As of October 31, the box office of " alone on the moon " has reached 3.102 billion, becoming the box office king in the second half of 2022. What supports the film's high box office is its long standby screening cycle. The movie
has been on the screen for nearly 100 days since it was released on July 29. Behind the "Lone Walk on the Moon" box office "Lone Walk" is the sluggishness of the entire movie market.
The filmmaker's fancy self-help road
Since the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, the development of the Chinese film market has pressed the slowdown button.
After entering 2022, under the combined influence of multiple factors such as the cold winter of film and television, strict supervision, and frequent and multiple epidemics, the film market is facing an unprecedented crisis.
In order to survive the long winter, the filmmakers also opened a fancy self-help guide.
is first and foremost the overwhelming operation of withdrawing files.
In several important prime times this year, many movies have been withdrawn due to the visit of the epidemic, and they have chosen other times to be released to maximize the number of moviegoers.
During the Qingming Festival, "'s life events " starring Zhu Yilong , the campus youth film " a week's friend " starring Zhao Jinmai , Lin Yi, Zhou Dongyu , Song Xiaobao The anti-epidemic film " you are my spring " starring and the Hong Kong film " Detective War " starring Liu Qingyun and others have announced their withdrawal, and the traditional "Qingming file" has almost disappeared.
During the May 1st gear, movie theaters in many places were finally "dumb fire" in the face of repeated epidemics, and the wave of movie withdrawals was coming. "Pig Man Movie: Ocean Diary", "Brother, Hello", " Prosecutor ", "Hello, Beijing", " Keep You Safe ", " Meet You ", " Mini World Awakening " " I am Tyrannosaurus Rex ", a total of 8 films have been withdrawn.
According to the data of Lighthouse Professional Edition, the total box office (including pre-sale) of the 2022 May 1st gear (April 30-May 4) is 295 million yuan, which is extremely bleak compared with the 2 billion box office in previous years.
And corresponding to the temporary withdrawal, it is the limit of the film.
Some movies directly choose to set the file when the pre-release preheating is not sufficient, and the speed is so fast that both the audience and the industry feel caught off guard.
This phenomenon is particularly evident in this year's Mid-Autumn Festival. On the morning of September 2, 2022, the industry suddenly leaked the rumor that "Hello, Brother" will be airborne in the Mid-Autumn Festival. Later that afternoon, the official Weibo of "Hello, Brother" announced that it will be set for September 9. At this time, it is less than a week away from the release.
This kind of extreme finalization will undoubtedly reduce the cost of the film's publicity, but the final box office of the film can only be presented through the feedback of the audience after the content is broadcast.
After some movies are released, after sensing the strong willingness of the public to watch movies, they often extend the schedule to maximize the long-tail traffic at the movie box office.
This year's Spring Festival file " Changjin Lake Water Gate Bridge " is like this. "Shuimen Bridge of Changjin Lake" will be released on the first day of the new year this year and will be released on February 1, 2022. After the good box office, the film announced to extend the schedule to March 31, and when its screening came to an end, the film announced The schedule was extended again to June 30, and the release period lasted for nearly half a year, which was unprecedented.
and many science fiction giants imported from abroad have also adopted the practice of extending the schedule.
For example, "Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore's Mystery", which was released on April 8 this year, initially extended its scheduleUntil June 7th, and then extended the schedule to July 7th again, it also experienced two delays, showing the various efforts of filmmakers to save themselves for the box office.
In 2022, even the audience can feel a very obvious phenomenon. At present, the movies with good reputation in the movies released in the same period account for an increasing proportion of the box office. In a sense, the epidemic has accelerated the " 28 effect " in the box office of the movie market to the "19 effect".
In addition to making dynamic adjustments to film schedules, with the increasingly strict supervision, many film directors have begun to choose to make movies with main themes and major revolutionary themes. On the one hand, it is easier to apply for financial project support.
There are also some filmmakers who directly convert or expand the track, such as switching to the TV series track, to add another layer of protection to themselves. Even the well-known film director Wong Kar-wai has been crafting the TV series " Flowers " in recent years.
Losses, layoffs, weak growth
Filmmakers who are desperate to get out of the cinema
The epidemic has profoundly affected and changed people's lives, and it has also reshaped the ecology of the film industry. It has changed the rhythm of film production and publicity that people are accustomed to, and forced filmmakers to make reforms and innovations.
However, it is a pity that, from the results, whether it is temporary gear withdrawal or extreme gearing, whether it is changing the theme or expanding the track, although these self-rescue methods can bring certain improvements, they still cannot fundamentally Dispel the fog that pervades the film industry, so it can't save the EMO mood of the filmmakers from the bottom.
