Author | Li Xunhuan
Editor | mia
As the May Day schedule approaches, major film studios have successively launched intensive publicity and screening activities, striving to create explosive points before the schedule actually comes, and maximize the audience's viewing. interest.
but has obviously mediocre results in terms of publicity and pre-sales.
The pre-sales for " Peacekeeping Riot Squad ", which is most promising by major media, barely exceeded 10 million, and it was only less than 2 million ahead of " Spy Play House Codename: White ". On the one hand, the pre-sales of several low-income movies are very strong, but on the other hand, they are so low that there is no need to open a "May 1 New Movie Box Office List".
As of 18:00 today, the total pre-sales of the market have not even exceeded 40 million, which is not as good as " King of the Sky " in the same period last year.
inevitably makes people want to ask: Why is this year’s May Day so weak?
The sea-wide tactic failed
Compared with previous years, there are so many movies with selling points in the May Day schedule this year that it can even be called a sea-wide tactic.
Classic animations, IP new works, suspense films, comedies, crime films, romance films have everything you need. With so many choices, I believe there will always be one that can arouse the audience's interest in watching movies. But for the market, having too many films is not all that matters. Good thing.
Good news: This year’s May 1st stall can use the sea-wide strategy. Bad news: Without a leader, Pianhai’s tactics failed.
First of all, there are too many videos in the schedule, which exceeds the schedule capacity.
Half a month ago, more than a dozen films were squeezed into this year’s May Day schedule, and 7 of them were expected to exceed 100 million in box office, which was more than the number of films in leading schedules such as the Spring Festival and National Day schedules. At that time,
Entertainment Unicorn speculated that in the future, only film producers would be unable to withstand the pressure and choose to withdraw, and it was unlikely that new films would be chosen to be airborne. Sure enough, "Stuntman" starring Gaosling and Emily Blunt recently announced that it will be rescheduled to May 17.
The rescheduling of "Stunt Mania" has, to a certain extent, made the May Day schedule less crowded. However, ten films such as "Peacekeepers" and " Nothing Can't Be Solved by a Hotpot " are still somewhat overloaded for the small May Day period, and it is difficult for the films to release all the box office space.
Secondly, there is a lack of leading movies in the schedule to take the lead.
In the "Notice of the General Office of the State Council on Arrangements for Some Holidays in 2020", since the May Day holiday came into being, except for the May Day holiday in 2020 and 2022 due to the impact of the epidemic, the May Day holiday in 2021 and 2023 The performances are all remarkable, including "On the Cliff" and "Unfamiliar Life", two films that exceeded 1 billion, and "Your Wedding" and "Sky King", two films that exceeded 800 million. .
But currently, only "Peacekeeping Riot Squad" and " Kowloon Walled City: The Siege " have been predicted by industry media to have a total box office of more than 400 million.
Finally, it is the overlapping of types that leads to audience divergence.
If live-action movies are divided into different types such as suspense, romance, crime, etc., then animated movies undoubtedly overlap too much, and each film has to face the diversion of the other three films.
The biggest impact is on "The Pig Movie". This series of movies has been scheduled for May Day many times, and the box office of a single film has been stable at more than 20 million for three consecutive years. The highest one even approached 80 million, which is second only to "Bear Bears" and "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf" Domestic animated film series.
had almost no competitors in the May 1st slot in previous years, but in this year's May 1st slot, there are three big guys " Howl's Moving Castle ", "Spy House Code: Bai" and " Xiaoqian " competing for meat. .
Except for "Xiao Qian", which has a certain suspense and horror color and is not suitable for young audiences, the other two are family films suitable for all ages, which means that the box office space of "Pig Man Movie" will be sharply compressed. .
"Howl's Moving Castle", as an old film by Miyazaki Hayao, has a good reputation and has also inherited the popularity of "How Do You Want to Live" to a certain extent."Spy's Playhouse Codename: Bai" is the first theatrical version of this IP to be released in the mainland. Thanks to Bilibili's introduction of "Spy's Playhouse", this IP has a wide audience among the Z generation group. "Xiao Qian" is a new light animation work, and is also based on "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio", a well-known folk ghost story.
If these three films were in different schedules, it would be possible to attract more viewers to buy tickets, but in just a few days, it would be too difficult for the audience to watch three animations in a row.
You are chasing after me, but no one dares to laugh.
Currently, there is only one week left for the May Day announcement window.
However, whether it is the promotional videos of the major studios or the overt and covert advertisements, the popularity is very average. The promotional data of the major studios are also very strong. The day before yesterday, you climbed to the top and yesterday I caught up. It is difficult to say who is the winner. "Far ahead".
