the reputation falls, the row of films drops sharply, and it immediately squeezes out of the track.

The most obvious example is the new work "Super Family" that deceived the audience several times with "content", accounting for 36.9% of the films on the first day of release, beating the "Fengshen Part 1" released the day before, after scoring 4.8, it was immediately kicked out of the competition queue, and the box office accounted for only 7.5% on the 4th day of release, which was no match for "Barbie" with only 2.4% of the films released on the same day; The same happened to 4.9's "Don't Call Me a God of Gamblers" and 5.8's "Drug Sweep 3: Man in the End of the World".

"Super Family", "Don't Call Me a God of Gamblers", "Drug Sweep 3: People in the World"

It can be seen that the audience no longer condones bad films, on the contrary, the audience's preference has also changed, and while pursuing strong topicality and solid content, there are new choices for movie themes. Longitudinal observation of the explosive themes of previous summers can be found that there are often action movies, sci-fi films and other strong genre films during the schedule, for example, "Alone on the Moon" and "Jurassic World 3" in 2022, "Furious Heavy Case" and "Runaway Player" in 2021, it was more obvious before the epidemic, and the top five in the summer of 2019 were all action genre films, accounting for 57.4% of the market at the box office.

The audience's choice of genre films has changed after the epidemic, and the first signs have appeared in 2022. "Life Events", a realistic theme that focuses on the funeral industry, grabbed the box office in action films such as "Detective Wars" and "Tomorrow's War" as a dark horse, and finally became the runner-up in the 2022 summer box office with a score of 1.712 billion.

"Life Events"

This year, the reality theme has exploded, "Disappearing Her", "In the Octagon Cage" and "Desperate" have become the main force of this summer's box office, "I Love You! " is also at the forefront of the summer box office. It can be seen that the epidemic has caused audiences to lose interest in spectacle visual effects blockbusters and focus more on realistic themes that focus on their own and social relationships.

When emotional resonance occurs, naturally the audience will use the topic for spontaneous publicity, the better the word of mouth, the stronger the penetration, so as to achieve the effect of breaking the circle; On the other hand, the reality theme does not need the huge cost of visual effects blockbusters, as a waist volume, trial and error is large, can give the main creative team content production space, combine the realistic theme with other genres, to meet more viewing needs, "Disappearing Her" has strong suspense attributes, "All or Nothing" has a crime film rhythm, combined with it, attracting more viewing groups, which is conducive to the expansion of content in the film market and allows the audience to pay more attention to social reality.

In general, in addition to the lively scenes brought by the counterattack of the dark horse and the return of strong emotions and realistic themes, this year's summer file is more importantly, the movie has returned to public life. Three years into the epidemic, the film industry has always worried about the interruption of audiences' viewing habits, but this summer, the lost audience has been pulled back to the cinema.

The three-month-long big schedule accommodated 141 new films, a record high, and under the three-year "cooling-off period", the market has more preparations, but also recovered its calm, regained content creation, began to output excellent works, the initiative of the summer file finally returned to the hands of the audience, compared to the upcoming new schedule box office record, this is more worthy of celebration.