author | mia
editor | Akagi Bottle
Contrary to the popularity of the drama market, the movie market has become cold again. Recently, there has been almost no movie that has attracted public attention and can break the topic. Recently, the topic # Dragon Boat Festival is the worst in the past ten years has become a hot search topic.
According to data from Maoyan Professional Edition, as of 21:00 on June 10th, Beijing time, the total box office of China's Mainland Dragon Boat Festival (June 8th to 10th) in 2024 was 378 million yuan, which was far lower than market expectations. The lowest box office performance in ten years, , was even lower than the 430 million yuan level in 2014. In contrast to last year's 911 million yuan box office performance, it was particularly bleak.
html There are 111 films gathered together, but no new film has a box office of over 100 million during the period. The total number of movie viewings during the period was as high as 1.391 million, setting a record for the total number of "Dragon Boat Festival" movies in Chinese film history. However, the total box office revenue and total number of moviegoers for both fell by more than 50% year-on-year.
has had a cold start, can it take advantage of the summer season?
No blockbuster "ballast": mid-range movies are rolling in and out
There are signs of the collapse of the Dragon Boat Festival earlier.
Before the start of the schedule, the films of " Negotiator ", " Anti-CrimeĀ·Never Give Up ", " I Don't Want to Be Friends with You ", " American Civil War " were released a few days in advance. The scale points to . As of 17:14 on June 8, the box office (including pre-sales) during the 2024 Dragon Boat Festival (June 8-June 10) exceeded 100 million.
As influencer marketing and short video marketing gradually fail, audiences are more inclined to rely on relatives and friends for goodwill and real word-of-mouth, and the role of screenings is increasingly valued by film producers. From last year's "The Octagon" to this year's " Kowloon Walled City: The Siege ", the box office counterattack is closely related to the screening strategy. Generally speaking, films with excellent reputation and topicality are more suitable for screening. .
However, the box office of several films has stopped at tens of millions, and none of them has really gained reputation and topic popularity, which basically indicates that it is difficult for a dark horse to appear in . On the first day of the schedule, the market was also quite lukewarm: the total box office on that day was less than 130 million, and there was no film with a single-day box office of more than 25 million. was "pulled down" evenly.
Throughout the entire schedule, there are various types of new films, and their reputation is not bad.
"The Negotiator", "Never Give Up", "I Don't Want to Be Friends with You", " Stop and Go " and other major domestic films have Douban scores of 7.4, 6.9 and 6.6 respectively. , 7.9 points, "American Civil War", "Mad Max: Fury Goddess" and "Robot Dream" three imported films, Douban scores are 6.4 points, 7.5 points, 9.1 points respectively, its genres include literature and art, comedy, action, suspense , animation, etc., none of them "failed", and there were many high-scoring works.
is not brought down by word of mouth, so what is the problem?
There is no "top blockbuster" with enough weight to support the market, and the market is hot. The mid-range movies are reeling, which is an obvious problem this year. On the contrary, basically every Dragon Boat Festival stall that can be called a big hit has a blockbuster movie. For example, in 2018 and 2023, the total box office for both periods exceeded 900 million+. The former has "Jurassic World 2" and the latter has the topical hit "The Lost Girl."
is also a small three-day period. This year's Qingming Festival broke the historical record, and it is also inseparable from the collaboration between Hayao Miyazaki's new film "How Do You Want to Live" and the two popular movies "Godzilla vs. Kong 2" .
Specifically, basically every film has its own inherent weakness of being "difficult to get out of the circle".
The youth film "I Don't Want to Be Friends with You", a "drama-turned-movie", reproduces the powerful combination of "Wanda + Confucianism + Huaqiang Fantawild". According to Maoyan Professional Edition, the film's cumulative exposure and spread on the entire network is as high as 2.229 billion times. The comedy and time-travel genre attracted a group of young audiences and became the box office champion of the period by a slight advantage. However, it did not reach the reputation level of the series of the same name, and its reputation during the period was relatively low.
Another one that is relatively popular and leads the list of people who want to watch it is "Sweep the Crime: Never Give Up", produced by Enlight Pictures and backed by traffic star Fan Chengcheng. However, the name and subject matter are not attractive, and the audience is not interested in similar movies. The main theme has long been "desensitized".
"The Negotiator" is adapted from the Hollywood classic "Ace vs. Ace". It is another Hong Kong film launched by Lian Sui Pictures after "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City". The formula is familiar but the innovation is insufficient.
"Stop and Go" starring Hu Ge and Gao Yuanyuan, both produced by Matt Films, are both Woody Allen-style sketches. Many people have compared it to "The Myth of Love". It also won three awards in the main competition section: Best Film, Best Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress at the Beijing International Film Festival. Generally speaking, the film's commercial attributes are not very outstanding, but its "life flow" literary and artistic attributes are obvious, and its main audience is movie fans.
Warner Bros.'s "Mad Max: Goddess of Fury", as the fifth part of the series, continues the style of wasteland + motorcycles + heavy metal, and has a high level of industrial aesthetics, but as a prequel it adds a lot of "fill-in settings" and In the part of "laying out the world view", the coolness has not reached the level of the previous game. The previous film "Mad Max 4: Fury Road" has a Douban score of 8.7, making it a classic among movie fans. It is also the highest score and an anomaly in the entire series. It is quite difficult to surpass it.
The animated "Garfield", which was released as early as June 1st, became the third runner-up in the Dragon Boat Festival, which proved from the side how "unbeatable" the new film is.
