"Twinkle Twinkle Shining Star" snowflakes triggered pre-sales, "The annual meeting cannot be stopped!" " expresses the voice of office workers, "Goldfinger" and "Stealth" reproduce the flavor of Hong Kong movies, while "If You Are the One 3" is an old New Year's Eve IP... In the New Year's Eve movie season that just passed, a series of new movies were released at the end of the year. Helping the movie box office market to reach 54.915 billion yuan in 2023, of which domestic films have a box office of 46.005 billion yuan, accounting for an absolute advantage of 83.77%, and the number of moviegoers in urban theaters reached 1.299 billion.
Last year, the movie market recovered very strongly: the Spring Festival box office ranked second in history, and the summer box office directly broke the box office record. Previously, industry insiders had generally expected and predicted that the box office for last year would reach 55 billion yuan, the same as 2017. However, the box office for the year ended up being "a little worse" than expected.
86 movies gathered in the year-end "Lunar New Year", among which "Twinkle Twinkle Star" also beat "Detective Chinatown 3" to set multiple pre-sale box office records, hitting the 55 billion yuan box office mark. Is there any "final kick"? What happened? What changes does it reflect in todayâs film market?
lacks box office "big hits"
This year's 38-day Lunar New Year period has a total of 86 movies released together, and the number has set a record in the past five years. However, in the eyes of many film practitioners, this year's Lunar New Year film "lacks hits".
"This year's Lunar New Year movies are quite rich in variety, but the performance throughout the period is a bit lackluster. There is no movie with a box office of more than 1 billion." Mr. Shen, the manager of a theater, said that although there are many movies in this year's Lunar New Year movie with stable quality and good reputation , movies with themes that are popular with contemporary audiences, such as "The Three Brigades" directed by Dai Mo and starring Zhang Yi, etc. Although they have become the box office champion of the Lunar New Year, the box office as of the evening of January 2 was only 584 million yuan.
The movie and drama "Three Brigades" are broadcast simultaneously, and its reputation is close to
"The popular movies during the period all have selling points, but they fail to cover a wider audience of moviegoers." Mr. Chen, the person in charge of another cinema, analyzed that "Three Brigades" Although the theme of "The Brigade" looks similar to this summer's hit "The Lost Girl" and "All or Nothing", its Douban page is also marked as "Drama" and "Crime", "But the movie does not have a strong sense of suspense or excitement. The plot is even depressing, focusing more on the portrayal of the fate of the characters. In addition, the online drama with the same title of equally good quality is broadcast at almost the same time, which has a certain impact on the box office." In his opinion, such a film with a "literary core" Winning the Lunar New Year movie championship means "our audience has grown significantly."
's "Twinkle Twinkle Star", which has an amazing pre-sale box office, is focused on young couples and viewers of the online drama of the same name, and it is difficult to attract more viewers to watch. Although the imported blockbuster "Aquaman 2" is the final film of Warner Bros. Entertainment's "DC Universe" in the United States, the film has a mediocre reputation. In addition, global audiences have been tired of superhero movies in recent years, and the rare underwater combat special effects have not been Can attract more viewers to watch. Some industry insiders admit that compared with the global popularity of "Marvel Universe", the "DC Universe" productions have always been mixed, failing to fix and expand the audience group. "Today's box office of 'Marvel Universe' All have failed frequently, and it is even more difficult for 'DC Universe' to attract audiences."
"schedule" still leads the film market. Data from Beacon Professional Edition shows that the contribution of the 2023 schedule still accounts for 68% of the annual movie box office. This year, there are several top-grossing movies in several popular periods: "Man Jiang Hong" and "The Wandering Earth 2" compete against each other in the Spring Festival period, both of which have a box office of over 4 billion yuan; the summer period is led by "The Lost Girl" , "All or Nothing" caught up from behind, with both box office exceeding 3.5 billion yuan. In the same period, there were two "second-tier" works, "Fengshen Part 1" and "The Octagon", with box office exceeding 2 billion yuan. In comparison, the Lunar New Year box office champion "The Three Troops" only ranked 28th on the annual box office list.