On October 29, 2022, the once brilliant film industry giant Huayi Group disclosed its third quarterly report. The company achieved a total operating income of 29.669 billion yuan in the first three quarters of 2022, a year-on-year decrease of 7.7%; the net profit attributable to the parent was 1.138 billion yuan, A year-on-year decrease of 54.5%, a significant loss.
Huayi Brothers said that the decline in revenue was mainly due to the change in the scope of consolidation during the reporting period compared with the same period of the previous year, and the decrease in film screening revenue and theater box office revenue.
At the same time, Huayi Brothers also issued the "Notice on the Adjustment of the Company's Publicity Business and Personnel", announcing that the company will adjust the publicity business model and streamline the publicity team. The company said that after experiencing slow growth and even negative growth for several consecutive fiscal years, the company is facing great operational challenges.
The former film giant has to lay off employees to survive in the cold winter today. Survival is even tougher for a large number of filmmakers at the waist and below.
At the root, the reason why the various self-help measures taken by filmmakers have had little effect is that the film itself is a film and television production content that is highly dependent on the revenue of the theater.
Compared with the film industry, the current TV drama industry has made great strides into the era of production and broadcasting dominated by video platforms, and the "small screen economy" is already a very mature charging model. The
movie is more suitable for viewing on the big screen because of its narrative technique and montage style. In the later distribution and sales, small screen revenue is only a weak link.
Therefore, while the TV drama industry can still develop and stably export popular models with the "home economy" under the epidemic, the film industry has always been stagnant.
Transformation, breakthrough, small screen competition and cooperation
new strategy to open up the online C-side charging model Under the special situation of normalization, filmmakers should also keep pace with the times and make expedient measures.To adjust the plan, try to shift from offline C-end paid sales to online C-end payment model.
For example, "Lonely Walking on the Moon", after a long online screening, logged on to the Aiyoukuteng long video platform in late October, and opened the member's paid viewing mode. This online C-end payment model also continued to contribute a part of the box office to the movie.
In the long run, when users' movie viewing habits have been profoundly transformed by the epidemic, the movie industry should also keep pace with the times and explore more diverse movie projection models.
On the one hand, movies should continue to deepen the theater market, but at the same time, in addition to passively adjusting schedules, they should formulate more flexible screening policies. Some small and medium-sized films with regional characteristics can adopt dynamic regional distribution models or theaters. Guarantee mode.
In the early days of the resumption of theaters in 2020, " Yaobai " once implemented a minimum theater guarantee for a small area of "special" theaters.
This model is based on the total box office of theaters in 2019. Large and medium-sized theaters with an annual box office of more than 2 million yuan will be screened in batches and will be divided into normal accounts, while small theaters with an annual box office of less than 2 million yuan will be prepaid. Guarantee fee In exchange for the guaranteed minimum account for the screening qualification, the guaranteed minimum amount is the actual box office of the theater in the previous year × 3.5%.
On the other hand, cinema movies can also update their concepts and judge more possibilities for cooperation with long and short video platforms.
is also just when the epidemic in 2020 happened, Xu Zheng sold the copyright of the movie " 囧 Mom " originally scheduled to be released on the first day of the new year to ByteDance for 630 million yuan, and officially released it on ByteDance. Beating's , Douyin, , Xigua Video, Toutiao, and Huanxi Premiere were broadcast for free on online platforms, which was a win-win move that could be loaded into a film business textbook.
Since then, many movies have continued to cooperate with long and short video platforms, and "returning to the Internet" has become an inescapable topic for movies.
At the same time, online movies are also growing. Different from the online movies that were synonymous with "shoddy production" when they were just starting, the current online movies are very mature in terms of story structure, scene rendering and character shaping in terms of suspense, horror and other genres, and the box office has also achieved gratifying results.
In 2022, the three works of " Yin-Yang Town Weird Talk ", "Orchid 3: Battle of the Dragon and Snake" and " Opening the Coffin ", which are temporarily ranked first, second and third runner-up in the annual account division, all reached more than 30 million at the box office. And this value is also particularly impressive for small and medium-cost cinema movies.
At present, the long-term video platform has also been exploring the mode of single-film payment and cloud theater, and audiences are more inclined to pay for high-quality word-of-mouth films.
At present, the supply of high-quality movies from "academic transfer" is insufficient. From the perspective of the theme layout of online movies, there is still a big gap.
If the original film production team is willing to join the online track, I believe that it will not only bring new paid members to the long video platform, but also increase the film box office and achieve a new win-win situation.
Compared with the mature industrialized and assembly-line film production model of Hollywood in the United States, the current domestic film industry production is still relatively traditional, and all aspects of production, research, investment, production, publicity and distribution need to grow. Although the "online + offline" two-wheel drive model of the film industry has not yet been formed, it will definitely be the future development trend. Struggling to start a new game under the crisis will become a common topic for filmmakers for a period of time in the future.
