Chao News Client Reporter Jin Ran
On the evening of May 8, the movie "There is nothing that hot pot cannot solve" (hereinafter referred to as "Hot Pot") held a creative exchange meeting at the Beijing Film Academy. It had previously been held during the May Day holiday. It was announced on the last day that it would be withdrawn and re-released on another day. The cumulative box office revenue in the five days was more than 50 million. At the
scene, director Ding Sheng summarized the two main reasons for the unsatisfactory box office performance - there are barriers to watching the movie and it is difficult to promote it.
"There is a threshold for movies, and it is not easy to watch. Especially now, some viewers who like to watch short videos will feel that they don't understand if they can't calm down and chat, play on their mobile phones, or reply to WeChat for a while."
"The promotion is there. Difficulty, the current performance of the film may be related to not revealing too much plot."
Senior director Xie Fei disagreed with Ding Sheng's summary, and pointedly pointed out:
"The promotion can't find the point, maybe the genre is unclear. . The suspense is unclear, the laughs are not focused, and the sensationalism is not focused, which may cause the promotion to fail, and you use a famous star Yang Mi, but she only appears in the second half of the play, which may cause problems. "
Xie Fei His blunt remarks were unanimously recognized by the audience and netizens.
Today he posted another article to add that the shortcomings mentioned yesterday all belong to his academic opinions as teacher Ding Sheng, and "Hot Pot" has many achievements and advantages in directing, performance, photography, art, and sound creation. I hope there will be more audience sees it.
So what went wrong with the promotion of "Hot Pot"?
When Chinese movies start to be "returned within 7 days without any reason", can the withdrawal and re-release really change the fate?
When a director refused to use the feature film to promote
"Hot Pot" tells the suspenseful story of four unidentified mysterious people who gathered in the backstage warehouse of a theater, which led to a murder case. The subject matter is obviously popular, but the relationship between comedy and suspense has not been accurately conveyed to the audience through publicity. Ding Sheng, the director of
, expressed many times during the road show that he disliked the current movie marketing - taking out the feature film clips and cutting them repeatedly, cutting a lot, "It seems that the more feature films are edited, the higher the popularity, the higher the want-to-watch index. The movie will be better.”
Therefore, he refused to use too many feature clips and did not want to expose the reverse in advance. He even had several quarrels with the publicity team. "I am in awe of movies. I think feature films can only be watched in theaters."
So we saw that the promotion of "Hot Pot" was racked with brains.
The short video cannot use the main film, so just cut out the highlights of the main film and spread it. For example, there was an improvised action by Yang Mi. Everyone in front of the monitor was amused, but the netizens in front of the screen were dumbfounded and had no idea what they were laughing at, because they had never seen the movie and had no idea what the joke was about.
I can’t spoil it, so I recombined the shots and made up a new story. The short video plots such as "The girl was kidnapped because she didn't see the man clearly" and "The delivery boy came to save people" are completely disconnected from the movie itself, and the audience cannot see it in the theater.
As the "most trafficked actor" in the movie, Yang Mi took the lead in publicity, but the direction once went astray.
praised Yang Mi as a "detail-oriented" person. She took the initiative to suggest that her manicure should be "incomplete" and her clothes were from a big-name brand with free shipping, but the quality was not good, to show how hard the character lives under the pressure of life. As a result, public opinion overturned, and netizens complained that they were offended. The stars and film producers did not understand the lives of ordinary people at all.
The final result is that without discussing the plot of the film, everyone has no idea what the movie is about, and may even be misled by the publicity.
In fact, there are many comedy elements in "Hot Pot". Xie Fei even thinks that the movie has the effect of a comedy competition. You know, the May 1st " Thelma and Louise " earned over 400 million box office by relying on "easy and funny". However, the early promotion of "Hot Pot" focused more on "suspense" and did not promote this point well. Instead, it left the audience in a fog.
At yesterday's main creative exchange meeting, the audience also revealed a conversation. It was obvious that Ding Sheng was still immersed in his own world and did not think there was anything wrong with him:
"Why are we acting like a comedy contest?"
"Teacher Xie is making things difficult for you. You are over 80 years old, I am watching it for people in their twenties.”
Directors can have their own principles and bottom lines, but they are not stubborn and arrogant.
If you can’t beat it, it will be withdrawn, and it won’t change your fate.
Many netizens complained that this year is the first year for Chinese movies to be withdrawn.
Since last year's " China Ping Pong: Jedi Counterattack " starring Deng Chao was withdrawn after its release during the Spring Festival, this year domestic movies have begun a frequent "7-day no-reason return" operation. During the Spring Festival, there is " Let's Shake the Sun Together " Four films including " Mr. Red Carpet ", "Huang Pi: The God of Wealth Cat from Heaven" and " Bajie: The Lower World of the Canopy " were withdrawn one after another after their release.
The audience did not buy into this behavior of withdrawing the bonus after finishing the period, and criticized it as "run away if you can't fight" and "can't afford to lose".
The point is that even after the withdrawn movie was re-released, it did not achieve a desperate counterattack.
"China Ping Pong: The Jedi Strikes Back" was first released for two days, with a total of 43 million yuan in screenings and pre-sales. The box office was dismal when it was released again, and the box office on the opening day was even less than 5 million yuan.
"Mr. Red Carpet" had a box office of 84 million when it was withdrawn. When it was re-released, it hit " Dune 2" and " Weekly Destroy Three Evils ", and the final box office was more than 10 million.
had better luck with "Let's Shake the Sun Together". After all, its heavy life theme was incompatible with the Spring Festival release, but it fit the Qingming atmosphere. After the re-release, the film's reputation earned a total of 275 million in box office, which was an increase of two yuan from the Spring Festival release. times.
After the withdrawal of "Hot Pot" this time, Zhang Yu, the producer of another May 1st film "Journey Across the Moon" said that he would never withdraw the movie. "I apologize, admit it, but don't be cowardly." Lu Chuan also forwarded it This passage.
As Hu Jianli, secretary-general of the China Film Critics Society and editor-in-chief of "Film and Television Vane", said in an interview, withdrawing a movie after a large-scale release will consume the audience's trust and dilute the freshness of the audience.
and its re-release will require a new round of publicity and distribution costs.
This also reminds us once again that when the market box office concentrates on popular schedules, both film producers and audiences become schedule dependent, forming a cycle of two-way promotion. But popular schedules are never a panacea. The more they are released together, the greater the risk of becoming cannon fodder.
Mao Yu, executive deputy director of the Central Propaganda Film Bureau, proposed "making good weekend releases" several times last year, encouraging more powerful films to be released on weekends: weekend releases are the normal state of the film economy, and it is also the form of audience viewing in normal years. psychological needs. The stable development of the film economy must rely on the effective supply of weekend schedules to meet the audience's daily normal viewing needs.
In fact, the first scheduled date for "Hot Pot" was January 13. Looking back at that ordinary weekend, the movies released at that time were " What's in the Zoo " starring Bao Beier and Jason Statham. The box office of "beekeeper" exceeded 100 million, and "The Temporary Robbery" released the following week also took over 200 million at the box office.
If "Hot Pot" had not chosen to join the May Day fight, would the ending have been different?
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