The Dragon Boat Festival after the May 1st stall was highly anticipated on the big screen. However, I didn’t expect that the schedule of traditional festivals would be like this year’s May 1st stall, with one green on the bottom, which matches the color of the rice dumplings.
The total box office of the 11 new films (6 of which were featured) during the Dragon Boat Festival was just over 400 million yuan. The box office champion " Combat Crime and Never Give Up " barely entered the 100 million yuan club, while several other blockbusters were still in the 10 million yuan range.
This number is not only very different from the single-day box office performance of a single film that easily exceeded 100 million, but it also failed to beat the Dragon Boat Festival performance during the mask buffer period, continuing the deserted situation of the big screen in 2024 since the Spring Festival.
Under normal circumstances, box office failure is often closely related to the movie's reputation. If the quality of the movie is too bad, it will dampen the audience's enthusiasm. However, the feedback from several new movies in the Dragon Boat Festival this time is not surprising, but it is not too bad.
There are high-quality works that have a reputation that is recognized by most audiences.
Hu Ge and Gao Yuanyuan's " stop and go " currently has high ratings. It not only scored 7.9 points on Douban, but also received praise from the audience for "a non-boring literary and artistic film". It is a very enjoyable movie. There are
type blockbusters.
The current Dragon Boat Festival box office champion "Sweep the Gangsters: Never Give Up" stars Xiao Yang, who has a track record in many suspense films. The film's reputation is currently quite polarizing, but the subject matter is very exciting.
Anti-crime, police and gangsters, comedy... multiple elements overlap and wrap up the market-loving elements, coupled with the breakthrough in the scale of the depiction of social phenomena, it is a good choice for genre film lovers.
If you feel that it is not enjoyable enough, then there is also the Hong Kong film " Negotiator " which is difficult to make a hit but always guarantees the bottom line.
There are also family-friendly romance films. The spin-off movie of the
web drama "I Don't Want to Be Friends with You" is also very popular in this Dragon Boat Festival. Regardless of whether you are not interested in the original IP, there is a romantic movie during the holidays, which is very suitable for young people to go together.
If you are not interested in domestic movies, there are also overseas films such as "Mad Max: Gods of Fury" and " American Civil War ". There are 6 major blockbusters with different themes. This selection of films is basically suitable for different audiences. Take care of it.
Of course, the subject matter is rich enough, and the reputation is not overwhelming. Basically, every movie has its own merits, but why is it that during the Dragon Boat Festival, most people are not willing to go to the cinema and pay for it?
A netizen summed it up very sharply:
"The most disappointing thing is not that the movie is bad, but that you admit that the movie is okay but you don't want to watch it at all.".
The audience's viewing desire is gradually disappearing, which is the fundamental reason for the setback of the big screen box office in 2024.
When the May Day show failed, various data showed that the audience's desire to watch new movies was decreasing. When it came to the Dragon Boat Festival show, the audience themselves couldn't help but lament that it was not that the new movies were not good to watch, but that they just didn't want to watch them.
But objectively speaking, the reason for the audience's feelings still has to come back to the movie itself. The audience's feelings are not achieved overnight, nor does the film market suddenly become depressed. It is the product of long-term accumulation.
In this regard, three factors have a great influence.
First, the reputation of new big-screen films has been lackluster for a long time, which is the fundamental reason for the heavy damage to audience enthusiasm.
The timeline goes back to 4 years ago. I believe that many viewers have experienced the habit of watching movies every week. For gatherings with friends, birthday celebrations, and couple dates, watching movies will always be the top day in the itinerary.
At that time, going to theaters to watch movies was as common as going out to eat. However, the public’s movie-watching habits at that time were not driven by consumerism, but were “trained” by blockbuster movies and the nationwide movie-watching craze. .
From "Tang Detective" to " Operation Red Sea " to " The Wandering Earth " and "Nezha Devil Boy Comes into the World", domestic movies have become hits one after another. The audience's enthusiasm for the big screen has gradually soared, and watching movies has become a thing. Meaningful and surprising activities.Driven by the strong movie-going market,
has a basic ticket base that is the envy of overseas markets every year during the Spring Festival and National Day periods. A series of good works has cultivated a group of highly loyal audiences.