It is difficult for major film developers to show their smiles under such huge competitive pressure.
The top three movies that most people want to watch on Maoyan are "Howl's Moving Castle", "Peacekeepers" and "Spy House Code: White". The top three movies that most people want to watch on Taopiao Piao are still Of these three films, "Peacekeeping Riot Squad" takes the lead.
Thanks to the huge number of fans of Huang Jingyu, Wang Yibo and Yang Mi, "Peacekeeping Riot Squad" and "Nothing That Can't Be Solved by Hot Pot" are obviously leading in popularity on Weibo.
However, because Wang Yibo is not a fan, and there is an obvious struggle between his fan group and Huang Jingyu's fan group, the popularity of "Peacekeeping and Bomb Squadron" is obviously lower than industry expectations, and the pre-sales are even lower than those of "King of the Sky" and "" starring Wang Yibo. "Unnamed " is far from it.
"Nothing That Can't Be Solved by a Hot Pot" starring Yang Mi, Yu Qian, and Tian Yu, has been on many hot searches because of Yang Mi's hair color and Yaoji style in the film.
As a 85-year-old, Yang Mi's ability to handle ratings in TV dramas is obvious to all. However, she has been criticized by the audience because of her acting skills. The movies she stars in often have fans rushing to the box office, while passers-by have a rebellious mentality and refuse to enter.
The film has launched 200 "hot pot" advance screenings in 20 cities including Harbin, Changchun, Shenyang, Qingdao, and Wuhan from 14:00 to 17:00 on April 13-14. This number of screenings has already It is enough for the film to gain a certain reputation, but judging from the feedback from people who have watched the film on social media, most of them are "the quality of the film is acceptable, but Yang Mi's performance is average."
But in Douyin, which is increasingly known as a battleground for film producers, it is a different situation.
The youth romance film " Journey Through the Moon" starring Zhang Zifeng and Hu Xianxu became the champion with a total of 2 billion views.
However, as the reputation of romance films such as "Ten Years of Wen Ruyan" has collapsed, the popularity of this type of film in short videos has been difficult to translate into box office. Zhang Zifeng's love affair has also affected her popularity to a certain extent.
is slightly weaker than "Journey Across the Moon". "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City" directed by Cheng Baorui and starring Louis Koo, Sammo Hung and Simon Yam ranked second with 1.988 billion topic views on Douyin. When
was scheduled to be released half a month ago, the film's popularity on all major platforms was very average. However, as the film studio started to promote the film, the popularity increased rapidly. On April 11, the film was selected for the "Midnight" of the 77th Cannes International Film Festival. After the "Showing" section, the popularity soared, and it was ready to win the championship at any time.
Although the "Midnight Screening" section is not a competition, being selected can prove to a certain extent that the film has a good reputation.
As a director who specializes in crime films, Zheng Baorui has attracted the attention of a large number of men. Among Maoyan users who want to watch this film, 61% of them are male. In the Baidu Index, 89% of men are searching for this film. It is one of the May Day movies that attracts the most male viewers.
Judging from the data of the films starring Louis Koo in the past few years, the box office contribution of Guangdong Province often accounts for about 1/5 of the total box office of the film. "Anti-Drug 3: Man at the End of the World" is as high as 1/3.
Although the reputation of the "Anti-Corruption Storm" series of movies has always been average, Principal Gu's name has been very loud on Douyin due to donations to build a primary school and other reasons. The promotion method of "Tomorrow's War" has also effectively increased the total box office.
Although the film's reputation is acceptable, if Xuanfa can continue to effectively mobilize his support groups and dig deeper into the largest box office in Guangdong Province, the film may become Louis Koo's only film with double box office and word-of-mouth reviews in recent years. Harvest movie.
The landlord’s family has no food left, so who can eat enough? Behind the chasing after each other in the promotion and pre-sale of
is the multi-party game between the producers, distributors and promoters behind each movie.
"Peacekeeping Riot Squad", which has the highest May Day schedule, is mainly controlled by Wanda Films. During the project establishment and filming, the film had three major traffics: Huang Jingyu, Wang Yibo, and Zhang Zhehan.
However, with the collapse of Zhang Zhehan's house, the film has gone through a long period of revision, and has changed from a picturesque niche to a backlog of old bacon.
