text | Ding Jiao, author | Wang Lu, editor | Wei Jia
After this year's New Year's Day, Spring Festival, Tomb Sweeping Day, and June 1st schedules all achieved the highest box office in the past four years, the Dragon Boat Festival seems to be difficult to continue this achievement. Maoyan data shows that the box office on the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival was 121 million, which was only higher than 2022 in the past ten years.
"This year's Dragon Boat Festival is relatively deserted." The money manager of a large theater in Beijing estimated that this month's box office revenue will hardly even cover costs.
Manager Tao of a large theater in Zhejiang also found that this year’s Dragon Boat Festival was not as good as expected. On the first day of the holiday, there were only a few viewers per show during the day. It was slightly better at night, but no hall could seat 50 people.
Actually, in terms of quantity and type, this year’s Dragon Boat Festival is not bad. There are 11 movies, the same number as last year, and the genres are more diverse, including crime, youth, animation, literature and art, and Hollywood.
However, during the Dragon Boat Festival last year, Chen Sicheng's " Disappeared Her " was the best at the box office, and Han Yan's " I Love You!" was the most popular at the box office. 》take over. Industry insiders predict that this year's box office and reputation will not be as good as last year.
Based on what they said, there are three main reasons.
Firstly, the overall quality of the films is balanced. Industry insiders even said that the 11 films were all "unknown people"; secondly, this year's Dragon Boat Festival lost part of the passenger flow during the college entrance examination period, while last year's Dragon Boat Festival students had already entered the summer vacation; and finally, dot The screening results were not ideal, and some films lost their reputation as a result. Although some films had good reputations, they did not gain popularity. It is difficult to replicate last year's " in the octagonal cage" which relied on point screenings to turn around the box office.
However, this quiet Dragon Boat Festival has allowed practitioners to deeply feel the changes in audience viewing habits. Audiences have become increasingly sensitive to ticket prices, and theaters have begun to charge lower prices. In terms of movie viewing genres, there is a regional battle. Comedy is a hard currency in the north, while Hong Kong films are popular in the south.
(The following content contains slight spoilers)
Dragon Boat Festival stalls, quietly
On the morning of the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, "Fixed Focus" walked into a cinema in Chaoyang District, Beijing. There were only two people in the hall, one was waiting to watch Among the customers of the film, there is also a staff member. After
entered the auditorium, the staff said that there was only one "fixed focus" audience for this show and they could sit wherever they wanted. After saying that, she closed the door of the movie theater.
Empty cinema / "Fixed focus" photo
The situation at Manager Qian's cinema is similar. He revealed that the number of viewers who enter the cinema every day is calculated in hundreds, and there are about four to five hundred people on weekends. On the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival, , the flow of people is About 500 people.
The theater where Manager Tao works has about a hundred people on weekdays, and about two to three hundred people on Saturdays and Sundays. On the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival, there were about 350 people. During the big period, this number of people is not that large. For , taking the May Day period that just passed as an example, the daily flow of people was thousands.
"Fix Focus" checked the third-party ticket purchasing platform and found that on the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival, even for popular movies, the noon screenings, special screenings, and evening prime screenings of major theaters in Beijing were only full of seats. One third of the audience is barely able to see a full audience.
Maoyan Professional Edition shows that the box office of Dragon Boat Festival on the first day was 121 million, which did not exceed the 188 million on June 1st. It could not catch up with the 410 million on the first day of May 1st, nor could it compare with the 316 million on the first day of Dragon Boat Festival last year. In the past ten years, ’s Dragon Boat Festival box office on the first day, ranking second from last.
Cinema managers are also mentally prepared for this. A cinema manager said, “The focus these two days has been on the college entrance examination, which has lost a part of the student audience. In addition, there are no leading films, so this year’s Dragon Boat Festival is destined to not be very good. " But the box office on the first day was as low as just over 100 million, which he did not expect.
lacks a blockbuster title, which is also an important reason why the Dragon Boat Festival stalls are deserted. This also forced Cinema to adopt a film scheduling strategy of equal exposure to rain and dew.
Manager Qian ranked the three films " I don't want to be friends with you ", " stop and go " and "Sweeping Gangs: Never Give Up" very evenly, giving them 20%-25%. The proportion of films arranged.
Manager Tao is similar. "I Don't Want to Be Friends with You" was the most popular, but he only gave 20%, and the others were all around 18%.In the past, during big schedules, some films would get more than 30% of the film schedule.
