This article is from the WeChat public account: One Entertainment Observation (ID: yiyuguancha), text/Dewey, editor/Mao Shiyang.
2020 is destined to usher in a new year in sadness.
The situation of the "pneumonia epidemic" is still grim, as of 17:00 on January 29, the number of confirmed cases nationwide reached 6,078. In just 30 days, the number of confirmed cases of new pneumonia exceeded the number of confirmed cases of SARS in 2003.
Affected by the "epidemic", China's film and television industry has already undergone earth-shaking changes, and the complete disappearance of the "Spring Festival file" will bring 15 billion yuan of box office losses to the entire film industry. "囧Mom" has become a "big net", bringing the most severe test to the national theaters. Hengdian Film and TELEVISION City is also close to "shutting down", and a number of project teams have stopped work. The "paralysis" of the overall entertainment industry locks the nation firmly in their homes.
On January 27, Beijing time, basketball superstar Kobe Bryant was tragically killed in a helicopter crash in Los Angeles, USA. A generation of legendary superstars fell in this way, causing countless fans around the world to fall into heavy grief. They took out their treasured Kobe jerseys, sneakers, and wanted to go to the basketball court to vent their grief. Helpless to "pneumonia epidemic", had to squat at home. Watch kobe bryant's basketball animation short film "Dear Basketball" repeatedly.
▲ Stills from "Dear Basketball"
In the short film, the "rough" line stop-motion animation outlines Kobe's legendary career, and the most important thing for fans is that there is Kobe's affectionate monologue in it. At the same time, sports movies and documentaries about basketball, "When Kobe Work Is Going", "Glorious Road", "Heads-up" and so on have been revisited by fans.
2020 is also an important year for Chinese sports films. Combined with the Chinese women's volleyball team winning the World Cup last year, the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics were held. The strong sports atmosphere has spawned more sports movies.
In 2019, domestic films have made milestone breakthroughs based on a number of themes, such as "The Wandering Earth" with science fiction themes, "Nezha's Devil Boy Descending" with animation themes, "Young You" with youth themes, and "My Motherland and Me" with the main theme theme.
Compared with the above domestic "weak themes", sports themes have lower attention, less film production, worse reputation, and more miserable box office results. The world's popular "Sports films" rarely have "sports" labels in the detailed type classification of Douban and ticketing platforms, which has an important relationship with the domestic sports themes that have been in the "blank period" for a long time.
In 2020, this situation can be greatly improved. Driven by the high reputation potential of "Win the Championship" (formerly the Chinese Women's Volleyball Team), driven by the efforts of Chen Kexin's follow-up sports films "Li Na" and "China Table Tennis", will 2020 become the "first year of Chinese sports films"? Will the "sports theme" stimulate the non-mainstream movie-going crowd and boost the annual ticket position like last year's "main theme theme"?
▲ Stills from "Win the Championship"
However, although the prospect is good, the market environment for domestic sports themes is still quite grim. What is the current market environment for domestic sports themes? What factors do a good sports film need to have, and what are the essential factors for the rise of "sports theme" films in 2020?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the current situation of domestic sports themes: no works, no achievements, no ideals</h1>
"Dedicated to the warriors who work hard for the true spirit of sports."
In 1934, the first representative work of Chinese sports films, "Sports Queen", had such an inspiration for sports athletes in the opening.
This black-and-white silent film, although the plot is relatively weak, but the "fashionable" sports scenes opened the eyes of the audience at that time. What is more profound is to show the people's far-reaching understanding of the situation of poverty and weakness for a long time and passive beating. The concept of "sports powerhouse" is more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. The charm and significance of "sports films" also lie in this.
▲ Stills from "Sports Queen"
In 1952, under the guidance of the slogan of "developing sports and enhancing the people's physique", a large number of sports films appeared around the 1960s, such as "Women's Basketball No. 5", "Sisters on Ice", "Female Divers" and so on. After the reform and opening up, there were sports movies such as "Sand Gull" and "Fan Tips". These works, influenced by ideology, although they can maintain the vitality of "sports films", have not been able to make further breakthroughs in the field of creation.
