Author/Wang Yali Deng Ying Chong
On the first day of its release, the box office of "Mulan" exceeded 56 million. Maoyan Professional predicts that its final box office will be 311 million yuan.
Regarding this result, many theater managers are not surprised. Douban 4.7's reputation, overwhelming resources of piracy... Even if there is a lack of competitive new films in the same period, the decline of "Mulan" cannot be avoided.
A year ago, this big production produced by Disney, starring Liu Yifei, Gong Li and other well-known actors was also highly expected by the audience. Many people probably remember the grand occasion on Weibo when the first trailer was released. Since the official announcement of "Mulan" in 2017, there have been 140 hot searches on Mulan.
open these hot search terms, can clearly perceive the emotional changes of the Chinese audience. From the expectations after the official announcement of the lineup, to the worries after learning of the plot adaptation, to the disappointment after successive withdrawals. Until September 4, "Mulan" was launched on the Disney streaming media Disney+, and the bad reviews quickly fermented, and the public mood finally turned to anger.
can even say that from Chinese culture to gender to geography, Disney, which has always pursued political correctness, finally filmed "Mulan" which everyone felt was "not correct enough".
On the other hand, affected by the epidemic and the Disney+ strategy, "Mulan" hastily adopted the online distribution strategy. Through the verification of the number of Douban scores before the release, the Entertainment Capital Theory concluded that it probably lost 100 million yuan due to piracy in the Mainland. box office. This kind of uncontrollable online public opinion has made the reputation of not wealthy even worse.
A good deck of cards played so badly, what did "Mulan" do wrong? With the loss of word of mouth, can Disney make money this time?
Douban 4.7, "Mulan" who wants to be politically correct but still "incorrect"
"Mulan"'s rout began on September 4.
On the afternoon of September 4th, "Mulan" was launched on Disney+. That night, bad reviews have flowed out. On September 5, "Mulan" Douban opened a score of 5.9, and in the following days it fell all the way to 4.7 today.
From actor performances to action scenes, from action scenes to Chinese culture, netizens criticized "Mulan" in all directions. "Mulan" is probably the only live-action film in film history that is based on traditional Chinese stories, starred by Chinese and widely disseminated worldwide, this is the root of its attention in China.
is also because Chinese audiences have particularly high expectations of "Mulan", and because of their familiarity with Chinese culture and harsh aesthetics, the difference between "Mulan"'s Douban score and IMDB score is 0.8, and some foreign audiences feel that "Mulan" is playing The play is wonderful, but there are almost all bad reviews in China.
For Chinese audiences who are used to watching costume dramas, not only is the poster of "Mulan" at the level of a pirated DVD cover 20 years ago, the action design is also backward as if it were a costume drama 20 years ago. The production cost of "Mulan" on the Internet is as high as 200 million U.S. dollars, but based on the current results, many netizens have said that "it seems that there is no cost of 200 million yuan." What makes
most difficult for Chinese audiences to accept is the Chinese culture imagined by foreigners. The story of Hua Mulan is in the Northern Wei Dynasty, but in the movie Hua Mulan lived in a Tulou in Fujian that appeared in the Song and Yuan dynasties. Although the "Mulan Ci" says that "the mirror decals are yellow", the makeup of Mulan is really not good enough. Even more ridiculous is that in the movie, the reason for Hua Mulan's high martial arts is explained as "qi".
In order to pursue political correctness, Disney's adaptation of traditional stories has also caused many controversies. Affected by the MeToo movement, as early as in the script creation stage, "Mulan" split Li Xiang in the original animation into two and became Hua Mulan's mentor, General TangWith Chen Honghui, a soldier in the same team.
"Mulan" director Niki Caro also stated that there was also a kissing scene between Mulan and Chen Honghui in the early version, but Disney China executives believed that "this is not suitable for the Chinese" and deleted this clip. . In order to attract Chinese audiences, Sinochem used the phrase "Two rabbits walk beside the ground, An Neng distinguishes me as a male and female" in "Mulan Ci".
According to the Wall Street Journal, in order to avoid controversy and ensure that the film can be released in China, the "Mulan" creation team consulted with Chinese consultants and asked relevant Chinese authorities to review the script. According to people familiar with the matter, the opinions given by the Chinese film authorities include not focusing on a particular dynasty.
may be precisely because it wants to please all the audience and meet the review requirements. In this movie where "Fujian Tulou" and "Manqing Palace" coexist, Hua Mulan's personality looks a bit fragmented. On the one hand, she is not afraid of others’ eyes, and has practiced martial arts since she was a child. After joining the army, she did not want to deceive others to voluntarily admit that she is a woman; on the other hand, she followed the traditional concept of "loyalty and filial piety" and vowed to defend the emperor to the death to bring her family Glory, imperial power and family seem to be far more important than self-realization.
