This article comes from WeChat public account: Yiyuguancha (ID: yiyuguancha), article/Dewey.
"Creed" is in a muddle of domestic box office potential, and another global rescue work "Mulan" is facing a more severe word-of-mouth crisis.
On September 4, "Mulan" was launched on the Disney streaming platform Disney+. On September 5th, netizens unexpectedly discovered that Douban, which was nearly a week away from its premiere in China, had already been scored. What shocked the audience was that Douban scored a dazzling 5.9 points, and one day later. Falling to 4.9 points, currently 4.7 points, and continue to decline.
spent $30 to watch "Advance Screening" and "justice fans" who searched for high-definition pirated resources are intertwined to form an army of "Mulan" condemnation on Douban.
fans originally had great expectations for this Hollywood’s first Asian A-level commercial blockbuster, but at this time they turned into multiple times of disappointment and indignation, and incorporated it into the film reviews. In just one day, all the confidence of domestic movie fans was basically wiped out, and "Mulan" instantly became Disney's worst reputation in China.
"Mulan" Douban short comment
launched Disney+ streaming a week earlier than the domestic release, leading to the proliferation of high-definition piracy resources. With the release of standard ratings for "bad movies", there was only a 19-day screening period before the National Day file, which was just off today. The domestic issuance notice has seriously affected the pre-sale results. Under multiple factors, "Mulan" is expected to be only 500-600 million yuan left at the domestic box office.
In the past two years, "Mulan" has occupied too much market attention. With a total investment of US$200 million plus US$100 million in online advertising costs, a large number of domestic first-line celebrities will be used as the protagonists, and domestic audiences’ favorability towards Liu Yifei, "Mulan" is originally the "Disney Princess" most anticipated by Chinese audiences. However, the embarrassment now makes people regret and embarrass. Why does
have only 4.7 points for "Mulan"? Is it really the biggest bad movie in Disney movie history? Will "Mulan", who is about to gallop on the battlefield, still have a chance to make a turnaround? Is this "Disney Princess" still saved? All these problems cannot escape Disney's "adjusting to local conditions" and it is far from enough. The content creation of
did not "adjust to local conditions" to detonate a word-of-mouth crisis.
looked at the relevant reviews of "Mulan", and its word-of-mouth collapse is not difficult to understand.
Chinese audiences thought that with the rise of the movie market, Hollywood paid more attention to Chinese ticket warehouses. On this basis, the creation of Chinese stories would be respected by the corresponding cultural content, but the content presented in "Mulan" is still a real Westerner Interesting, and there are still a lot of stereotypes and prejudices about Chinese culture.
North America is still the world's No. 1 ticket store. As a Hollywood blockbuster, Western audiences should still be mainstream audiences. Regarding this, Chinese fans can clearly recognize the "Mulan" after such a "magical reform". Even if Hollywood films are created with the help of Chinese cultural stories and hope to harvest China, which is the world's second largest ticket warehouse, they will not be "adjusted to local conditions" because of the needs of Chinese audiences.
"Mulan" stills
Actually, this sense of gap runs through the expectations of Chinese movie fans for nearly four years.
In the creation of Hollywood films, Eastern culture and character images are in two states: one is better with mysterious and colorful exotic scenery, and the other is more interpreted as backward, ignorant, and authoritarian aliens. In film creation, Eastern males have "money squirrel-tail braids, eight-character mustaches" and females have "gray-faced face makeup", which has almost become standard. This negative design can satisfy the curiosity of Western audiences. The last Hollywood movie that impressed movie fans was Chow Yun-fat's "pirate look" in "Pirates of the Caribbean 3." In the long run,
has formed a stereotyped perception of the overall image of the East by Western audiences.
Even in 2020, "Mulan", as a thrilling oriental story for the vast Chinese community and enabling the cast of all Chinese actors, is reflected in the continuation of this impression in many of its subtle creative elements.
The earliest groove of "Mulan" dates back to July last year, when Liu Yifei's first stills were released. This piece is not aesthetically pleasing to ChineseThe makeup design became our first impression of "Mulan". Although
officially gave similar information on female makeup during the Northern Wei Dynasty, Zheng Peipei’s entire film of "gray face" makeup, Gong Li's "eye mask" makeup and a series of "thunderous" looks have been released successively, which has attracted domestic audiences. With tears in laughter, the constant ridicule of netizens also ran into the hot search on Weibo. After the first trailer of
"Mulan" stills
was exposed, the related historical details in the film were also found to be full of loopholes. Hua Mulan comes from a historical figure in the Northern Wei Dynasty, but in the movie she lives in the Fujian Tulou that only appeared in the Ming Dynasty; in the movie set, a couplet on the door says "May the world have lovers finally get married" and it comes from the Yuan tune "West Chamber" "It is a thousand years away from the Northern Wei Dynasty...These historical errors have also caused continuous controversy in the academic world.
At this time, domestic audiences are more ridiculous about these discordant factors, thinking that the above can be related to the re-creation of film art, and they believe in the high-level production capabilities of the world's top film producer Disney. After the release of the first trailer of "Mulan" in July 2019, Chinese fans quickly responded positively, and its broadcast volume was twice as much as the material of "Avengers 4" currently being screened.