The long-tail effect of word-of-mouth is more obvious.
It is positively correlated with the Lunar New Year box office performance. "The Three Brigades" received a score of 7.8 on Douban, making it one of the movies with the best reputation in the same period. The Lunar New Year box office runner-up "Walking into the Angry Sea" received 7.5 points on Douban, and both ranked among the top ten highest-rated Chinese films on Douban last year.
Compared with "Twinkle Twinkle Star", the long tail effect of these two movies at the box office is very obvious. The box office of "Walking Through the Angry Sea" reached 103 million yuan on its first day, and it has continued to lead the way since then. By December 15 last year, the day "The Three Troops" was released, "Walking Through the Angry Sea" was far behind the box office of No. 1 with a box office of 539 million yuan. 210 million yuan for "Goodbye, Li Cola". On the first day of its release, the box office of "The Three Brigades" was only 30.53 million yuan. It was only slightly better than "If You Are the One 3" on the first day of the Lunar New Year movie. However, it continued to increase the box office due to word-of-mouth.
This situation does not only appear during the Lunar New Year period. Among this year's summer movies, the box office of "Fengshen Part 1" was only 49.13 million yuan, far lower than the 87.495 million yuan of "Super Family". However, the film's Douban score rose slightly from 7.7 to 7.8, attracting a large number of fans. The audience spontaneously promoted the film, and the box office dropped several times, eventually exceeding 2.6 billion yuan.
The box office success of "Fengshen Part 1" relies on word of mouth
"According to past international practices, the box office of a movie on the first weekend or even on the first day almost determines the market value of a movie. But last year, more and more domestic movies broke through Such a situation has occurred." According to industry insiders, the "want to see" data on the ticket purchase platform is often directly proportional to the box office. Data from Beacon shows that last year the total base of "want to see" on the platform reached the highest level in the past four years, while the "want to see" data on the ticket purchasing platform was the highest in the past four years. The time when audiences actually go to the cinema is more likely to be on the weekends or even the following week of the first week of movie release. "Hot movies with strong fan attributes and popular schedules can still attract viewers who want to see it on the first day, but for movies with a relatively broad audience, the conversion rate of wanting to see it is concentrated on the next day." The same data report from
also It shows that the movie box office cycle is beginning to tilt backwards, and audiences are beginning to wait and see the reputation of the movie before buying tickets. Lighthouse data shows that the box office contribution of movies released on regular Fridays last year has rebounded in the first and second weeks compared with 2020-2022, but it still maintains the trend of "movie viewing tilted backward" since 2019. "Nowadays, audiences have gradually formed the habit of taking the initiative to understand the reputation of a movie after it is released, instead of 'watching the movie immediately'. The trend of watching movies later may continue."
According to industry insiders, such changes indicate that today's audiences The requirements for watching movies are increasing. "Nowadays, Chinese audiences are accustomed to audio-visual special effects and grand scenes. They need new content. Characters that are close to the audience's lives and can empathize with them may be more touching."
Innovation, innovation in all aspects
"My first time Seeing a movie that the whole theater was applauding, the audience laughed almost from the beginning to the end. There are so many details in it that can resonate with office workers." Audience Xiaoyu watched "The Annual Party Can't Stop!" " road show, she remembered that director Xu Zheng, who came to watch the movie, stood up and said, "This movie is going to be a big hit, it's going to be a big hit!" Then she discovered that the film had a high score of 8 on Douban, which later rose to 8.1. point.
However, compared to "Twinkle Twinkle Star", which has a Douban score of only 6.3, it has now accumulated more than 600 million yuan in box office. "The Annual Party Can't Stop!" was released one day earlier than it. " did not trigger a box office increase during the Lunar New Year period.
