This year’s summer season has this feeling to a certain extent. I can understand the data results but I can’t figure out the logic behind it.
Text/Pang Hongbo
Summer file, there really is nothing to summarize.
The reason is that the results on the data are too simple. What positive people see is the comparison with the same period last year. This "happy event" was featured on "News Network" when it surpassed the box office of the same period last year. What negative people see is the comparison with before the epidemic. The box office is only at the same level in 2014, and the number of moviegoers is less than half compared to the three years from 2017 to 2019.
But the key to this summer’s release is not the expected data, but the logic behind it that may not be clear.
No. 1, the top three at the summer box office accounted for 62% of the entire box office. The head-turning effect is really too strong. Compared with the top three at the summer box office before the epidemic, which accounted for 40%, today’s 60% is neither reasonable nor scientific. Heads and non-heads have staged a tragic animal world in the "established market where the stock has also disappeared." The predicted box office of " Walking Alone on the Moon " has gone from 5 billion+ to less than 3 billion now, and the trend is very weak. Except for the top three, all the remaining films competed for less than 40% of the remaining box office, and most of the films lost more than they earned.
Second, short video users have an unprecedented sense of “participation” in the industry. People in the industry would not even have thought that " Tomorrow War " would cause such a big controversy, but users "spontaneously" helped the film fight against "capital". This sense of participation seems to have never been encountered before. So, can this matter be summed up by just "reducing wisdom"?
Thirdly, the box-office miracle of "" has indeed made people see that making movies with heart will eventually pay off, but is relying on "movie commentary" with a secondary structure really the way out for literary and artistic films? The data presented in
summer file cannot match the corresponding logic. Once the industrial logic is out of order, recovery will be much more difficult than imagined.
1
—What does it mean that the top three in account for more than 60% of the box office? -
shows that the entire industry will not get better in the short term.
In this year's summer season, the top three box office grosses are "Walking on the Moon", " Life Events " and " Jurassic World 3". The combined box office of the three films accounted for about 62% of the entire summer box office. This proportion is only lost to 2020, and theaters in 2020 just resumed work in July. In fact, many of the data for this year have no reference value at all.
The header effect is too prominent, which has never been seriously discussed in today's market. From 2017 to 2019, from a longer time scale, these are the most glorious three years for the Chinese film market. The summer box office of the past three years has reached a new height: 16 billion+, and has also contributed to super hits such as "Wolf Warrior 2" and " Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes into the World ", which are the champions of Chinese film history.
However, during the three most glorious years of the Chinese film market, the sum of the top three summer box office sales accounted for less than 50% of the total box office for the entire period. This year, the total box office for the period is completely different, but the top three box office combined actually exceeded 60%.
In a relatively mature period, super hot products can often drive the popularity of in the entire market, which means bringing incremental audiences back to the market. The market is getting bigger and there are more choices, which also means greater opportunities for small and medium-sized films. This is the contribution of headization to the industry.
However, this year, the top blockbusters are weak in their own box office trends, and small and medium-sized films cannot take advantage of the popularity dividends brought by blockbusters.
Judging from the top three in this summer's summer season, "Jurassic World 3" can be regarded as a "rescue" film. When the entire industry fell into a desperate trough, this film entered the market. But from the overall quality to the final box office response, it was lower than expected.It’s not an accident that “Walking on the Moon” won the championship. This is the standard this movie should have. However, in terms of box office volume, "Walking on the Moon" can only be said to be very "stable" and did not impact higher box office due to its own hit attributes. The predicted box office of this film has gone from 5 billion+ to less than 3 billion now. Judging from the trend, it is very weak. As a feature film, "Life Events" is the biggest surprise this summer to be able to get 1.7 billion in box office, and it may be the only surprise.
The high-cost movies "Mozart in Outer Space", "New God List: Yang Jian" and "Tomorrow's War" that are highly anticipated by the market this year are all losing money based on the current box office volume.
In this year’s movie market, fixing the film schedule has become the biggest problem. Because of the low popularity of the market and the lack of sufficient head-turning films to drive it, the risk of small and medium-cost films trying to "recover their money" in the market is extremely high. The summer film also told the industry through facts that even if there are leading films in the market, the risk of "recovering the money" is extremely high.
The reason is that the entire market is competing for "stock", which has become the "animal world" of the film market. However, it is difficult for small and medium-sized films to recover their costs, and the box office volume of the top hits is mediocre. So how can the entire industry recover quickly?
2
— Short video users want to teach capital to "schedule" the importance of post-screening publicity for movies —
, which should be raised to a new level.
This year, on the short video platform, it is a very interesting phenomenon that users spontaneously "work" for the film industry. Louis Koo came to the mainland to promote "Tomorrow's Day", but due to poor box office performance, fans supported Louis Koo and "cracked down" on box office stealing, and forced theaters to increase their film schedules to support "Tomorrow's Day".