To put it simply, if you eat too much good food, the audience will develop the habit of eating it.
If you want the audience to develop a habit, you can do it by feeding them good things. If you want to destroy the audience's habit, you can also feed it mediocre or bad things. The rules for development and destruction are the same.
Although the movie box office in the past two years still has a lot of carnival during the Spring Festival and National Day shows, if you look closely at the audience feedback, you can find that many viewers joined in the fun but did not gain anything from the excitement.
It often happens that although the movie is not given a negative review, it is hard to describe the good experience, and there are even situations where it is deceived by marketing tricks.
By 2024, there will be no real word-of-mouth hit on the big screen. In this case, the audience will have a "dispensable" feeling about watching movies in theaters. If they haven't seen it yet, they will Already boring in advance.
Secondly, there are more and more ticket assassins.
The reputation of the movie market has gradually declined, but the box office has gradually increased. Especially after the mask period ended, the ticket price of theater movies has significantly exceeded that of 2019, and many viewers have felt the gap.
In the city where Episode 7 is located, 2D dramas in ordinary time periods can often reach over 50 points. If prices rise in direct proportion to services and movie quality, I believe most viewers will still not think there is a problem with this trend.
But the worst thing is that the first two did not increase due to the increase in ticket prices, but went downhill. As a result, audiences who were still enthusiastic about watching movies encountered another wave of attacks on their consumption experience. .
Thirdly, the 2024 big screen currently lacks a leader.
As netizens said, there are actually good quality works in the 2024 new films. For example, there is " Plants and Trees World " in the Qingming Festival and "Stop and Go" in the Dragon Boat Festival. Purely speaking of word-of-mouth, there are still many remarkable works. .
But we also have to admit that these word-of-mouth works have achieved breakthroughs in audience and word-of-mouth, but they have not become box office leaders. They are either well-received but not popular, or they have the flaw of being difficult to break through despite good word-of-mouth.
What the current market lacks are high-quality blockbusters with surprising themes, or masterpieces with wide audiences. What the audience wants is a movie that can arouse sensory or inner resonance after watching it, and create a desire to discuss.
For example, " Weekly Remove Three Evils ". Even though the reputation of this movie is not perfect, it has triggered a wave of enthusiastic discussion among the audience because of the breakthrough in perspective and scale. If the reputation can be further improved, it can actually warm up the show. .
Audiences no longer want to watch works that are lively for a while and get no resonance after the excitement, because people have seen too many of these works. When they are large, they are mediocre and ordinary, and sometimes it is a waste of enthusiasm.
For example, the movies "Twinkle Twinkle Star" and "I Don't Want to Be Friends with You" may be enjoyed by the audience in the drama version, but ordinary audiences will feel that if there is no surprise, Expect to be disappointed.
What’s the reason why the “leader” on the big screen hasn’t come out yet?
Perhaps, it was also influenced by the "copying" thinking of the big screen in the past few years. The film industry in the past few years liked to "copy" endlessly, and would not stop until a subject matter made the audience rebel.
For example, with the explosion of comedy, comedy themes have emerged in droves, and the theme has exploded. This theme has been photographed and made many viewers feel rebellious. If the investment cost of science fiction was not too high, science fiction may have been failed.
Everyone’s energy is focused on “copying” popular products, and there are fewer resources to provide “new creations.” Quality products and repetition fall into a new cycle. Quantitative changes are insufficient, and qualitative changes are difficult to sustain.
wants to solve the current lackluster status of the big screen. Theoretically, it is very simple. As long as a leader emerges and a few real word-of-mouth hits are released, the audience's movie-going habit will soon be regained.
Whether it is to be a "leader" or to make a masterpiece with word-of-mouth reputation, the film industry needs to stick to its original intention and invest a lot of energy to make a good movie. This is another thing that cannot take shortcuts. The
industry cannot always count on the emergence of one or two people with movie sentiments to shoulder this responsibility, nor can it always just cut leeks after others have taken the lead. Otherwise, the desolate cycle of backlash will never be achieved. will stop.