"The movie's reputation came out late, and its impact on the box office is more of a 'long tail' effect." Mr. Shen revealed, "The annual meeting cannot be stopped!" " was released on December 29 last year, targeting the New Year's Day market. It is unrealistic for theaters to quickly adjust their film schedules within a day or two after the word-of-mouth comes out, so the box office contribution to last year's box office was limited, "but the subsequent box office should be very good." Data from
1 on January 2 showed that "The Annual Meeting Can't Stop!" "Won the single-day box office championship of the day, with revenue exceeding 27 million yuan, and the proportion of films scheduled remained at 21.5%; the box office of "Twinkle Twinkle Star" that day was only about 10.66 million yuan, and the proportion of films scheduled fell from 30.4% on the first day of release to 20.3%.
In the eyes of many people in the industry, "Twinkle Twinkle Star" can be called a box office "wonder" that turned out to be a box office hit. "Relying on the 'snow resort' to create a sense of ceremony is an important factor in the success of this movie." Mr. Chen said that since it was reported that the film had a "snow resort", the pre-sale box office has been overwhelming, and it has not yet been released. It once occupied the top three box office spots for Lunar New Year movies. On the day of the movie's release on December 30 last year, 1,314 movie theaters across the country held "Snow Park" events at 13:14, and most of the shows were sold out as soon as they were launched.The reporter interviewed many theaters and learned that in some theaters in Shanghai, "snow" fell for three consecutive days during the New Year's Day holiday, and "the theaters were full."
Xingyi Cinema specializes in "snow" during the New Year's Day holiday, and 5 of the 8 theaters have opened snow resorts. The theater rented two large snowmaking machines with a power of 4,000 watts to "make snow" in each hall in turn. "There is a detail in the movie. When the hero and heroine are talking, the line 'Zhang Wansen, it's snowing' is heard, and the snow machine starts to 'snow'." Mr. Wang, manager of Xingyi Cinema, introduced that the theater is a "snowing place" Full preparations were made in advance, and snowmaking machines were fixed on both sides of the screen. The snowflakes they sprayed went straight to the ceiling and then fell naturally, giving the effect of flying snow all over the sky. There would be no "local avalanche" that was spread on the Internet and concentrated on the heads of a few viewers. scene. The interval between "Snow Field" shows has been increased to thirty minutes to one hour, the theater has increased the frequency of cleaning, and four housekeepers have cleaned the theater together. In addition to snow in the theater, the theater also linked up with the mall where it was located on the first day of the release, and made "paper snow" fall in the mall atrium for 10 minutes to attract a lot of customers.
The snow of "Twinkle Twinkle Star" has fallen in the mall (Photo courtesy of Xingyi Cinema)
In Mr. Wang's view, the high attendance rate of "Twinkle Twinkle Star" has a certain connection with the emphasis on ritual among young audiences. . A theater in the city center also launched a snow park. The theater purchased a snow machine and a bubble machine as auxiliary props. "It's fun and romantic, and people confessed their love in several shows." Cinema manager Ms. Zhang said that if the audience needs to confess their love, they can explain it to the staff in advance before entering the venue, and someone will help arrange it.
Although "Twinkle Twinkle Star" was hotly searched for "ugly" on the day it was released, it did not affect the box office the next day at all, making the film the box office champion on New Year's Day. "It's not unusual for movies to be ugly, and it's not unusual for them to be ugly. What's strange is that theaters can add value to movie watching." In the view of some industry insiders, watching movies for young audiences nowadays is not just about "watching", but also a sense of ritual that links the upper and lower parts of the screen. , "In the future, both film shooting and theater services must adapt to this change. This may be a new growth point for the industry."
What makes some senior practitioners sigh is that "Party A", which is recognized as single-handedly opening up China's "Lunar New Year stalls" "If You Are the One 3", produced by the same creator as "Party B", had a cumulative box office of just over 58 million as of January 2. The single-day box office was not even as good as "The Third Brigade" which had been in theaters for 19 days. "Stealth" and "Goldfinger", which assembled the top lineups of Hong Kong movies, have not reproduced the glory of "Infernal Affairs". Some viewers even joked, "Why are Andy Lau and Tony Leung still facing each other 22 years later?" "Old stories, old scenes, and old jokes are still there. It is difficult to gain recognition in today's film market. The 2023 film market has given new revelations for the future."