"Leftists feel that there is not enough feminism, foreign slaves think it is Greater China glue, the emperor thinks it is cultural misappropriation, pink thinks it is milky, Hong Kong and Taiwan think Liu Yifei supports J." Some viewers explained the embarrassing situation of "Mulan". The conflict between Eastern and Western cultures is just a superficial appearance. Perhaps the vagueness and sway of values is the reason why Hua Mulan is unpleasant.
, which has always pursued political correctness, finally filmed "Mulan" which everyone felt was "not correct enough".
released high-definition sources on the first day of its launch, and piracy may cause hundreds of millions of losses.
As of September 10, more than 70,000 people have scored "Mulan" on Douban. What is the box office of Disney blockbusters with similar scores after being screened in the mainland in the past? The entertainment capitalist made a rough statistics and got the following table:
. It can be seen that, for a movie with a high IP reputation, such as "The Lion King", more than 60,000 people watched and rated it within three days of its release. Smaller ones such as "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" have scored more than 70,000 people so far.
and "Mulan" as of July 10 (the day before the release) has exceeded 70,000 points. Did these people watch it on Disney+ for $29.99? Don’t say that US$29.99 is equivalent to RMB 205. The fare is high. On September 4, the day "Mulan" went live, HD resources had already flowed out. Among these people, those who really spent money and went over the wall to watch on Disney+ probably only accounted for a very small portion.
Based on previous data from Disney’s live-action movies, "Mulan" scored by 73,000 people can at least correspond to a box office of 100 million yuan. In other words, "Mulan", which was launched on Disney+ in advance, may lose 100 million yuan in the mainland box office due to piracy. What’s worse is that the translation quality of Chinese subtitles in the pirated resources of "Mulan" is poor. This is why confusing lines such as "His Majesty the Emperor" "Four ounces can move a thousand pounds (four or two pounds)" and so on, make " The reputation of "Mulan" as "not rich" has been worsened. The saying "Don't spread pirated resources and waste viewers' time" even appeared on the Internet.
It is conceivable that if it were not for rampant piracy, the poor reputation of "Mulan" would not have grown so quickly. When the quality of the movie itself is excellent, even if there is a pirated version, the audience will resist watching it for reasons of respecting the movie. But when the reputation of the movie itself collapsed, "watching piracy" has become something that can be rationalized.
returns to the eve of "Mulan". Doesn't Disney know that launching streaming media in advance will cause piracy to fly in the sky? This visual effects blockbuster originally created for theaters has a long life. Due to the epidemic, "Mulan"With repeated withdrawals, the publicity cycle has been greatly lengthened, and the cost has increased day by day. Because the North American epidemic could not get better in a short time, in early August this year, Disney finally decided to abandon the North American theater line and release it on Disney+.
may have given Disney confidence in the previous streaming movies. As early as July 4 this year, Disney+ launched the movie version of the musical "Hamilton", which brought more than 500,000 downloads to Disney+ APP. The war film "The Greyhound", released on Apple TV+ on July 10, set the best premiere week performance ever on Apple TV+. The number of users of
Disney+ has also grown rapidly. As of August this year, the number of Disney+ subscribers has reached 60.5 million. This figure, Disney originally expected to reach 2024.
For Disney, the only unexpected factor may be word of mouth. The early violent marketing offensive has raised the expectations of Chinese people for "Mulan", and the bad reviews that quickly fermented through the wind of piracy will also cast a shadow on the mainland box office of "Mulan". This time, has the Chinese market saved "Mulan"?
's first day's box office was only more than 50 million, and the dilemma of Disney's live-action film adaptation
From the first day box office of "Mulan" of more than 50 million, domestic audiences do not seem to buy it, and the Maoyan Pro version also has an estimated box office for the film. Only 311 million yuan.
still has theater managers who have not given up. The general manager of a cinema in Suzhou told Xiaoyu that in his theater, although the pre-sale box office of "Mulan" was only more than 10,000, he still gave the film a 50% first-day filming rate, and all the films were released. It's the atrium and lobby, but tomorrow he will lower the filming rate to 45%.