It is currently difficult to see which film has outstanding performance at the box office and word-of-mouth, and can significantly change the film schedule two days after the holiday.
There are two movies that have over 10,000 people wanting to watch them in the early stage. One is " Anti-Crime·Never Give Up " starring Xiao Yang and Fan Chengcheng, and the other is a youth comedy "I Don't Want It" adapted from a high-scoring TV series into a movie. "I want to be friends with you", but the box office on the first day was just over 50 million, not over 100 million.
More than one theater manager predicted that ’s Dragon Boat Festival box office this year will most likely be lower than last year. It is basically impossible to continue this year’s record-breaking performance.
11 movies, not a single dark horse
"Although there are as many as 11 films in the Dragon Boat Festival, they are of average quality, not even as good as the May 1st film, which does not have much highlights." A senior film industry practitioner said.
Based on box office performance and the opinions of many practitioners, "Fixed Focus" divided these 11 films into three echelons.
The first echelon: "Anti-Gangsters: Never Give Up" and "I Don't Want to Be Friends with You"
The crime film "Anti-Gangsters: Never Give Up" currently ranks first in the Dragon Boat Festival box office, with a box office of 63 million on the first day. The biggest highlight of the film is the actors, starring Xiao Yang and Fan Chengcheng. In terms of story, Xiao Xiao, a viewer who likes crime films very much, feels that this film has a clear structure and a relatively full plot. The deleted content does not affect the advancement of the plot, but the scale is average and it is just a passable work.
Picture source / Douban
"I Don't Want to Be Friends with You" is a "drama-to-movie" work and has a fan base, but it is different from the drama version and focuses more on family love. It tells the story of Li Jinjin, a high school student played by Zhuang Dafei, who accidentally returned to his mother's girlhood, became sisters with her, and began to "change his father against nature." The setting of
has also led many people to call it the sister chapter of "Hello, Li Huanying". The film also has many comedy elements, such as Jia Bing, a familiar face in comedy, playing the heroine's grandfather.
However, the film’s reputation is polarized. Some viewers felt that it would be difficult for the film to replicate the high score of 8.1 in the drama version due to the unmarried pregnancy in high school and the deletion of some characters in the drama version. As of press time, the film ranked second at the box office during the Dragon Boat Festival, but Maoyan predicts that the total box office will be less than 300 million.
The second echelon: " Negotiator " "Stop and Go"
In the May Day season that just ended, the Hong Kong film " Kowloon Walled City: The Siege " made a lot of box office in the later stage through word of mouth, but it is also a Hong Kong film The film "The Negotiator" failed to catch this wave of good luck.
This film is adapted from the American movie " Ace vs. Ace ". It uses familiar faces from Hong Kong films such as Liu Qingyun and Wu Zhenyu, but there are not many surprises in the story. Douban scored 7.4. One fan said that although he was a fan of director and screenwriter Qiu Litao, the plot "kept the same stuff over and over again" and he was a little tired of it. Everyone estimates that the film's total box office is around 200 million.
"Stop and Go" starring Hu Ge and Gao Yuanyuan is the most unpredictable contestant in this Dragon Boat Festival, with a score of 7.9 on Douban.
The play tells the story of Wu Di (played by Hu Ge), a young North Drifter who couldn't make it in Beijing and returned to his hometown. He accidentally met his high school classmate Feng Liuliu (played by Gao Yuanyuan). As a reporter, Liu Liu decided to make a movie about Wu Di. Documentary, this also gave Wu Di the opportunity to regain his dream of directing. Using his home as the scene, his mother became the heroine in his film, and he started shooting movies.
Some viewers like it very much and think that the film can become a dark horse. It leaves the audience with many questions worth thinking about, such as whether the male and female protagonists have feelings for each other, whether the female protagonist has gone to Beijing, and whether the female protagonist has remarried her ex-husband or remarried. Many people think that the film captures the state of real people: life is unclear, there is no right or wrong, only walking and going.
However, some viewers felt that the film was overall flat, with neither characters nor story written, and it was a mediocre literary film.
This film surpassed "The Negotiator" in terms of film schedule on the first day of the holiday, ranking third, but Maoyan predicts that the total box office will be less than 100 million.
The third echelon: American blockbusters + cartoons
There are more films in this echelon.
The Hollywood action blockbuster " Mad Max: Goddess of Fury " is produced by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is a new work in the "Mad Max" series launched after nine years. The biggest feature is the dystopian world setting and decadence. Rustic aesthetic style. Another "American Civil War" can be known from the title. This is a war film. What is a little special is that the film is from the perspective of a female war correspondent.
