With the well-known movie star Lin Jiadong, the producer of "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City" Chen Luochao, and the producer of "The Love I Talked To" Chen Qingjia and others have talked about the situation of the industry in interviews, mainland audiences have begun to have a general understanding of the difficult situation of Hong Kong films. But to their surprise, non-co-productions seem to be in a worse situation than co-productions, as exemplified by the earlier release of "Mochizuki".
"Looking at the Moon" is a typical non-co-production film, with a "authentic Hong Kong flavor" in theme and plot, mainly for the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and overseas markets, and its starring lineup is quite good, in addition to the well-known Li Jingyun and Chen Zhanwen, there are also goddess-level actors Li Lizhen in the 90s of the last century and Li Xinjun, a popular member of the current Hong Kong No. 1 girl group COLLAR, who is known as the "women's ceiling".
But such an exemplary Hong Kong-style movie, since its release on September 19, has earned a total of less than 600,000 Hong Kong dollars (about 545,000 yuan) in the first two weeks, and the results have been extremely dismal, and in the third week, the situation has worsened, and the single-day box office has dropped to several thousand yuan, so that major theaters in Hong Kong have taken it offline early, leaving only a theater in Kowloon Bay with a remote address to maintain a daily performance at 3 p.m. PS: From October 11 to 11 p.m., it is only HK$1,824
According to the analysis of a Hong Kong film blogger, according to the current box office results of "Mochizuki", serious losses are inevitable, and because of its overly localized and relatively niche themes, the possibility of being sold to overseas platforms or being released by overseas theaters is very small. If you want to reduce your losses, you can only hope to sell to mainland online platforms.
It is worth mentioning that local COLLAR fans once said before the release that they would buy tickets to enter, saying that their goddess Li Xinjun's first film must be supported, and many people even praised her acting skills, saying that she is expected to compete for the Best Newcomer Award at the Hong Kong Film Awards with this performance. But now it seems that their love for the goddess is lip service, and few people really pay for tickets.
Of course, the reason why the box office of "Mochizuki" is so bleak is not only because the fans of COLLAR and the goddess are really not good, but also has a lot to do with the sluggish environment of the film market. Since June this year, the newly released Hong Kong films in Hong Kong, whether they are co-productions or non-co-productions, are generally not high at the box office, and it is extremely difficult to break 3 million or 5 million, and it seems that only "The Love I Talked About" really broke 10 million, and I don't know if the cost can be recovered.
However, unlike co-productions, non-co-productions are allocated most of the costs and losses due to the investment of mainland film companies, and with the channels and connections of the partners, the schedule of screenings released in the mainland is often better, and they can get more box office more efficiently, and the situation is still significantly better.
To put it bluntly, if co-productions are completely abandoned and only non-co-productions are relied upon, the Hong Kong film industry may collapse completely. In addition, many of the funds for the shooting of so-called non-co-production films are also earned by local film companies through the co-production business, which is really inseparable.