Author | mia
Editor | Li Xunhuan
After the turmoil of name change, "withdrawal" and "click-to-file promotion", the film market's long-awaited rescue work " " has finally arrived.
If the 1.5 billion + dark horse " silently kills " ignited the first fire in the summer season and heated up the lukewarm market, then the top seed player "Catch the Baby" added fuel to the fire, and became the top ticket seller in this summer season. The most powerful candidate.
html On July 13, "Catch a Baby" started a large-scale screening that was "almost equivalent to an early release." The box office revenue on the first day of screening was 156 million yuan, and the movie box office on that day exceeded 300 million yuan. This was the first time since the May Day box office that the single-day box office returned to more than 300 million yuan after 70 days. At 12:26 before the official release, its screening and pre-sale box office had exceeded 500 million. According to Maoyan Professional Edition data, the total box office of "Catch a Baby" is predicted to reach 3.7 billion yuan + , which is basically the same as the box office of last year's summer champion " or ".
The commercial film formulas of Shenma Group, Happy Twist, and Xihong City Universe still work, and the audience still needs comedy. Outside the film, "Lu Chuan commented on "Catch a Baby"" controversy triggered heated discussions. Focusing on the father's educational philosophy of "eating without hardship" in the film, the topic and popularity are escalating, and the controversy continues to ferment.
Comedy or horror: Shen Ma's "Parenting Version of Truman"
The title of "Catch a Baby" is taken from the saying "Education must start from the baby". The Douban score is 7.5, among many movies with a happy twist brand , second only to "Donkey Gets Water" and " Charlotte's Troubles ", which can be regarded as a high score.
As far as comedy films are concerned, "Catch a Baby" has quite a lot of laughs and is not very vulgar. It does not resort to being ugly or peeing. Its comedy effect mainly relies on the contrast caused by poor information and poor cognition. feel. For example, in "Little Boss Poverty Alleviation", Chunlan, played by Ma Li, "showed off her flaws" by entertaining guests with cigar coffee. The whole family bid farewell to Lao Ma in tears and asked him to buy "Hermès Kelly orange lychee peel" when he was working.
But From Ma Jiye's perspective, "Catch a Baby" is a collection of East Asian special editions of hell jokes, and it is also a "horror movie": The tablet is waterlogged and cannot be refunded, the long-distance running dream is destroyed by the parents, and he is bedridden. The grandmother who had been with her for many years suddenly walked like flying, and her death became the node of the "dark night of the soul"...
In the end, like Truman, Ma Jiye learned that his life in the first eighteen years was all fake, and everyone around him was an NPC.
Although many of the early laughs were created by the classic contrast routine of "rich people pretending to be poor", Yan Fei and Peng Damo's ambitions did not stop at simple and straightforward slap-in-the-face cool articles, but tried to be ironic. Discuss educational concepts. Otherwise, when Ma Jiye was bullied when he was picking up a bottle, according to the past Shuangwen thinking, the next step would be to immediately show off his wealth and "slap him in the face".
As the number of moviegoers increases, the reputation of "Catch a Baby" has also become polarized, with a lot of controversy. Some comments in believe that "Catch Me" is influenced by the Indian comedy educational film "Starting Line" and the film history classic "The Truman Show". Some people gave one or two star reviews, saying that the film "films a rich man pretending to be poor to make money from the poor" and "the core of a good comedy is tragedy, but the core of this one is already a horror film". Others gave A four- to five-star review said the film "uses truth to tell the truth" and that the film's level has improved.
It is also the Chinese version of "The Truman Show". "The World of Sketch" in "The Wonderful Night" has a much higher praise rate. What is the problem? "The World of Sketch" is approached from the perspective of questioning and "breaking the fourth wall". It talks about the awakening of self-awareness and free will. It does not joke about trauma. The laughter is mainly based on the parody and deconstruction of the Spring Festival Gala sketch. with sarcasm.