Since then, domestic sports films have entered a long window period until the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The Chinese market has once again made new attempts at sports movies, and a series of sports-themed films such as "Dream Team", "Icebreaker", "12.58 Seconds", "2008" and "Big Slam Dunk" appeared around sports themes during this period.
The high number of creations has also not produced a representative work. Among the above works, small-cost digital films and television films are its main forms of creation. Only "The Big Slam Dunk" earned 113 million yuan at the box office under the name of Jay Chou. Domestic sports films failed to revitalize in the context of China's first Olympic sports chronicle.
Today, 86 years after the release of "The Queen of Sports", Chinese athletes have won many good results in international competitions. Although it has been missing in mainstream sports events for many years, there is still a long way to go for the country to be on the road to "sports powerhouse". However, it has long since emerged from the shadow of "weak sports countries".
Compared with the lack of "mainstream sports events", the loss of "mainstream sports movies" should be more humiliating. To this day, domestic sports movies are even in a state of standing still.
One Entertainment Observation (ID: yiyuguancha) sorted out the top ten works in the domestic sports box office list, and through the chart we can see that in today's billions and billions of film markets, the highest box office of domestic sports films is the 2015 Sino-US co-production film "Extreme Thief" of 248 million yuan. There are only 5 films with a box office of over 100 million yuan, and the tenth place is only 8.42 million yuan at the box office. The overall box office potential is low to the bottom.
In terms of word-of-mouth, only 5 works reached the passing line, the highest was "Guild Wars" 7.9 points, and the worst was "Magic" 3 points. The overall rating is low. Moreover, there are three Chinese and foreign co-production films in the above works, 4 films in Hong Kong, China, and only 3 films in the mainland, which shows that the desire to create domestic sports films in the mainland is low.
Judging from the release time, the span between the works is very large, most of them are made five years ago. In the past three years, only "My Boxer Boyfriend" and "I Am Marbury" are at the end of the list.
Although the theme of "cycling, basketball, boxing, swimming, baseball" and so on is rich, but in addition to the "Breaking the Wind", "Guild Wars" and other high-quality works, the rest of the works are only sports themes as gimmicks, to create comedy movies, and do not deeply show and interpret the "sportsmanship", not pure "sports movies".
The reason for the decline of sports themes in China is that China's sports system is as sound and attractive as north America, so that people who actively participate in sports are extremely rare. China's long absence in mainstream sports events has failed to drive a national sports atmosphere. The well-known directors' sincere creation of sports themes and the collective lack of industry head creative teams and companies have made domestic sports films stagnate.
There are many reasons for this, but more importantly, why revitalize sports films?
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > why revitalize sports films? </h1>
On January 13, the nominees for the 92nd Academy Awards were announced, in addition to a number of popular people who entered the list. The motorsport-themed film Speed King received four nominations, including Best Picture. "Sporty" films have been the evergreen of the Oscars. The New York Times once commented, "Without a sports movie, the Oscars are like a woman who has lost her high heels." ”
"Sports" films were favored by the Oscars as early as 1931, and a film dedicated to the life of a boxer, "Licking the Calf", received four Oscar nominations, and won the original screenplay and best actor awards. To date, a total of 34 films related to sports themes have received 141 Oscar nominations. Among them, there are 3 sports films that won the Oscar for best picture. They are "Rocky" in 1977, "Chariot of Fire" in 1982, and "Million Dollar Baby" in 2005.
▲ Stills from "Million Dollar Baby"
And in 2010-2012, it was staged for three consecutive years that sports films won the Oscar for best picture candidates, and these three films: "Weakness", "Fighters" and "Penalty Into Gold" are also monuments to sports films. In addition to inspirational, passionate, adventurous and other elements, sports movies will also combine creative elements such as "biography" and "history", which is why "sports movies" will become the darling of the Oscars.
Classic North American sports films have never stopped, such as "The Road to Glory", "Chasing Dreams and Pure Hearts", "The True Colors of Money", "Mr. Sweetheart" and so on.
In addition to the North American market, in recent years, countries have representative works for sports-themed films, such as India's "Wrestling! Dad", Russia's "Kill Munich", Japan's "Love Boomerang", "Hundred Yuan Love", etc., have become important film and television themes exported by various countries to the international market.
