Text | Eye entertainment
As soon as the May Day file ended, the competition in the Dragon Boat Festival film market began.
Although the Dragon Boat Festival is only a short three-day holiday, as of press time, there is still nearly a month before the Dragon Boat Festival, and there are already 8 movies officially announced that they will be released in the Dragon Boat Festival, which are crowded. In the just-concluded May Day holiday, the rescheduling of theatrical films and the withdrawal of files, and finally there were only 8 movies left in theaters, although it failed to bring many surprises to the film market, but the box office performance also exceeded the same period last year.
The Dragon Boat Festival, which also has 8 movies tentatively scheduled to be released, has been on the hot search on Weibo early, and the warm-up announcement is also steadily underway, and the market expectation has continued to rise.
Dragon Boat Festival: Drama and comedy
Eye Entertainment has sorted out the 8 movies that have been scheduled for the Dragon Boat Festival.
Compared with the May Day file and the same period last year, although the number of movies in this year's Dragon Boat Festival file is large, the genre is relatively not rich, mainly feature films and comedy films, and there are many niche films, and the highlights are mainly concentrated in the following aspects:
First, the competition for comedy films at the box office.
So far in 2024, in addition to the Spring Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival should be the schedule with the most comedy films, and the comedy track has been subdivided, and the audience can choose from a wider range.
The comedy youth film "I Don't Want to Be Friends with You" is adapted from the drama version, with a Douban score of 8.1 on the original drama, which is a domestic youth drama with a pretty good reputation in recent years.
The family comedy "Stop-and-Go" is the strongest film in the Dragon Boat Festival cast, starring Hu Ge and Gao Yuanyuan, the film just won three awards in the main competition unit of the Beijing International Film Festival in April this year, including Best Film and Best Screenplay, and the market expectations are quite high.
Compared with the first two comedy movies, the crime comedy "Sweeping the Dark, Never Give Up" starring Xiao Yang and Yu Haolei is more commercial, and with the blessing of traffic actor Fan Chengcheng, the number of people who want to watch Maoyan has exceeded 100,000, ranking first in the Dragon Boat Festival. Comedy has always been the first choice for big schedules, and the just-concluded May 1st "Spending Money at the End of the Road" is the best example, counterattacking all the way in the early pre-sale and film scheduling, and the box office has surpassed "Peacekeeping Anti-riot Team", the long-tail effect is very good, and the performance of the May 1st film may also affect the film schedule of the Dragon Boat Festival.
Second, the filling of niche films.
The basic audience of literary films is relatively small, and although they are not very competitive at the box office, their artistic value and market value still exist, enriching the entire film market to a certain extent.
"Day and Night River", which focuses on the non-traditional father-son relationship, has been backlogged for nearly four years, and it shined at the 5th Pingyao International Film Festival in 2021, starring Zou Tao won the best actor of the year in one fell swoop, and the industry has received numerous praises.
"Leaving the Wound", which focuses on single-parent families and left-behind children, and "Life Forbidden Zone", which tells the story of surveying and mapping in no man's land, are relatively niche in terms of subject matter, although there is a high probability that they will become "cannon fodder" in the competition of the Dragon Boat Festival, but they also provide the audience with more viewing options.
Overall, among the 8 films currently scheduled for the Dragon Boat Festival, there are not many that are competitive at the box office, mainly focusing on the three comedies and the Hong Kong film "Negotiator".
Although "Negotiator" has an advantage in the cast and production team, at a time when the influence of Hong Kong films is declining, if you want to achieve a counterattack like "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City" on May 1st, it still depends on the quality and word-of-mouth fermentation of follow-up films.
If there are no head films in the follow-up, it is not surprising that the box office champion of the Dragon Boat Festival will be born in three comedies.
The head film and television company made efforts
The crowding of the Dragon Boat Festival is not only reflected in the number of films, but also in the competition of leading film and television companies.
Compared with the May 1st head film and television companies, they have chosen to cultivate and recuperate very tacitly, and there is no situation where the main projection film is released, and the head of the Dragon Boat Festival industry is obviously more active.
"I Don't Want to Be Friends with You" is the main investment of Wanda Film and Television, with the participation of Tianhao Shengshi, Maoyan Weiying, and Confucian Film and Television, and the continuous development of Wanda-Confucianism is bound to bring greater market advantages to the film.
The first producer of "Sweeping the Dark, Never Give Up" is the Spring and Autumn Period, that is, the production company of Wu Jing's "Wolf Warrior", and the second producer is Light Pictures, director Wubai has directed "Antiques in the Game" and "Sweeping the Black Storm", and the production team is quite good.
