1,
This year’s Spring Festival stalls are a blast.
word of mouth. The first-tier movies of
are all concentrated around 8 minutes.
" hot and spicy " scored 7.9 points, "Article 20" scored 7.7 points, and " flying life 2" scored 7.7 points. The ratings of the second-tier videos of
are also stable at around 7 points.
"Bear Bears" scored 6.9 points, " Mr. Red Carpet " scored 6.8 points, and "Defiant 2" scored 7.2 points.
A large number of works are overwhelming.
box office.
The total box office of the entire market exceeded 8 billion, and the number of movie viewers exceeded 163 million, setting a new record.
In 2023, this number was 6.766 billion, in 2022 it was 6.040 billion, in 2021 it was 7.843 billion, and in 2019 it was 5.905 billion.
Against the backdrop of economic downturn, the film market has bucked the trend, which is gratifying.
This is not the most explosive.
In the past ten years or so, the distribution of movies during the Spring Festival has formed a formula:
"2 top-grossing movies to catch up with each other + 1 "Bear Bears" stable output + 1 movie to follow + other movies You can only breathe exhaust fumes.”
Like 2023.
"The Wandering Earth 2" and " Azolla " are competing for the first place. "Bear Bears" has sold a stable sales of 1.495 billion, "Unknown" has been eating and drinking to get 900 million, and Deng Chao's "China Ping Pong" was very angry.
Another example is 2022.
"Changjin Lake Suimen Bridge" and "The Killer Is Not So Calm" each took the lead. "Bear Infested" sold a stable 977 million, "Miracle: Stupid Kid" also earned 1.379 billion, and " Sihai" and "Sniper" both sucked in the exhaust fumes.
2,
But this year, this formula has changed.
The champion of this year's Spring Festival is basically locked by Jia Ling 's "Hot and Spicy".
But according to the current box office trend, its final box office will be locked at 3.5 billion.
has been the Spring Festival champion in the past few years, with a final box office of basically 4 billion.
This means that the cake for the Spring Festival is bigger, but the cake for the champion is smaller, everyone's level is closer, and the competition is more intense.
Now the formula for the Spring Festival release has become, "3 movies of Three Kingdoms + 1 movie of Big Mac + All other movies are underperformed."
can be summed up in four words: winner takes all.
We noticed that the top three films "Hot and Spicy", "Flying Life 2" and " Article 20 " have close reputations. The final box office will be fixed at 3.5 billion+, 3 billion+ and 2.4 billion+ respectively. From the traditional "Erren Zhuan" to "Three Kingdoms Killing".
We have noticed that "Bear Bears", which was originally another film, has experienced a big explosion this year, with an astonishing box office trend, and once targeted 2 billion+.
is currently losing momentum, but it can still reap 1.8 billion+ box office. It has become a giant in animated movies.
We also noticed that the market competition is too fierce. After the first few people share the cake, there is not much leftover for the last few people to eat, and some can't even breathe in the exhaust.
html Among the 08 Spring Festival films, 4 have announced their withdrawal, including "Mr. Red Carpet" by Ning Hao and Andy Lau, and "Let's Shake the Sun Together" by Peng Yuchang and Li Gengxi.Xie Miao's "Defiant 2" was originally scheduled to be released during the Spring Festival. It was difficult to quit before the release and changed to an online release. Now it seems to be quite wise.
The Spring Festival stall has turned from a large, happy gathering into a colosseum for capital competition. Even those who are as powerful as Andy Lau and Deng Chao may lose everything.
Such an explosive Spring Festival stall brings mixed feelings.
Cruel competition can indeed force creators to deliver better works -
In this year's Spring Festival, the highest-rated movie became the champion, and the lowest-rated movie became a deserter.
In the face of the economic recession, the audience's wallets are tighter. No matter how sentimental, poor sales, star power, or gimmicks are used, we only pay for good movies.
This is a great thing.
But on the other hand, if the Spring Festival box office password is compared to an arithmetic problem, then the Chinese are the best at solving it.
Many creators have unlocked the box office code and made good movies in the public eye simply by relying on their problem-solving skills.
3,
Unfortunately, good things and bad things happened at the same time.
We might as well compare the top three videos to find out the clues.
The three films "Hot and Spicy", "Flying Life 2" and "Article 20" have the following three similarities.
One is "quick".
"Hot and Spicy" is a remake.
Jia Ling would rather spend a year losing 100 pounds than spend half of her energy writing an original script and just shoot it with a ready-made one.
"Flying Life 2" is the sequel.
In order to reap the dividends from the previous film, Han Han directly resurrected Zhang Chi and filmed the first film in a different way.
shooting period is 3 months.
What about "Article 20"?