It can be seen that sports-themed films have always enjoyed a high degree of attention around the world and have continued vitality. Moreover, compared with the more serious ideological themes such as "main theme, plot, history, and science fiction", the sports theme is more "pure", which is a favorable theme for cultural output.
In 2001, the Hong Kong film "Shaolin Football" was not only successful in China, but also won wide acclaim abroad. Time Magazine has selected 25 of the best sports films in the history of world cinema. Two Asian films made the list, "Once Upon a Time in India" and "Shaolin Soccer". In 2011, Shaolin Soccer was also named to Time Magazine's "25 Best Sports Movies in World History". In turn, it opened the door for Zhou Xingchi to the international stage, laying the foundation for the subsequent "Kung Fu" to become famous in the world.
After the popularity of representative sports-themed movies, it will often lead to a new understanding of sports culture in a country and region. For example, after the release of "Sports Queen", the concept of "sports power" has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. For example, "Long Live Youth" (1959 documentary) recorded the situation of China's first National Games in 1959, expressing the implementation of the slogan of "developing sports and enhancing the people's physique".
In 1981, the hit of "Chariots of Fire" inspired a national sports frenzy in the United Kingdom, and by the 23rd Olympic Games in 1984, the United Kingdom had won a total of 37 medals, a net increase of 16 compared with the previous Olympic Games. In 2019, "Kill Munich" became the top box office film champion in Russian box office history with 3 billion rubles (equivalent to 300 million yuan).
▲ Stills from "Breaking Bad Munich"
The influence and penetration of film and television cultural content on social phenomena is also applicable to "sports themes", and while the overall level of domestic sports films is improved as a whole, it will also promote the new attitude of the whole people towards sports.
Another major is the potential ticket warehouse market. 2017 Indian sports film WrestleMania! "Daddy" grossed 1.3 billion yuan at the box office in China, allowing the industry to see the potential domestic market for such genres. In 2019, the Russian batch film "Kill Munich" won 91.81 million yuan at the box office, although the number is not eye-catching, it is the second box office of domestic Russian films. In 2020, although "Win the Championship" withdrew from the Spring Festival file, from the perspective of the high word-of-mouth response of the on-demand screening, when it is released in the follow-up, it is bound to set off a movie-watching frenzy.
So, what factors should a good sports movie have?
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > what factors should be present in a good sports movie</h1>?
Sport movies, while well-known in North America, don't mean all sports movies will be a big success. In 2018, when the basketball sports movie "Uncle Drew" gathered NBA superstars Irving, O'Neal and Reggie Miller was in the North American box office and word-of-mouth double-pounced, the North American film industry conducted a reflection on sports movies.
Bleacherreport, a well-known North American sports media, said: "Irving laughed at the last time he tied the Nike camera, but it made us cry." The film makes us think about the nature of sports movies.
Variety has summarized what factors a good sports movie has, which can be used as a reference for us.
There is first a consensus in the North American industry that successful sports films must first be based on a "weak person" in terms of story content creation. Such as the orphan boy in "Weakness", the 30-year-old "decadent" woman in "Million Dollar Baby", the stupid security guard in "Hockey Bad Boy" and so on.
▲ Stills from "Hockey Bad Boys"
Variety magazine once concluded: "The reason why audiences around the world covet sports movies so much is because people like to watch the weak triumph over everything, and the success of the weak injects hope into them, because we live in a world dominated by the media, and the media usually only focuses on rich and successful athletes, and these people are too far away from them to resonate." 」 ”
And there must be a "successful" and "quality" villain in the story, who is not a villain in the usual sense, not a representative of evil, and even everyone respects him, but everyone hopes that he can fail. For example, in reality, the NBA's "Warriors" and the NFL's "Patriots" are not simply a battle between good and evil, but a contest between opposing forces, and all successful sports movies should have this "classic villain".
Rhythmic editing techniques are also needed to enhance the look and feel. Compared with other genre films, sports movies are more intense, exciting, and the pace is brighter. It is necessary to have a downgrading lens to show a sense of frequency and a sense of speed. Keep the audience at a high level of tension. In important shots, it is necessary to upgrade the camera to slow down, showing a sense of strength and pain.