By 2020, during the entire epidemic period, the movement of "Mulan" has always affected the nerves of Chinese movie fans, all the way from March 27 to September 4 six months later.
However, "Mulan" poured cold water on Chinese fans on the day when it announced the domestic finalization on September 11. The "heaping head" type of fixed-file poster was ridiculed by the entire network. The rough, crude, and insincere design style shocked domestic movie fans. This is also full of Hollywood's misunderstandings and prejudices about the Chinese film market.
At this time, movie fans are still willing to believe that this is an "Easter Egg Error" committed by Disney, and strongly look forward to the national release on September 11. The Beacon Professional Edition shows that "Mulan" wants to see 1.1 million people, which is more than the same volume of "Eight Hundred" and "Creed".
data source: lighthouse professional version
But the "last stubbornness" also collapsed after September 5.
was the first fan who spent $30 to "advance screening" and wailed. In addition to the above-mentioned cultural misunderstandings and other related prejudices, the overall production level has also fallen into a major crisis. Those who speak more severely criticize the shortcomings of the film's ideology, Sino-American cultural differences, scene setting, story plot, actors' acting skills, and action design. Those who speak less directly give extreme views: "all-round bad".
But after all, it was a small wave of viewers. However, Disney, which later claimed to have the most powerful "legal department" in the world, failed to prevent the leakage of high-definition piracy resources. The resources quickly spread to domestic audiences, and the domestic movie-going crowd was geometric The overall negative reviews have also spread virally.
Faced with the unsatisfactory overall creation, coupled with the deviation and misunderstanding of Chinese and Western cultures in the film, all the negative emotions and psychological gaps accumulated by the fans burst out. To make matters worse, the American mainstream media’s positive reputation for "Mulan" is even comparable to "Creed", which seems to be declaring that this version of "Mulan" is in line with the expectations of North American audiences.
"Creed" stills
all kinds of emotions superimposed, resulting in "Mulan" Douban score has "retaliatory score" situation.
For Disney, which has always attached importance to the integration of traditional cultural characteristics of multiple countries and upgrading of self-creation, the domestic reputation of "Mulan" will be a great irony. The fact that the content of the
film did not "adjust to local conditions" was the root cause of the outbreak of "Mulan" negative word-of-mouth, and the film fell into an irreversible word-of-mouth crisis before its premiere. Disney's publicity strategy in the Chinese market also did not "adjust to local conditions."
Disney’s conservative announcement in China has completely exposed
. Around 2015, Disney’s live-action animation film creation boom and the Chinese film market became the world’s second largest ticket warehouse in sync. Disney, which smelled the potential of China’s ticket warehouses early, will collect materials in 2016 "Mulan", based on Chinese cultural stories, was the first major live-action film project and was initially set for 2018.
When the live-action film "Beauty and the Beast" was released in China in 2017, Disney also invited Emma Watson and Dan Stevens to China for the first time to promote and help the film achieve a box office of 592 million yuan. Subsequently, Disney’s live-action works became more important to the Chinese marketShihe has box office confidence.
"Beauty and the Beast" stills
It should be noted that Disney's live-action animated films, or most of Disney's films, are announced in the Chinese market in almost the same way: the film releases official materials during the release period and invites domestic elites. Stars, idols, social talents, etc. interact with the elements of the film, and the head work will arrange a premiere of the main creator in China. This is almost all Disney's promotion in China.
Disney’s unique self-confidence is not difficult to understand. After all, in the Chinese market, Marvel movies, Disney animation, and Pixar animation have repeatedly swept over 1 billion yuan in super high box office.
However, it is precisely because of the conservative and single way of publicity that Disney lacks market localization in China. Therefore, many hidden dangers of Disney movies in China’s box office potential have arisen one after another. For example, high-reputation works have a bleak box office and head works. The long tail failed to sell well. The most intuitive example of
is the original animation "Toy Story 4" created by Pixar for five years in 2019. It scored 8.6 in China, but it failed miserably at the box office of the re-released movie "Spirited Away", with only 200 million in the box office; Although the head work "The Lion King" won 830 million yuan in box office, the film suffered serious shortcomings in sinking the market, resulting in the failure of Disney's live-action film to break through the 1 billion yuan mark.
"The Lion King" stills
This time, Disney's conservative announcement in the Chinese market has made "Mulan" a fatal blow. Perhaps it was Disney's overconfidence in the quality of the film, or the fact that pirated resources were caught off guard. While "Mulan" maintained its high scores in North America, it completely ignored the maintenance of word-of-mouth in the Chinese market. Douban's instant scores overwhelmed everything.
Traders who are familiar with the marketing routines of domestic movie works know that before the movie is released, the publicity and distribution party will basically have a word-of-mouth supervision department for the ratings of major social networking sites and ticketing platforms. Before the film is released, the publisher will pay close attention to the trend of word-of-mouth scores. Once the negative scores are found to be serious, they will deal with it in a timely manner, and where appropriate, adopt social media scoring strategies such as delaying Douban, and strive to promote the score. The word of mouth is released only after it has risen to a more ideal state.
