"007: No Time to Die" led a new batch of imported films into the Chinese market.
Among them, "Escape room 2" is also expected to be released.
2019's "Escape from the Chamber" created another success for a Chamber of Secrets movie. With a success of only $9 million and more than 155 million at the global box office, the filmmaker Sony Pictures naturally gave the sequel the green light and added more costs.
"Escape room 2" has landed in many markets such as North America in the summer, and even in the recovery period of the film market, the world has already received 44.89 million box office, basically recovering a budget of 15 million.
Chamber of Secrets movies have always had a fine tradition of winning at low cost, because the vast majority of scenes are played indoors rather than on location.
With the global popularity of room escape games, the series has also successfully combined popular elements to reopen a new window for room movies.
In China, "Escape from the Chamber" grossed 232 million yuan. For an imported film with small cost, no big stars and big special effects, it is already a huge success.
You know, Ang Lee's "Twin Killers" directed by Ang Lee and starring Will Smith was only 236 million in the same year.
Undoubtedly, being able to become a dark horse is related to the fact that the domestic secret room game, including script killing, has become a daily entertainment for young people. This new mode of entertainment, like movies, provides an immersive experience.
What is more advantageous than the movie is that the chamber game can not only involve people, not only as a spectator, but also has a social function. After playing a game, you may be able to get rid of singleness.
There are even analysts who believe that these emerging entertainment are grabbing the theater business.
If the movie wants to fight back, it must show the ability to watch the family.
That is a good work that makes the audience's heart beat faster, stunned, and cannot be calmed for a long time.
The "Escape from the Chamber" series is actually far from reaching the limits of the Chamber of Secrets, of course, with the development of the times, this kind of restrictive subject matter is becoming more and more difficult to shoot, and now it seems that without adding some science fiction elements, the story does not know how to round.
But that doesn't mean the new era can't have a Chainsaw-style classic.
As long as the film creator can maintain the passion and vitality.
The same is true for Chinese films.
The rise of the emerging entertainment industry is not necessarily a threat, but can be leveraged.
For example, like "Room Escape", the features that can be used in the room game are integrated into the movie.
If you can have good enough works, why worry about the audience's reluctance to buy tickets.
And no matter how much the price of movie tickets increases, they must be cheaper than the secret room games.
So how to make a good work, you can completely refer to what kind of content "Escape from the Secret Room" is successful.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="79" >(1) sense of urgency</h1>
Unless it is a very high-end, expensive store, playing a chamber game is usually a disadvantage, the external environment is difficult to let the player 100% into it, even if the popular script kills to let the player directly play a role.
Because the player always knows very well that the game is fake, the failure will be the failure, and the time limit will not really be like the basketball game, every minute and second is thrilling.
This is what the film can do, leading the audience into the story, even if the audience knows that it is fake, there can be an inexplicable sense of urgency.
Because good works can always make the audience empathize with the character, when the character is in a deep dilemma, the audience will feel worried about the role and gradually feel empathy.
Even if you suddenly see a person in a desperate situation, you will involuntarily become curious.
It's like the opening scene of "Escape room".
A boy is playing an escape room game, but he is desperate to find the exit code, because the death-killing mechanism behind him is approaching him.
So, a suspense comes, can he escape?
Escape from the Chamber was very successful in creating a sense of urgency.
The meticulous design of the screenwriter and the scheduling and control of the director make every scene full of tension.
And the design of the "last second rescue" is rarely repeated.
The first level will not only be heated to death, until the last few seconds to know, but also burned to death;
The second level seems to have no time limit, but if you don't solve the mystery all the time, you will be frozen to death;
There is no clock in the third level, but it will continue to shrink because the ground space will eventually fall to death due to physical weakness;
The fourth level is the more traditional time to be poisoned;
The fifth level is to push humans to the limit, fainting in pain, and leaving only one person's antidote;
The sixth level is also more traditional, that is, echoing the prologue, if you can't escape, you will be crushed to death.
Coupled with the excellent plot rhythm, the audience only needs to sit in a chair and experience the thrill of tension and excitement.
This is a foundation that domestic chamber films must do.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="42" >(2) role</h1>
It creates a sense of urgency that allows the audience to stay highly focused all the way and not bear to leave their seats for the toilet, after which they have to go deep into one of the cores of the film.
That's the character.
Escape from the Chamber of Secrets takes a very stupid approach, which is to make each of the main characters have distinct characteristics in the first place.
Note that it is a trait, not a personality trait.
Two black men, one male and one female, one at work and one a student;
Two white males, one old and one young, are both set at the bottom of society and both have a certain universality;
A high play, the only person who wears glasses, of course, who sees many chamber pieces knows that this kind of seemingly rhythmic generally will die the fastest;
A goddess, the appearance of the bearer, is also the reason to attract many male audiences to watch.
Then there's how to introduce them.
"Escape from the Chamber" uses a very clever method to integrate their previous history into the puzzle game, turning it into an important suspense of the plot.
In this way, the opening does not need to waste too much time, just a brief description of their daily life and life status, as well as some initial character development.
Not counting the prologue, it only took about 10 minutes for the 6 characters to get together and start to enter the theme.
As the game progresses, their personalities are further revealed.
And when revealing the character's previous history, the film also avoids a stupid mistake.
That is, overuse of flashbacks to disrupt the rhythm of the plot.
When the audience is nervous, a memory suddenly comes, although it is to strengthen the character building, but at the expense of ornamentation, some of the gains are not worth the loss.
"Escape from the Chamber" also uses flashbacks, but everyone's flashbacks are only a few seconds of fragments, which can enhance the suspense without disturbing the rhythm.
When it comes to officially revealing the character's previous history, only the lines are needed to explain, and the audience will suddenly be enlightened.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="80" > (3) do not abuse "human nature"</h1>
One of the themes that Chamber of Secrets films are accustomed to expressing is that in extreme environments, the darkness of human nature will be exposed.
In the same year, "Hunger Station" attracted a lot of attention because of the fresh brain hole, but the too old-fashioned issues and too obvious social metaphors made this secret room masterpiece a little worse.
"Room Escape" certainly has an old-fashioned place, that is, the world view setting is still a set of behind-the-scenes gangsters to catch people to play games, if the final reversal, it becomes really just a room game, yes, just like "Psychological Game", maybe there will be a higher reputation.
But one of the more commendable things is that the plot does not abuse human nature.
Didn't let the trapped few people suddenly become very selfish, and then all kinds of contradictions and conflicts.
The goddess Amanda gave the "clowns" who expected the evil of human nature to dominate a heavy blow, and at first several people were more united.
Of course there are people who are actually egoists.
In the middle of the middle, the little black girl Xueba has a conflict with other people, and it is not the evil of human nature that is at work, but she just has different ideas.
Of course, there are still ugly parts of human nature.
This is almost the unifying issue of the Chamber of Secrets films.
But it does not impose on each character, but slowly forces out its selfish nature by laying the groundwork.
Normal people want to be heroes of justice, but in extreme cases, things change.
It's like creating a villain character, becoming very fast for no reason, and it will only be a facial existence;
And showing a blackening process, the character has a human side.
To sum up, the atmosphere rhythm is in place, the character shaping is just right, the theme is not too old-fashioned, and these three points can be achieved, even if it is a large network, it is at least a passing level of work.
Instead of following the variety show that has long been flooded, it is better to try to create a breakthrough in the way of movies.
Once there is a breakthrough, it is the pioneer, not the heel.