Of course, there are many very absurd actions in this matter, but there is also some room for discussion. Emotional marketing now plays an increasingly important role in movie promotions, and it is also a very critical promotion move for whether the entire movie can break through. But the difference with "Tomorrow's War" is that users are not satisfied with this kind of "emotional feeding", but want to take personal actions to help the film's box office counterattack. For example, they "cracked down hard" on box-office stealing by competing films during the same period, and spontaneously went to theaters hoping to increase the number of movies.
In this, the user has entered several emotions. One is to enlarge the social character of the protagonist. Louis Koo's contribution to public welfare causes short video viewers who can't bear to see "Tomorrow War" lose money at the box office, so they hope to "generate electricity for love". The second is to fight against capital operations. Whether it is "cracking down hard" on competing products to steal box office or hoping that theaters will increase their film schedules, they all overly reflect the "fantasy mood" of "Tomorrow's War" being squeezed out by mainland capital. However, this kind of confrontational capital has inspired the spiritual resonance of short video users. A kind of spiritual support turned into action support, which was unexpected.
In this summer season, “airborne” has become a basic feature of the market. There are very few films that have a complete promotion and distribution cycle, which has also changed the original promotion and distribution rhythm of the industry to some extent. Coupled with the reduction of the overall movie marketing budget, small and medium-sized films are almost "naked", and the top-notch movies do not have a big "brand" in terms of marketing.
However, the role of marketing in commercial films can never be ignored. There is at least one thing about "Tomorrow's War" worthy of industry focus and discussion, and that is the post-release publicity. This kind of publicity is not just about "traffic-oriented" specials or short videos that hit the hot searches, but more attention should be paid to the conversion of effective publicity.
However, the marketing of the vast majority of summer films stays before the screening. However, because the pre-screening promotion cycle is severely compressed and even the film is directly "airborne", if there is still no new "incremental way" in post-screening promotion , then the movie naturally does not have the prerequisites to increase its popularity in terms of marketing.
3
— The miracle of "Into the Dust" is gratifying but also worrying —
Artistic films cannot rely on "movie commentary."
The box office trend of "Into the Dust" is already a miracle. The film only had a box office of 349,000 on its first day of release, with an attendance rate of 1.5%. Yesterday, "Into the Dust" broke into the top three at the box office in a single day, with an attendance rate of 7.7%, far exceeding other films in the same period. This attendance rate was three times that of "Walking on the Moon".
What’s even weirder is that this film has been launched on multiple video platforms on August 9. However, it once led the movie market on September 1st, and the box office forecast soared from a few million to over 100 million.
The reason why this film has such great stamina has a lot to do with its popularity on short video platforms. Some short movie commentary videos quickly became popular, and the movies quickly gained empathy from the audience, thus allowing the audience to return to the theater.
For this movie, the current market trend of this movie is the best reward for serious movie making. But the road to this movie's popularity should be left to be discussed.
First of all, the high quality of this film goes without saying. It was nominated for the Best Film at the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival Golden Bear Award, and its Douban score also reached 8.5 points. But this movie is an out-and-out author movie . It is very different from the commercial movies that most audiences are exposed to in theaters. It is expected that it will be loved and sought after by the literary youth, but If you say that ordinary audiences or Douyin youths go to the theater because they understand the movie, they may not be able to agree.
Therefore, the movie can become popular, to some extent, because the inner emotional temperament of the movie and the spiritual needs of the current audience have cleverly reached a "consensus". Therefore, the success of "Into the Dust" is a kind of "consumption" of the film's inherent emotions.
Secondly, the popularity of this movie is not necessarily related to marketing to some extent. The popularity of the movie is not due to marketing. and Bi Gan " The Last Night on Earth " "Last Kiss" marketing on Douyin are different. The popularity of this movie is due to the power of "tap water". Movies quickly resonate with the public through various short videos with background music and movie comments. However, if literary and artistic films that are inherently obscure and difficult to understand eventually become popular in the mass market because of re-deconstructed short videos, then is this a good or bad thing for literary and artistic films? What about bad?
At present, there is indeed a dedicated line for the distribution of literary and artistic films by the Art League in China, but domestically produced literary and artistic films are still willing to give it a try in the commercial film market. This is of course no problem and deserves encouragement, but the "miraculous" box office performance of "Into the Dust" may also have an impact on the promotion ecology of literary and artistic films.
Will it stimulate the next similar literary and artistic films, and in terms of marketing, they will produce a large number of "sensational short videos" to attract audiences. And when will these Douyin viewers, who switch their points of interest very quickly, quickly become tired and choose to give up?
Therefore, "Into the Dust" cannot be satisfied with the satisfaction that it will not be buried by the market if it is a movie made with care. What a box office miracle that is completely incomprehensible and worried about will bring to the industry is unknown. But as far as the current industry is concerned, I believe there will definitely be literary and artistic films that see the success of "Into the Dust" and are not willing to just give applause and let it become an exception. But once literary and artistic films are linked to "movie commentary," one or two artistic films may be able to gain public favor, but for movies, this may be a "downgrade."