Huang Jingyu, who became popular with film and television dramas such as "Addicted", "Operation Red Sea" and "Operation Ice Breaker", failed to take over Cheng Hua's popularity and gradually fell behind. Wang Yibo has always been top-notch, starring in "Unknown" and "The Sky". "King" although it is difficult to satisfy the film studio in terms of the ratio of investment to box office, it still exceeded 800 million. Next, he will continue to cooperate with Cheng Er in the super commercial film "Mermaid".
After several twists and turns, Wanda Films was finally successfully brought into the hands of Ruyi Pictures, becoming a member of Ke Liming and Chen Zhixi’s efforts to expand their film and television territory.
ranked second with 12.7% of the films, " " starring Jia Bing, Tan Zhuo, and Xiao Shenyang. The film is controlled by Chaole Unlimited, Happy Twist is a co-investor, and Maoyan is responsible for distribution and publicity.
is the only traditional comedy. The film brings together many Northeastern comedians and Internet celebrities on Douyin and other platforms. However, based on the current materials and audience experience, the "booking for a bad movie" is too high and it is not worth the high price. To invest, we can only hope for the support of the vast majority of Northeastern railway companies.
was followed by the two cartoons "Spy House Code: White" and "Howl's Moving Castle". Due to the import rights, the importers of these two films were China Film, but the dominant player It’s road paintings and cat’s eyes. "Journey to Suzuya" directed by
Lu Hua last year was quite successful and became the box office champion of Japanese films in the Mainland. The premiere of the film on April 20th invited top animation stars such as Karina and Bian Jiang. The rest of the action is not too big, and it is obvious that this work is regarded as a fan film.
With such fierce competition in the May 1st slot, although the film may not be as successful as "Journey to Suzuya", there is absolutely no problem in breaking 100 million.
"Howl's Moving Castle", as a well-known and classic film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, has a large group of fans in China. Although it is not as well-known as "Spirited Away", it may be like "My Neighbor Totoro" Like "Castle in the Sky", it successfully exceeded 100 million.
As a model of co-production, "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City" has both Hong Kong film capital and the participation of mainland film companies such as Lian Rui and Tao Piao Piao. Although the current film schedule is not high, it may be able to win the "Cliff Wall" due to its reputation. The script of "Part 1" achieved a comeback in the later stage.
The sponsors behind "Nothing That Can't Be Solved by a Hot Pot" and "Journey Across the Moon" are generous. In 2018, He Jianfeng, the young owner of Midea Group, spent 1.8 billion to become the actual controller of Baina Qiancheng, and later spent hundreds of millions to become the company's largest shareholder.
The company's subsidiary Wonderful Time is one of the main producers of "Hello, Li Huanying", but the electrical appliance leader does not have a vicious vision in the film market. "Hello, Li Huanying" was jointly guaranteed by Maoyan and Ruyi, becoming the film that year. The biggest winner during the Spring Festival, but I didn’t earn much during the wonderful time.
As of this year's May 1st release, Baina Qiancheng's influence in the film market is still a little weak. The two films it has controlled are the two with the least number of films except for cannon fodder movies.
For example, "Journey Across the Moon", as it is the only romance film on the May Day schedule, this film can be regarded as the "first choice for couples to watch". It ranked first with an attendance rate of 3.1% on May 1. , but theaters are far less optimistic about the film than "Your Wedding", and only gave it 8.6% of the film schedule, ranking seventh among the May Day films. This shows how much say Baina Qiancheng has. "Xiao Qian" produced by
Lighting can be said to be at the bottom in terms of popularity, film schedule, pre-sales and other fields, and has basically given up its struggle.
specializes in the art industry, and for animated movies, you may want to look at its Color Bar House. When responding to questions from investors in March this year, Enlight said that "Nezha: The Devil's Mind" is expected to be released within the year, and that is the real highlight.
But when it comes to what they have in common, it can be said that this year’s May Day films all focused on the word “poor” and did not invest too much in publicity.
The media manager of a certain film and television account with 100,000 plus accounts told Entertainment Unicorn that during the May Day holiday in previous years, even during the confidentiality stage of the project, the publicity and distribution companies of major film studios would come early to discuss cooperation and finalize the schedule of videos, graphics, and text. But this year, several companies said they had no budget.
When the landlords have no surplus grain, who can eat enough may depend on who invests more.
Alibaba-based Taopiao Piao is the producer of "Peacekeeping Riot Squad", "Journey Across the Moon", "Nothing Can't Be Solved by a Hotpot", and the co-producer of "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City", while Alibaba Pictures Together with Tao Piao Piao, he served as the distributor of two films.
"You may win, but I will never lose" may be the portrayal of Alibaba in this May Day period.
The May 1st bell has sounded. Let us wait and see who is the biggest winner.