But Due to commercial considerations such as Shen Ma’s higher commercial value and catering to the mainstream educational values in East Asia, "Catch a Baby" is cut from Shen Ma's "parental perspective" from the beginning. Many laughs are based on Ma Jiye's pain, and the The critical and ironic part of the "controlling education" of East Asian parents is vague and even pandering to the affirmative. The victim's awakening part is scrawled and abrupt . He chose to let go of the pain gently and finally ushered in a happy ending, making the whole family happy. The film presents a twisted and contradictory look and feel.
At the end, Ma Jiye's "Who are you two teachers? I didn't see you on the wall" was the victim's question, while Lao Ma's shouting "You also control our lives" was for "What if it's good for you?" He defended the education concept of "everything is right", and the sentence "I can't go home for dinner" was full of taste in the Spring Festival Gala. The "three children" easter egg showed that he did not have a trace of guilt and reflection: this "catch" was useless, Then "catch" the next one. On the other hand, "Crossing the Angry Sea" uses the ending of Nezha's suicide to criticize "loveless education". The father played by Huang Bo in the movie finally expresses his remorse.
The Shen Ma combination, which is highly loved by the people, not only brought huge box office appeal to "Catch a Baby", but also made up for the inherent content problems to a large extent: some of the laughs in were relatively repetitive, and they needed the two of them. With the blessing of joy; through cooperation in movies such as "Charlotte Troubles", " Walking Alone on the Moon " and a series of Spring Festival Gala sketches, Shen Ma's sense of cp can be "sucked in" by many people; the old horse is full of daddy flavor and can be killed by his own hands. The children's dreams and family affection are ruthless from beginning to end. The mother connives with the plan, and the characters do not change and grow. The performance of Shen Teng and Ma Li, who is well-known to the audience, increases the audience's tolerance.
Judging from the number of scenes, although Chunlan is suspected of being a "pending heroine", she is still a big deal. Not only did it help Ma Li become the first actress in Chinese film history to have a box office of more than 20 billion, but as the box office of "Catch a Baby" continues to rise and reaches the 3 billion level, Ma Li will also be nearly 100 ahead of the second place. 100 million.
From "Charlotte Troubles", "The Richest Man in Xihong City " to "Catch the Baby", from "Counterattack of Diaosi" to "Squandering by Rich People" to "Rich Man Pretending to Be Poor", Yan Fei and Peng Damo's creative choices The topics change time and again with the hot topics of the times, but the gap between rich and poor, class gap, money carnival, etc. are the unchanging themes of Yan Peng Group. There are a lot of voices on social media saying "I hope my parents can tell me that there is actually a hidden rich man in the family", which confirms that is generally "muqiangmumu" and people are anxious about rising. Happy twists that step on the public's emotional g-spot can Continued sales.
However, the concepts of "poverty breeds talented people" and "rich families often have losers", it is difficult not to suspect that the creator is catering to the poor. The so-called "poor living" also has a question mark: the private chef disguises sea cucumbers as mushrooms, and there are NPCs practicing questions everywhere on the road. The recent hit "Hillbilly Elegy" by J.D. Vance more fully proves that the poor are mainly poor in their thinking and the difficulty of crossing social classes.
It is not difficult for fans of local short dramas to see familiar shadows in the two hit movies this summer: "Silent Kill" takes the path of heavy-flavored revenge, while "Catch the Baby" takes the "local tyrant costume" The method of "slapping the rich in the face with the poor". Both of these ideas are exciting points that the public can sympathize with. The trend of long-form dramas and movies becoming "short dramas" and focusing on emotions and topics may be inevitable.
Xihong City Universe is taking shape: “Wanda + Confucianism” combination comes to the rescue
“Xihong City Universe” is gradually taking shape.
In "Charlotte Troubles", the fictional "Xihong City" begins to take shape. The place where Xia Luo and Ma Dongmei go to school is "Xihong City No. 7 Middle School", and the hospital is "Xihong City Hospital". In "The Richest Man in Xihong City", the world view of "Xihong City" is further enriched and echoes the previous work.