However, the appeal of these two films to mainland audiences is limited, with the two-day box office being around 15 million.
cartoons are also not absent. "Robot Dreams" is an animation with high reputation overseas, with a score of 9.1 on Douban. It was nominated for this year's Oscar for "Best Animated Feature Film." The protagonist is a puppy living alone in Manhattan. There are zero lines in the film, but the film It was not a blockbuster in China, with a single-day box office of just over one million.
The relatively best-selling cartoons during the Dragon Boat Festival this year are the two cartoons "Garfield" and "Doraemon: Nobita's Symphony of the Earth" that were released on June 1st (not released during the Dragon Boat Festival). Maoyan gives the predicted total box office 160 million and 154 million respectively.
In addition, there are 4 "make-up" films, which are relatively unpopular in terms of genres, actors, etc. Only "Rivers of Day and Night", which was selected in the "Hidden Dragon" competition unit of the 5th Pingyao International Film Festival, is somewhat interesting and has a box office break. 10,000, and the others all cost 100 yuan or even zero yuan at the box office.
Movie-watching habits have changed: more concerned about ticket prices, movie preferences are divided into north and south
The more the overall quality of the movies is similar, and the more the small release period is only two or three days, the more noticeable the changes in the audience's movie-watching habits.
Cinema managers have discovered since the beginning of this year that audiences are becoming more and more sensitive to ticket prices , and this is particularly obvious during the Dragon Boat Festival.
Manager Qian works in a mid-to-high-end theater in Beijing. Because of its good location, it is in a large shopping mall, and the theater configuration is also very good. It often cooperates with premieres of various movies.
He found that this year many old audiences were attracted by the nearby small movie theaters. "Audiences are very concerned about ticket prices. Many unknown small movie theaters charge ticket prices according to the issue price, which is 40 yuan a ticket. But we have to buy about 80 yuan, otherwise we won't be able to earn back the rent."
He described the current state of the theater as , "Small movie theaters have low prices, high attendance, and are lively. Large movie theaters have high prices, low attendance, and are deserted." They also thought about whether to lower prices, but felt that this was a vicious cycle. He said that another large theater in Beijing that took the high-end route also encountered the same situation.
The theater manager of a large theater in Changping, Beijing told "Dingjiao" that at the beginning of this year, he had made an agreement with the theater managers of several nearby theaters, hoping that everyone would reach an agreement and not engage in vicious competition, but after a few In March, one cinema restored its low prices. The reason is that without low prices, small theaters have no competitive advantage and cannot attract audiences.
In addition, many theaters also adopt zone pricing to attract audiences. "Financial Focus" inquired about the ticket purchase platform and found that many movie theaters in Beijing were offering low-price tickets starting at 19.9 yuan and 29.9 yuan. After clicking in, they found that the theaters were divided into special areas, default areas and best viewing areas. , while low-price tickets are only available in special discount areas. The difference between the highest and lowest areas of
is mostly 20 yuan, and some can even be doubled. However, there are fewer seats in the special discount area, mostly in the first row, and some even only arrange two for each game. This kind of special offer area is quite popular. One viewer told "Fixing Focus" that he bought the ticket from the special offer area, but when he entered the cinema, he found that there were still a lot of empty seats, so he secretly changed to the best viewing area 20 minutes after the movie started. .
Manager Tao told "Ding Jiao" that in first-tier cities, the basic single ticket price is about 40 yuan to make money. When selling for 19.9 yuan plus air conditioning and electricity costs, theaters basically lose money, but the reason why theaters are still willing to pay low prices is because theaters mainly Relying on income from selling popcorn and matching claw machines, uses low prices to attract audiences to the theater as the first step.
In addition, during this Dragon Boat Festival, the preferences for film types in different regions are also very obvious.
"Comedies are more popular in the north. Due to the influence of language and region, Hong Kong films are relatively easy to sell in the south. Therefore, many film studios no longer cast a wide net in movies and road shows, but focus on the key points." Manager Tao said, " Although "I Don't Want to Be Friends with You" was screened across the country, its road show was mainly in the northern region, while "The Negotiator" was only screened in the south. However, this trend will usually be reflected one or two days before the release, and eventually. Comedies still occupy a high position. "
At this moment, major theaters have not finished the Dragon Boat Festival and are already looking forward to the upcoming summer season.
* At the request of the interviewee, Manager Qian’s name in the article is a pseudonym.
