text / Tehran
According to the past release rhythm, after the conclusion of the 2023 China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival, that is, around November last year, most of the 2024 Spring Festival film lineup should have been finalized.
But the reality is that it is less than a month before the Spring Festival that this year’s Spring Festival stalls have slowly entered the intensive stage of finalization.
"Hot and Spicy", "Article 20", "Flying Life 2" and "Let's Shake the Sun Together" were successively officially announced to be released during the Spring Festival, and they invariably made their presence felt on major social platforms, showing great enthusiasm. I want to use to the maximum extent to amplify emotions and guide movie viewing in the publicity and distribution cycle that is greatly compressed due to extreme release.
#久久无100kg# #佳灵reallyveryhungryandtired this year# #赵丽颖acts as a deaf-mute# #飞速生活2深圳市二级综合# #平昱庄李gengxiweddinggownkiss# …
The filmmakers passionately staged the topical confrontation between you and me, but the audience has their own judgment.
Not enough
Under the hot search topic on Weibo #6 films have been scheduled for the Spring Festival, jubilant expectations and uninterested wait-and-see coexist. Some viewers even bluntly said, "This year's Spring Festival is as ugly and boring as the Spring Festival Gala." ".
Who is right?
takes an overview of the six films currently locked for the Spring Festival. All of them have their own gimmicks and topics. At the same time, the main creative lineup is also well-established, bringing together Jia Ling, Han Han, Shen Teng, Zhang Yimou, Ning Hao, Andy Lau, Lei Jiayin, Han Yan wait.
Specifically, "Article 20" is Zhang Yimou's third Spring Festival release. Among them, "Man Jiang Hong" defeated "The Wandering Earth 2" in the 2023 Spring Festival release and won the schedule championship with a box office of over 2.6 billion; Jia Ling's "Hot" "Hot" has a strong halo endorsement from "Hello, Li Huanying". On this basis, Jia Ling's efforts to lose 100 pounds for the character added a layer of quality filter to the film.
Han Han's "Flying Life 2" and Han Yan's "Let's Shake the Sun Together" both have the appeal of the series IP and the support of the audience base; "Mr. Red Carpet" has the eye-catching gimmick of Ning Hao and Andy Lau's first on-screen collaboration , it has also received good response after being screened at the Toronto Film Festival, Pingyao Film Festival and Busan Film Festival.
The "nail house" "Bear Infestation: Reverse Time and Space" released during the Spring Festival is also quite competitive. As the 10th theatrical film in the "Bear Out" series and the 10th anniversary of "Bear Out", the number of people who want to watch the film has exceeded 400,000, ranking first among the six Spring Festival movies.
But on the other side of the coin, it is still unclear whether the highly popular "Nezha 2: Devil Boy Havoc in the Sea" and "Fengshen 2", as well as the long-rumored "Legend", "Mermaid 2" and "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" will be included. If there is no follow-up action on these films, this year’s Spring Festival will be the year with the smallest number of films.
What’s even more serious is that the current six films are basically dramas or comedies focusing on small characters. The variety of film types in the schedule is not high. Among them, the lack of large-scale movies has become the focus of criticism from many viewers.
This type of involution not only easily causes viewers to experience aesthetic fatigue, but also intensifies the competition for scheduled films. More importantly, the Spring Festival has always been a period when the "February 8th Effect" is extremely significant. At the same time, audiences in the Chinese film market are becoming more and more knowledgeable and have basically developed a keen judgment on the quality of movies. Ticket prices also increase the caution of audiences in movie-watching decisions.
In this context, the differentiated advantages of the six films are not outstanding overall. Once the word-of-mouth performance of a film is not as good as expected after its release, it is likely to become cannon fodder more quickly.
Heavy pressure
Obviously, this Spring Festival festival has not established a particularly strong trust relationship with the audience, which will undoubtedly add greater pressure to the film and television companies entering the industry.
On the one hand, the Spring Festival schedule is a grand and rigorous "capacity parade". The final ranking of participating film and television companies during the schedule will not only have an important impact on their own annual performance, but also reflect the company's audience influence. changes in power and industry voice.
On the other hand, according to Maoyan Professional Edition information, a total of 55 companies (without duplication removal) are involved in the production and distribution of the current six Spring Festival movies, and the total amount has dropped by more than 30% compared with 2023.
Among them, "Let's Shake the Sun Together" is jointly produced and distributed by only three companies: Lianrui Pictures, China Film, and Hengdian Pictures. Huanxi Media and Ning Hao's Bad Monkey Pictures jointly control "Mr. Red Carpet", and Enlight Media is even more affordable "Eating Alone", produced and distributed "Article 20" alone.