Including "Negotiator" invested by the owner of Lianrui Film and "Stop-and-Go" invested by the owner of Maite Film, the efforts of many leading film and television companies have led to more fierce competition in the Dragon Boat Festival film market.
The most obvious change is actually that the publicity and distribution front of the entire Dragon Boat Festival movie has been lengthened and the publicity content has become richer. There is still a month to go before the Dragon Boat Festival, and the movies invested by the head companies are scrambling to start a comprehensive warm-up, and "I Don't Want to Be Friends with You" even carried out related topic marketing two months before the screening.
"Stop-and-Go" has more than 20 entries on Weibo hot search in one day, almost dominating the screen, combined with #Jinjing Pregnancy# and #北京国际电影节天坛奖#等多个热门事件进行宣发.
The marketing focus of "Negotiator" focuses on the two leading actors Liu Qingyun and Wu Zhenyu, and many topics such as #时隔19年再合作#, "Feynman is an accident, Qingyun is true love#, etc., are essentially selling Hong Kong film feelings, but this trick is really useful.
The pre-announcement and pre-heating in place has increased the activity of the market to a large extent, so although it has just experienced a May Day schedule, the film market in the transition period is not deserted, injecting more confidence into the industry.
However, a problem that cannot be ignored is that although the head film company has become active, the box office of the Dragon Boat Festival file is not as optimistic as imagined, and the main reason is the lack of head king bomb films.
On the one hand, compared with last year's Dragon Boat Festival file "Disappearing Her", the emotional topic of men and women triggered a national movie-watching boom, and finally won 3.5 billion box office, this year there is a lack of a film that can accurately grasp the audience's emotions.
On the other hand, the head film and television companies did not come up with large investment and large-production films in the Dragon Boat Festival, of course, this is also because the investment in the entire film industry has shrunk, and it is inevitable that the output will be affected.
So objectively speaking, the probability of the box office of this year's Dragon Boat Festival stall reaching the height of last year's "Disappearing Her" is very low.
The Dragon Boat Festival and the film market are not optimistic
Compared with the May 1st file, the market space of the Dragon Boat Festival file is actually smaller.
In just three days of vacation, there are two major schedules of 520 and Children's Day, followed by the summer vacation, and there are relatively few films and audiences left for the Dragon Boat Festival.
Taking 2023 as an example, the data shows that the number of domestic travelers during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday is 106 million, and the tourism income is 37.31 billion yuan, while the number of people traveling during the May Day holiday is 274 million, and the tourism income is 148.056 billion yuan.
The second is that the Dragon Boat Festival file and the summer vacation are closely linked, the release time of the film has been extended, and to a certain extent, it can eat the dividends of the two major schedules, "She Who Disappeared" fermented after the release of the Dragon Boat Festival, just in time for the summer vacation, and the key was postponed to October many times, and I ate a wave of dividends from the rise in the box office of the summer file.
Relatively speaking, the Dragon Boat Festival holiday has its own advantages, in order to attract the increase of head film companies, but on the whole, this year's Dragon Boat Festival and even the film market are not optimistic.
At the Beijing International Film Festival held in April this year, Yu Dong, chairman of Bona Films, directly pointed out the current predicament of the film market: lack of money.
Although on the whole, the domestic film box office has recovered in 2023, mainly due to the concentrated release of the backlog of films during the epidemic, in fact, throughout 2023 and even this year, the number of film pitches is very lacking, and the number of blockbusters continues to decrease.
So it is not difficult to find that this year's Spring Festival, Qingming Festival, May Day to Dragon Boat Festival, strictly speaking, there is no blockbuster released, and due to the problem of the film production cycle, this situation will continue for a long time.
According to Yu Dong's prediction, the output of films in the Spring Festival and summer holidays will be affected throughout 2024 and even 2025.
Judging from the current situation, it is more difficult for the Chinese film box office in 2024 to return to the 60 billion in 2019, but it is not hopeless.
Chen Kexin's "Sauce Garden Lane", Wu Ershan's "Fengshen 2", Guangguang's "Nezha's Demon Boy in the Sea", and China Film's "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" are all films that are more promising to drive the box office, and if they can be released smoothly in 2024, they may be able to help the total box office of the film exceed 60 billion.
However, at present, it is more important to pay attention to the box office growth of the Dragon Boat Festival, and look forward to the Dragon Boat Festival file to lay a good foundation for the growth of the summer holiday film market.