The most unique use of this technique is "Rocky", when the protagonist in Philadelphia Square morning run exercise, showing determination, uplifting music combined with bright editing makes the audience eager to jump from the chair. In the final showdown, a large number of slow shots let "sweat and blood splash", the sense of fist to skin, let the audience once again experience the cruelty of sports. Let the overall movie viewing experience be relaxed.
Secondly, there is the clichéd issue of the starring image and fit. One of the important reasons for most unsuccessful sports movies is that the "lead actor" is not worthy of your trust at all, you do not believe that he loves sports at all, and he can finally complete the counterattack. Cai Xukun's ability to "break the circle" by basketball is also based on this. In film and television works, "WrestleMania! Amir Khan in "Daddy" and Huang Xiaoming in the domestic sports movie "Magic". Become the most classic positive and negative case.
▲ WrestleMania! Daddy" stills
Then it needs the sincerity of the domestic top production team to create, in the above domestic sports film box office top ten, the higher box office and reputation is Lin Chaoxian's "Breaking the Wind" and "Guild Wars", and the above creative elements of the standard, we will find that these two films have it. Sports films as a type of genre films, Hong Kong and Taiwan directors are also more famous, in the above list of films, Lin Chaoxian exclusively occupy two seats, Hong Kong and Taiwan directors account for six seats.
And this year's domestic head sports films, "Win the Championship" and "Li Na" will be created by Hong Kong director Chen Kexin, and the film will also combine "sports themes" with biographies and main themes to create the most suitable sports films for the current Chinese market, which shows the momentum of the rise of Chinese sports films in 2020.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the rise of Chinese sports films</h1>
On January 4, 2019, the General Administration of Sport issued the Action Plan for Further Promoting Sports Consumption (2019-2020), which aims to reach a total scale of 1.5 trillion yuan in national sports consumption by 2020.
According to the "13th Five-Year Plan" for sports development, the output value of the sports industry will exceed 3 trillion yuan in 2020, the added value is expected to exceed 1 trillion yuan, and the proportion of added value to GDP is expected to exceed 1%, and by 2025 this figure is expected to exceed 2%. This also shows that driven by the support of policies, China's sports service industry has an extremely broad space for development in the future.
According to the "National Fitness Plan (2016-2020)", by 2020, the number of people participating in physical exercise will increase significantly, with 700 million people participating in physical exercise once a week or more, and 435 million people regularly participating in physical exercise. The educational, economic and social functions of the fitness of the whole people have been brought into full play, and the situation of mutual development with various social undertakings has basically taken shape. Under the guidance of policies, the value of China's sports industry continues to grow. Along with it, we have reason to believe that "sports theme" films will also achieve qualitative development in 2020.
In addition, the carnival atmosphere of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics undoubtedly pushed the audience's sports emotions to a climax.
In addition to Chen Kexin's "Win the Championship", the follow-up release of "Li Na", there are also sports films that need attention this year, such as "Chinese Table Tennis", Jay Chou and Xiao Jingteng's "Reliable Brothers", Ang Lee's new masterpiece "The Battle of Manila", Zhou Qingyuan's "Start" and so on.
▲ Stills of "Li Na"
This year, there are many sports-themed movies that can be spawned, such as "Chinese Diving", "Chinese Gymnastics", "Chinese Shooting" and so on. Around the background of the League of Legends S Tournament winning the championship in China for two consecutive years, "China E-sports", "Glory E-sports" and so on were produced. Such as the combination of real sports stories, and the emergence of the "little people counterattack" inspirational movie and so on.
In 2019, with the miracle of the "main theme" film in the National Day file, the "non-mainstream movie-watching crowd (small town youth, male audience, and audience over 40 years old)" was mobilized to boost the box office by 133% and increase by 2.552 billion yuan, which became the most important reason why the ticket warehouse could be boosted last year, and also let the main theme film enter the 2.0 creation era.
However, the opportunities for the 70th National Day are rare, and from last year's data, we have learned that the growth rate of the Chinese film market has continued to slow down, and the stagnation of the major golden periods has also cast a shadow on the prospects of the future Chinese film market.
Entering 2020, "sports theme" films need to assume the responsibility of "breaking the circle" of the non-mainstream movie-watching crowd market and become the key theme works for the annual ticket warehouse promotion.
In any case, domestic sports films will open a new look in 2020 and become the first year of domestic sports films.