This may be a reflection of the confidence of each company in their own projects, but it needs to be emphasized that film investment is a very risky activity, and having multiple companies invest in a film at the same time is a way to spread risks within the film industry. One of the most effective means.
Before "Let's Shake the Sun Together", the second part of "Life Trilogy" directed by Han Yan, "Send You a Little Red Flower", which was released in 2020, was criticized by many for being too blunt and frequently "feeding chicken soup". The audience called it "half a good show", which was one of the biggest obstacles that prevented it from hitting the 2 billion mark in the end.
Judging from the material information released so far in the film, the overall story setting and emotional background of "Let's Shake the Sun Together" are basically a continuation of "Send You a Little Red Flower". Can Director Han Yan break through himself this time? , to face up to more issues that are truly worthy of further investigation, a question mark needs to be placed.
"Mr. Red Carpet" and "Article 20" also have their own challenges.
Looking at the domestic film market, films that focus on the entertainment industry like "Mr. Red Carpet" have failed to achieve very impressive box office results; Li Meng, the signed screenwriter of "Article 20", has a Douban score of past works hovering around passing line edge.
Not only that, before "Article 20", "Sturdy as a Rock", also directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Lei Jiayin, won the "No. 1" slot in the 2023 National Day schedule, but the cumulative box office during the schedule was less than 900 million, Douban rating It has now dropped to 6.1 points.
On the other side, Xinli Media, which is the main producer of "Hot and Spicy", is also struggling to keep its feet on the ground.
Cross-cultural adaptation is not an easy task. Japanese film adaptations that have appeared in domestic theaters in recent years, such as "Love with a Kiss", "The Crowd", "Corridor Pavilion" and "Hachiko", are often adapted to the local environment. It ended with "big thunder but little rain".
The Japanese film "One Hundred Dollar Love" adapted from "Hot and Spicy" has a Douban score of 8.4. The emotional expression of the entire story inherits the bland and restrained tone of Japanese film and television. The plot conflicts are basically laid out in a very realistic way. In the genre introduction of "Hot and Spicy", comedy comes first. How does
balance the relationship between comedy and cruel reality? This is an unavoidable issue in "Hot and Spicy". On this basis, "One Hundred Dollars of Love" is not a work known for its story, but the delicate and expressive performance of the heroine Sakura Ando is indispensable for its ability to cultivate strong empathy. Whether
Jia Ling can match it is difficult to see for sure from the materials released so far.
Qi Dufa
There is a demand for watching movies during the Spring Festival, but this demand is also extremely elastic.
Therefore, how to stand out among many competitors, lock in existing users in advance and ignite the enthusiasm for watching movies to the greatest extent, marketing and promotion of before the release of has become a must-answer question.
At present, the six movies released during the Spring Festival all use Douyin and Weibo as important promotion positions.
"Hot and Spicy" made a big fuss around #Jia Ling lost 100 pounds. It first attracted a lot of attention through Jia Ling's self-report in the preview, and then relied on Jia Ling's fitness coach's voice and Zhang Xiaofei's Weibo night to guide Jia Ling The appearance of the doll continues to arouse the audience's curiosity about Jia Ling's physical changes.
At the same time, the film is also vigorously fermenting content-related social hot topics such as body anxiety, unemployed refugees, and self-worth realization by continuing to output "cut style" with a "Tik Tok flavor" to take advantage of the situation.
"Article 20" itself is a realistic comedy film that focuses on the pain points of people's livelihood and calls for judicial justice. However, after it gained a lot of attention through #赵丽颖Plays Deaf-mute#, it did not choose to exaggerate the emotions by amplifying reality. The interesting stories between Lei Jiayin and Ma Li's family are used as the focus of publicity, and jokes are continued to be output.
#飞Chi2Shen Teng plays the role of my driving school coach going crazy# #飞车生活2深圳 role as the coach of subject two# #Sun Yizhou takes the subject two to drive crazy Shen Teng#... Look at the hot topics of the movie on Douyin and Weibo. , the promotion focus of "Flying Life 2" is still Shen Teng.
In comparison, "Let's Shake the Sun Together", "Mr. Red Carpet" and "Bear Infested: Reverse Time and Space" currently seem to be mainly for collection, and the scale and intensity of promotion are one level lower than the above three movies.
This is understandable. After all, affected by multiple factors such as increasing market uncertainty and shifting audience preferences for content consumption, the overall publicity and distribution strategy of the theater market has undergone significant changes last year, and the long-term publicity and distribution capabilities after the screening have become an impact. The key elements of the total box office of movies, such as "Fengshen Part 1" and "Chang'an 30,000 Miles", etc., have become "dark horses" by relying on the "late strike" publicity strategy.
Of course, behind this, film quality and audience reputation are still the key to achieving deterministic box office growth, and are also the core secret for film and television companies to win this trust test.