After Zhang Yimou watched "Hurry" and "The Long Season", he invited several actors from the two dramas to come over and quickly wrote a script.
shooting period is 2 months.
Of course, the quality of a movie is not directly related to the shooting cycle.
The shooting cycle of "Oppenheimer" was only 57 days.
But it’s no accident that all three blockbuster movies chose this “quick fix” approach.
The second is the "comedy element".
If you watch these three films in a row, you will definitely get a sense of humor -
these three films can be called "comedian team-building".
For example, Lei Jiali starred in "Hot" and "Article 20" at the same time, playing cowardly characters;
For example, after Ma Li served as a judge in "Hot", she turned around and ran to " Article 20" and Lei Jiayin gag;
For example, Wei Xiang quarreled with Ma Li in "Hot and Spicy", and over there he stumbled Shen Teng in "Flying Life 2";
also There is Qiao Shan, who just had an affair in "It's Hot" and became a profiteer in "Article 20";
comedians are everywhere, which shows that comedy elements have become the most important element in the Spring Festival.
During the Chinese New Year, everyone goes to the cinema to have fun. As long as you can make the audience laugh, the movie will be half successful.
The third is the "very burning ending".
"Hot and Spicy" needless to say. At the end of
, after losing weight, Jia Ling stood in the boxing ring, which was enough to shock the audience's jaws, and the audience's emotions also reached a climax in the scenes of her memory flashbacks.
"Flying Life 2" is no less generous. In the racing scene at the end of
, old and new Zhang Chi reunited. When the two racing cars merged, the passion and romance that only belongs to men made people cry.
"Article 20" naturally has such a paragraph.
Lei Jiayin, who had been a coward for the entire show, transformed into a righteous warrior at the last moment and made a generous speech that made the audience burst into tears.
4,
At this point, we can summarize the formula for unlocking the box office password:
The blockbuster movies during the Spring Festival are all "emotional movies" without exception.
Emotional movie = a ready-made story + a lot of comedy elements + an explosive ending at the end.
The person who summed up this formula was none other than Zhang Yimou.
After "The Great Wall", he began to shoot "small but beautiful" genre films.
, " shadow ", "One Second", "Solid as a Rock", "On the Cliff", "Sniper", without exception, all are of this type.
These movies have good reviews and acceptable box office.
Lao Mouzi, like a retired cadre, practices Tai Chi and dances in the square, gradually fading out of the mainstream view.
It was not until last year's "Man Jiang Hong" that he used this formula for the first time and received miraculous results.
Yue Fei and Qin Hui, a ready-made historical story, can be turned into a script with a slight adaptation;
In a large courtyard in Shanxi, a group of people were gathered together, and the shooting period was very short. Initially, I planned to take one shot to the end and finish the shooting in a few days, but later gave up. But the total shooting period is just over a month.
Comedy elements are indispensable. Shen Teng, Yue Yunpeng, Pan Binlong, and Wei Xiang are the guarantee of comedy;
By the way, the ending must be exciting. Even Qin Hui, let him give a speech, or let thousands of people recite "Man Jiang Hong" together. , focusing on an atmosphere.
is such a seemingly unsophisticated formula that allowed "Man Jiang Hong" to defeat "The Wandering Earth 2" and make a huge profit of 4.5 billion, and also allowed Lao Mouzi to return to the spring of his career.
This year, Zhang Yimou used this formula again to write "Article 20".
Unexpectedly, Jia Ling and Han Han had already learned this trick.
The apprentice can use it more smoothly than the master. "Hot and Spicy" and "Flying Life 2" both overwhelmed him.
5,
Interestingly, Jia Ling and Han Han also learned from Zhang Yimou, but their performances were at two extremes.
Jia Ling is extremely high-profile here.
Objectively speaking, although "Hot" is a remake, it is the most complete movie in the Spring Festival.
Compared with the original work, this film has undergone a large number of localized adaptations, added many touching details, and even had a "Li Huanying-style" reversal at the end, making it a well-deserved first place.
The movie has many points to promote, but it always seems to be about weight loss. Jia Ling herself also used a combination of punches to promote it.
published a short composition in the early stage to cleverly set up suspense. After the movie was released, he immediately accepted interviews with CCTV and other media to gain massive exposure, and then participated in road shows and cooperated with the short composition to "make up for it."
In the past few days, I believe many people’s Moments have been flooded with “Jia Ling’s weight loss”.
How popular is Jia Ling this year?
To give the most intuitive example, last year's "Kurst" became a hit. Gao Qiqiang's WeChat index was 1.1 billion at his peak. This year, Jia Ling's WeChat index is 3.5 billion.
This wave of marketing not only increased the movie box office, but also made Jia Ling an inspirational goddess for the whole country. Of course, excessive marketing also caused resentment among many people.