In addition to the content factors of the film mentioned above, which restrict the breakout, objectively speaking, this year's Dragon Boat Festival coincides with the college entrance examination season. It is in early June, and many student groups have not yet had a holiday. To a certain extent, Affected schedule performance. According to the statistics of in previous years, when the Dragon Boat Festival is in late June, it is more able to release the period bonus.
The crowded number of videos has always been a problem and is related to changes in the market environment in the post-epidemic era. The number of high-frequency viewers of has decreased, while the number of low-frequency viewers has increased. Most viewers only watch movies once a year during a major period. The market is cold on weekdays and increases suddenly during holidays - the industry has to fall into a cycle of "schedule dependence" and medium-sized films intertwining with each other. The
Beacon Professional Edition "Changing Trends in Audiences' Ticket Purchase Decisions" report shows that the box office of the Spring Festival + summer season in 2023 accounts for more than half of the whole year, of which the box office of the Spring Festival season in 2023 accounts for 12.53% of the whole year, and the box office of the summer season in 2023 accounts for the whole year 37.54%. The proportion of high-frequency viewers who watch movies 6 times or more in 2023 is less than 10%, which is significantly lower than in 2019, but the per capita ticket purchase frequency is higher; In 2023, more than half of the viewers will only watch movies once a year. , the low-frequency movie viewing population is 260 million (estimated), an increase from 230 million (estimated) in 2019. This means that during the next holiday period, there will still inevitably be a "crowd" situation.
After the summer market opened at a low level, can it still go up?
The slump in the Dragon Boat Festival has been doomed and it has had a bad start. 's next hope is to bet on whether the summer season can be sustained in the future.
Summer season has always been the main battlefield for animated movies. , this week will usher in the hot-blooded Japanese comic IP "Volleyball Boy!" ! "Junkyard Battle" and Guan Hu's new film "Dog Formation". The former is expected to continue the momentum of Japanese comic films at the domestic box office in recent years. The latter, as a minimalist and subtractive literary film, has just won the first prize at the Cannes Film Festival. This attention unit won the grand prize and has a good reputation according to visual inspection, but it is not the type to leverage the market.
html In late June, the key films include "Inside Out 2," the sequel to Pixar's high-scoring IP masterpiece, and "There's a Shop in the Clouds," which currently has the largest number of people wanting to watch it on Maoyan. "There is a Canteen by the Clouds" is adapted from Zhang Jiajia's best-selling book of the same name. Zhang Jiajia himself serves as the director and screenwriter. Due to the huge fan base of the original work, it can be said that it became a hit before it was released. However, based on the reputation of works written and directed by Zhang Jiajia such as "Passing Through Your World" and "The Ferryman", the film's ratings may not be optimistic.'s key film scheduled for July is the romance film "Welcome to Me" starring Yu Shi. You can look forward to the appeal of the traffic niche. Qiu Litao's " Customs Front ", starring Nicholas Tse and Jacky Cheung."Legend", the second part of Jackie Chan's classic action film "Myth" in 2005, is still produced by Tang Jili and Jackie Chan, as well as Universal Pictures' popular animated IP "Minions" and "Despicable Me 4".
html On the Chinese Valentine's Day in August, there will be the third part of the "White Snake" series "White Snake: Floating Life " produced by Light Chaser Animation and a combination of "Wanda + Confucianism". In addition, today Xu Zheng announced that his new film "Retrograde Life" directed and starring will be released on August 9. It is worth looking forward to whether the return to realism can ignite the market.
In addition, a few days ago, Maoyan Summer Film Festival officially released the first batch of film lists called Summer Film Carnival , including "A Quiet Place: Invasion Day", "Silent Kill", " Umbrella Girl ", "Decryption", " Rebirth ā, āInverse Scaleā, āWhite Snake: The Floating Lifeā and Shen Teng and Ma Li star in an untitled new film (speculated to be the happy twist comedy āCatch the Babyā), a total of 8 works.
Six of them have not yet been released. Maoyan is currently producing the murder suspense film "Silent Kill" directed by "Manslaughter" director Ke Wenli, the animated film "Umbrella Girl", and Ruan Jingtian's renewed crime spree after "The Three Evils". The film "Rebirth". The unreleased new film starring Shen Teng and Ma Li and the suspense film "Decryption" directed by Chen Sicheng and adapted from Mai's novel are most likely to be blockbuster hits. The crime film "Reverse Scale" starring Shen Teng is contrary to his usual comedy appearance. It also has a certain degree of freshness and appeal.
As of June 12, has 74 films scheduled for summer release, but there is still a lack of real "fixing success". Wu Ershan has previously announced that "Feng Shen 2" will not be included in the summer release due to the escalation of post-production workload and visual effects difficulty. Among the three giants that may enter the summer release, "Nezha: The Devil Boy", the IP sequel to the top 4 box office in film history "Sea" and "Jiang Yuan Nong", which has star casts that are as luxurious as the Spring Festival Gala and are hotly topical, have yet to be finalized. "Catch the Baby", a twist comedy that reunites Yan Fei, Peng Damo and Shen Teng, Ma Li, may become the most popular. A potential explosive seed player.
When the entire industry is facing the problem of insufficient funds, it has become a foreseeable long-term trend to stay together, promote cost reduction and increase efficiency, and to concentrate large-scheduled and high-quality head projects at the top. In addition to "Maotao sharing the world", "Wanda + Confucianism" will become a powerful faction that cannot be ignored.
In the upcoming Shanghai International Film Festival, there is a high probability that new films will be announced. Whether it can counterattack in the summer will depend on the weight of new entrants.