Therefore, there is often a "strange" situation in China that Douban has not yet opened a movie on the first day of its release.
Disney has not "adapted to local conditions" in China. This is not the first time. It has also been frequently seen in past Disney movies, such as "Dumbo" and "Maleficent 2" in 2019. The outflow seriously affected the box office trend. The former box office was 149 million yuan, and the latter did not exceed 400 million yuan.
"Maleficent 2" stills
"Mulan" has become Disney's biggest "bad movie", so is it still saved? The box office performance and word-of-mouth potential of
in the first weekend will be an important factor in whether "Mulan" can be saved. A cineplex manager in Chongqing told Yiyu Watch (ID: yiyuguancha): "The piracy resources of "Mulan" are prevalent, and the reputation has collapsed. In fact, it is also bad news for theaters. Last week's "Creed" is no longer available. Moving, there are no other blockbuster films in September. But "Mulan" is a Disney princess movie after all. The current public opinion index of the film is quite high, so we will still put it at the top of the list on the first day, and then look at the current reputation. Evaluate whether it can recover and whether the box office potential is strong, and then make the next step." In terms of word-of-mouth, quick action "self-help" is essential. Next, waiting for Disney's word-of-mouth maintenance, it is not something that can be solved by finding a large V of film and television to post soft articles. After Douban's serious fall, other movie scoring platforms that have a certain right to speak, such as Zhihu, Weibo, Hupu, etc., as well as Taopin tickets and Maoyan, which are more oriented to general audiences and the sinking market, will be the need for Disney to respond quickly and A valuable position to focus on maintenance. The 4.7 points of
Douban is destined to make "Mulan" lose a lot of box office potential. Fans and ordinary audiences in first- and second-tier cities generally use Douban as a reference for watching movies, and their motivation to enter the cinema will be greatly weakened.
Therefore, the only thing that can make "Mulan" a turnaround is the sinking market. With the appeal of Liu Yifei, Gong Li, Jet Li and others, plus the popularity of its own IP, the sinking market may be "Mulan" "The antidote. But it is a pity that Disney has not done much so far in the marketing of sinking markets.
So, does Disney really not know that the movie needs word-of-mouth maintenance? The answer is definitely no, because in the North American market, the US$100 million publicity fee on the Internet may be flowing.
Back on March 10, when the premiere of "Mulan" was held in Los Angeles, North American media people gave higher scores and praised Liu Yifei, the "Disney Princess".
"Mulan" Los Angeles premiere
and after "Mulan" was released on streaming media, looking at the media ratings of major North American websites, a few hours before Douban 5.9 minutes, "Mulan" North American reputation was released, the film It is generally positively evaluated by North American media people. In the Rotten Tomatoes media rating area, it reaches 78%, with an MTC score of 68 (out of 100), which is comparable to the "Creed", which is the main "annual brain-burning high reputation" next door, and forms a cloud with the domestic Douban score The difference between mud.
North American audience ratings, IMDB 5.6 points, rotten tomatoes 55% freshness, MTC only 3.1 (out of 10). Throwing away the extreme domestic movie fans and scoring on the Internet, as well as the negative emotions of the Chinese audience studying and living in North America, can actually reveal the dissatisfaction of ordinary North American audiences with "Mulan". There are also many short video creators who complain about "Mulan" on Youtube. Unexpectedly, North American netizens thought that this was only for Chinese audiences, but they basically maintained a united front with domestic Douban netizens in terms of their strong skepticism.
Tubing UP’s main review of "Mulan"
"Mulan" is developing in both directions in North America. Disney's role in the North American market is indispensable for public relations. Compared to China’s "Mulan", it has encountered a comprehensive negative review and Disney faces. The brand crisis and normal word-of-mouth development in the mainstream North American market and Western countries can at least keep the cost of "Mulan" and the Disney brand well maintained.
Disney+ has 60 million members worldwide, and the price of "Mulan" is 30 US dollars in advance. Even if the final membership turnover is 10%, that is, 6 million members, it will make its 200 million US dollars investment and 100 million US dollars announced online. There is little pressure to pay back the funds. According to statistics from the data research company Sensor Tower, from September 4 to September 6, Disney+ downloads rose 68% compared to the previous weekend, and consumer spending on the platform also soared 193%.
From this perspective, "Mulan" has no concerns about "adjusting measures to local conditions" because its "place" may have always been North America. Therefore, the Chinese box office antidote considered for "Mulan", that is, the sinking of the market is also too much to worry about. "Mulan" is very likely to be published in China and will not do too much "struggle". Whether "Mulan" can be saved in China, perhaps it is not what Disney on the other side of the Pacific is trying hard.
After the battle of "Mulan", I hope Disney can deeply understand that it is not enough to rely on "foundation" and "unique self-confidence" in order to fully capture the Chinese market, whether it is in content creation or publicity strategy. Think about how to "adjust measures to local conditions" to the Chinese market, and Disney will be bored by Chinese audiences and give up.