Jinan Paragon Cinema’s general manager Dong Wenxin told Blowfish Jun that she also gave the theater’s largest hall and central hall to "Mulan" today, and set the theater’s first-day filming rate to 41%, but she is concerned about the film’s box office performance tomorrow I'm not too optimistic, so I cut the row of films to 30%.
Many theater managers in Nanjing, Xiamen, Beijing, Shenzhen and other places also told Xiaoyu that even if they all give "Mulan" a filming rate of more than 40% today, they will still be significantly reduced tomorrow. The reason for
is that the cliff-like reputation of "Mulan" has made them lose confidence in the film's box office. However, their box office estimates for the film are generally higher than the Maoyan professional version, which is between 400 million and 500 million. "The main reason is that there is no film, and I can play it off and on for a week next week." Dong Wenxin sighed.
Judging from today’s movie-watching situation, most of the audience who went into the theater and chose to watch "Mulan" are young couples. Their strong social needs bring a ray of life to "Mulan" which lacks competitors. A friend of Xiaoyu made it clear that she would go to the cinema to accompany her friends to watch "Mulan", "My friend is Liu Yifei's fan."
Currently "Mulan" has been released in some Southeast Asian and Eastern European countries, with a total of 5.9 million US dollars in box office. Among them, Taiwan and Thailand performed the best, with a box office of only more than US$1 million a week.
According to the 2012 "Sino-American Film Agreement", Hollywood share accounts for blockbuster films released in Chinese theaters only accounted for 25%. Even if "Mulan" can win 500 million yuan in the box office in China, Disney will eventually get only 125 million yuan, or more than 18 million US dollars.
On Disney's own Disney+, the sensor tower data shows that after "Mulan" went live on Friday, the downloads of Disney+ platform on Apple and Google increased by 68%, reaching 890,000 times, and users spent on the app. This is an increase of 193% over the previous week, reaching US$12 million.
How much of the $12 million is contributed by "Mulan"? According to "Bloomberg", on September 9, Disney’s Chief Financial Officer ChrisTine McCarthy said on the Citigroup conference call that the company is satisfied with the debut of "Mulan" on its streaming service, "the four-day long weekend is just the beginning." However, she declined to disclose any sales figures and said that she would further discuss the performance of "Mulan" at the next quarterly earnings meeting in early November.
In terms of streaming media, previously, since Universal Pictures’ "Tangling 2" went live in April this year, its three-week on-demand revenue exceeded US$100 million, of which more than eight components were given to Universal Pictures. However, "Tangling 2" is priced at only $19.99 for a single film, and is available on multiple streaming platforms. It's hard to say how much "Mulan" can achieve in the final streaming media revenue.
However, as we all know, in the income structure of a Hollywood movie, the derivative income can reach 70%. Disney has also developed as many as 71 derivative products including costumes, dolls, and Lego for "Mulan". Under the supplement of product income, Disney may have the possibility of making a profit in this movie.
This is obviously not enough for Disney, which has been hit hard by the epidemic this year. In the first three quarters of this year, Disney had a net loss of US$2.154 billion, while its net profit for the same period in 2019 reached US$10.082 billion. Although the number of users of Disney+ has increased gratifyingly, exceeding 60.5 million, for the entire group, streaming media is still in the stage of burning money and is far from bringing positive benefits. At this time, the income from the film business is crucial. After all, last year, the 12 films produced by Disney generated 11.1 billion US dollars in global box office revenue, which contributed a lot of revenue to the company.
Among the films produced by Disney this year, "The Magic of 1/2" only received about 135 million US dollars in box office revenue, and the box office of "Call of the Wild" was only 10.76 million US dollars. In the first three quarters, Disney produced films have suffered box office losses. At present, "Mulan" is declining in word-of-mouth, and the box office Waterloo may also be very likely.
In recent years, Disney has been relying heavily on big IP. Among the 12 films produced by Disney last year, there were as many as 7 films including "Avengers 4: Endgame", " Frozen 2", "Star Wars 9: The Rise of Skywalker" and "Toy Story 4" It is a series of films under IP.
In order to maximize the use of these IPs, Disney also selected its own early animation films for live-action adaptations. "Dumbo" and "Aladdin" are the products of this creative method. Next, Disney will also shoot live-action versions of classic animations such as The Little Mermaid and Snow White. However, judging from the box office performance of many live-action animated films, this model has not really worked.
Now, Disney's "Mulan" created by this method has fallen into an embarrassing situation that China and the West are not pleased with. Regardless of the final box office performance of "Mulan", Disney should reflect on how to take the multiple paths of online strategy and adaptation of live-action animated films?
