Online movies: Under the epidemic, the box office is gratifying, and the future development content is king

Author: Kong Lingqiang

During the epidemic, cinemas across the country are in a state of suspension, cinema films have no big screen, and audiences have no place to watch movies. In this context, online movies (not the cinema movies shown on the Internet, but refer to the online movies we used to call in the past) ushered in an outbreak in early 2020 - according to the data of Youku, iQiyi and Tencent, as of the end of February, the three major platforms had at least 14 online movies with box office breaking tens of millions, which was almost the same as the 15 online movies that broke through 10 million in the first half of 2019. Will the epidemic bring new development opportunities for online movies?

In the first two months, there were 14 departments with more than 10 million accounts

During the epidemic, the stay-at-home family can only be entertained through the Internet, which has also allowed the membership of video websites to grow rapidly. Data show that the scale of daily active Internet users and the average daily user time during the Spring Festival this year have reached a record high. Among them, the scale of users in the online video industry increased by 17.4% compared with usual days, and the average daily usage time exceeded 1.5 hours. Compared with before the outbreak, iQIYI's membership increased by 1079% month-on-month, and Tencent's video membership also increased by 319%. A large number of users staying on the video platform have provided a large audience for online movies, and in 2020, online movies have caught fire.

At the end of October last year, China's first Online Film Week issued a joint proposal to officially rename the online movie as an online movie. According to data released by Youku, iQiyi and Tencent, a total of 64 online movies were released in January, the largest number of single-month releases in the past six months, and the number of releases in February also reached 57. As of the end of February, Youku has 7 online movies with more than 10 million accounts, the number of iQiyi has reached 8, and Tencent has only 1 online movie with a box office of more than 10 million because of the new sub-account model. If calculated in this way, the number of online movies with a box office of more than 10 million in the first two months of 2020 reached 16. However, due to The special statistical method of Youku, all the projects in the monthly account period are included in the monthly list, so there are two movies that have stayed in the list after more than 10 million last year, so even if these two are removed, there are 14 online movies with a box office of more than 10 million on the three major platforms in the first two months of this year.

In the first half of 2019, there were only 15 online movies with more than 10 million accounts, which means that the data of the first two months of this year has been almost the same as the results of the first half of last year. Many people are lamenting that online movies have ushered in their own spring during the epidemic.

Online movies are not highly rated

But at the same time, we should also see that most viewers have not rated online movies very high. In Youku's February list, the sequel to the popular monster online movie "Big Snake 2" was online for 86 days, and the box office reached 32.3 million, but it was only 3.5 points in the rating of Douban Movie. The action crime online movie "Siping Fengyun" has reached a cumulative box office of 16.64 million in the 64 days after it was launched, and its score on Douban is only 4.4 points.

In iQiyi's February list, the action-adventure online movie "Giant Crocodile Island" starring Luo Jialiang topped the list with 16.7 million votes, but the Douban score was only 2.8 points. The costume suspense network movie "Forensic Song Ci" starring Yu Zhen and Pan Changjiang scored 13.69 million at the box office, and the Douban box office was only 5.8 points.

Yin Chao, founder and CEO of Taomeng Pictures, who has launched explosive online movies such as "Qi Tian Dasheng Ten Thousand Demons City", "Water Monster", "Huang Feihong's North and South Heroes", said in an interview with the media that at present, the box office of online movies is less affected by word of mouth, "Word of mouth is of course the lifeline of cinema movies, I make an analogy, cinema movies are like hypermarkets, everyone will go once every once in a while, so things will be carefully selected; online movies are more like convenience stores, hungry and thirsty to buy and go, not too picky." But Yin Chao believes that with the maturity of the industry, this will not be the norm, "the future must be made of quality." In two years, from 2021 to 2022, there should be a high-reputation online movie with a Douban score of 7.5 and a real circle. ”

In the end, it is content competition

Can online movies take advantage of the situation to usher in a sustained outbreak after the epidemic? Long Jian, head of Chongqing Small Bench Film Industry and producer of the online movie "Please God Lantern 1", said in an interview with Chongqing Morning Post Upstream News reporter that more people will begin to contact online movies during the epidemic. "During the epidemic, there are obviously more people watching movies at home, which is good news for online movies in the short term, which will make more people start to contact online movies, which is also a little change in people's entertainment consumption habits caused by the epidemic."

"For online film practitioners, short-term gains will be better." But in Longjian's view, in the long run, the epidemic will not substantially and directly change the market pattern: "The new audience may not be the audience of online movies, and their requirements for online movies may be higher, so it is a good thing for the industry, but for practitioners, it will not have much impact, it is necessary to do solid content, and joining the head content competition is the hard truth of development." ”

As for the relationship between online movies and cinema movies, in fact, it is not and will not appear who will replace whom. Yin Chao believes that online movies can complement the content of cinema movies, and genre films that may not be seen in theaters, such as martial arts and fantasy, may be more popular in online movies. In addition, online movies can become a platform for young creators, and can cultivate a group of young creators through continuous shooting practice, which is also a very important contribution of online movies to the entire film industry. (Kong Lingqiang)