Jia Ling originally had enough say, and she even posted an article saying that the movie has nothing to do with weight loss.
However, during the actual promotion, capital pushed it to the forefront. What cannot be avoided is losing weight.
She has become thinner and more beautiful, but she is obviously much more tired.
Her weight loss documentary will be released in the future. We not only have to ask, is "Hot and Spicy" a movie or a pilot film for a weight loss documentary?
Does Jia Ling, who has been put on a pedestal, still have the right to gain weight in the future?
In sharp contrast to Jia Ling is Han Han.
During the Spring Festival, 7 of the 10 hot searches on social media were about Jia Ling losing weight, but Han Han was nowhere to be found in the hot searches.
Not only was Han Han not on trending searches, he did not post a single update before or after the release of "Flying Life 2".
When promoting the last film "Four Seas", he spared no effort and published many short essays.
Han Han has more than 40 million fans on social media. "Flying Life 2" ranked first at the box office on the first day, and was overtaken by "Hot and Spicy" the next day.
As a director, if he posts a post on this node and counts several hot searches, "Flying Life 2" may only bite "Hot and Spicy". It is really uncertain who will win the Spring Festival season.
You must know that the biggest shortcoming of "Flying Life 2" is the lack of topicality.
But Han Han was eerily silent.
The only explanation is that the film crew intentionally "de-Hanized" it during promotion.
Han Han used to be a "good boy" in the eyes of investors. He only made standard "Douban 7-point movies", small town men and women + Korean quotes + love and racing. The box office of the movie has been very stable.
It wasn't until "Four Seas" was filmed that he let loose. A car accident happened to someone who was filming during the Chinese New Year, which directly ruined his reputation. Han Han went from being a favorite in the Spring Festival stalls to being avoided.
During the promotion, the film crew deliberately downplayed Han Han, highlighted Shen Teng, emphasized comedy, and downplayed racing.
"Flying Life 2" created Han Han's best reputation and box office, but it was also the most aggrieved for him.
We can’t help but ask, Han Han, you won this time, but are you happy?
6,
When formulas become popular and routines are everywhere, there will be a large number of homogeneous "good movies" in the Spring Festival.
They are all so similar from the subject matter to the punchline, from the actors to the ending, so similar that it makes people laugh with tears, but also makes them boring.
As for the losers in the Spring Festival stalls, all of them, without exception, did not follow this story.
Let’s take the three films “Mr. Red Carpet”, “Let’s Shake the Sun Together” and “Defiant 2” as examples.
Ning Hao is the best comedy director in China in the past 20 years. He is best at making hilarious comedies that everyone loves to see. He creates according to the formula and can make a blockbuster comedy.
But he said: "We don't lack lively movies, and I'm tired of them too."
So he made a strangely quiet "Mr. Red Carpet". It is said that Andy Lau was stunned when he got the script and wanted to quit for a time. Acted, but considered taking the role again and again.
The two of them also paid a heavy price for their willfulness.
The movie was released for a few days, but it was at the bottom of the box office. Ning Hao was embarrassed and Andy Lau was embarrassed. In the end, the movie was withdrawn directly.
Han Yan previously filmed "Get Out!" "Tumor King" and "Send You a Little Red Flower" are all about terminal illness, with excellent reputation and box office.
This time "Let's Shake the Sun Together" is the end of the "Trilogy of Life", and it should have had a Better returns.
But it chose to be released during the Spring Festival. A movie about critically ill patients directly clashed with the atmosphere of the Spring Festival. Although Han Yan made a lot of efforts, he could not prevent the film from being withdrawn.
Xie Miao's "Defiant 2" is a work that he has accumulated over many years on the screen.
"This Killer Isn't Too Cold" was a martial arts movie, but it didn't make it to the big screen because it didn't have enough star power, comedy elements, and an ending that wasn't exciting enough.
It can be seen that the threshold for the Spring Festival is higher, but the creative path left for creators has also become narrower.
The world of the film industry has changed.
The once Yangguan Road is about to become a single-plank bridge. A movie that can survive this fight and chase to the end has indeed withstood the test of the market, but it has also grown into a different shape.
The bad thing is that in the past, bad movies were all kinds of bad, while today's masterpieces are all the same.
This is a new dilemma arising from this year’s Spring Festival.
We do not reject remakes, allow marketing hype, and do not reject formulas and routines.
But we should use a more inclusive mentality to allow creators to try and make mistakes, and encourage them to make different voices.
Otherwise, over time, all the blockbuster movies in the cinema will become model dramas of this era.
Text/Pippi Movie Editorial Department: Yi Li Ji
© Original丨Article Copyright: Pippi Movie (ppdianying)
Please do not reproduce in any form without authorization