"Catch a Baby" is inextricably related to "The Richest Man in Xihong City": In 2017, Shen Teng and Ma Li officially announced the film project "Capital Successor" as starring roles.Later, the film was shelved. "The Richest Man in Xihong City" was authorized by Universal Pictures and adapted from the 1985 film "Brewster's Millionaire". Restarted again after many years, is the "original script" of "The Richest Man in Xihong City", and "Catch a Baby" has laid many Easter eggs: the name of the heroine of , Chunlan, echoes Dongmei, Xiazhu, and Lao in the first two works. The place where Ma took his children to pick up plastic bottles was the scene in "The Richest Man in Xihong City" where Wang Duoyu's Daxiang team lost 0:7. The players' jerseys read "Wang D.y". In addition, the supporting actors also have a lot of overlap.
The past success of the Marvel Universe proves that the "movie universe" style of play is undoubtedly conducive to strengthening the IP effect. As an upgraded "sequel", it can effectively reduce the difficulty of publicizing the original IP and arouse the emotional memories of the audience. At the same time, it is also conducive to igniting the imagination of cultural tourism linkage and the multi-dimensional development of IP value such as derivatives development.
turned its attention to the behind-the-scenes capital of "Catch a Baby". Ranked first in the list of producers of "Catch a Baby" is Haikou Xihong Hutong Film and Television Culture Co., Ltd., which is the full subsidiary of Xihong Film and Television Culture (Tianjin) Co., Ltd. capital subsidiary. The latter was established by Peng Anyu (Peng Damo) and Yan Fei the year after the success of "Charlotte Troubles" (2016). Yan and Peng held more than 60% of the shares, while Happy Twist only held 15% of the shares.
The second place behind Xihong City Pictures is Wanda Film and Television. In addition, well-known film companies such as Maoyan, Happy Twist, Ruyi, and Alibaba Pictures are also among the main producers. After
"became a family" with Ruyi Film and Television, just like the joint layout for this year's Spring Festival, 's "Wanda + Ruyi" combination has swept through many potential stocks in this summer's summer season, including many top players: has both sides Participated in the production of films including "I Don't Want to Be Friends with You", "Catch a Baby" and "White Snake: Floating Life"; films dominated by Confucianism include the realistic comedy "Retrograde Life" directed and starred by Xu Zheng; Wanda participated in the production of "Silent Kill", and co-produced Chen Sicheng's " decryption " and Wu Ershan's "Under the Stranger".
From the end of the month to the next month, the seed players are basically taken by two companies. It is not difficult to see that film creation teams with high commercial value are further concentrated in leading companies.
The heating up of the summer season has also driven up the stock prices of many film companies in the secondary market. In early trading on July 15, film and television stocks rose sharply. Tuopu's film market research report for the first half of 2024 also pointed out: Among listed production companies, China Film Investment's films have the highest cumulative box office, followed by Hengdian Film and Television, followed closely by Alibaba Pictures, China Ruyi, and Maoyan Entertainment in box office rankings.
html On July 10, Wanda Film released its first half performance forecast. The data shows that Wanda’s net profit after deducting non-recurring gains and losses in the first half of the year was 71 million yuan – 101 million yuan, a decrease of 75.67% – 82.90% compared with the same period last year. Its performance in the first half of the year was affected by factors such as insufficient supply of leading films in the second quarter, sluggish box office performance of the market, and the overall recovery of the Chinese film market that was less than expected.. But with the arrival of the summer season, it can be expected that Wanda Film’s Q3 performance will be very good."Catch a Baby" sounded the clarion call to "rescue the market", but the KPI for the summer release was still far behind.
According to Beacon Professional Edition, as of 21:00 on July 16, the total box office in the first half of the 2024 summer season (June 1-July 16) was 4.58 billion yuan. At 11:00 on July 22, 2023, the total box office (including pre-sales) of last summer season had exceeded 10 billion. At that time, "The Vanishing Her", "The Octagonal Cage" and "Chang'an 30,000 Miles" were temporarily ranked among the top three. Cheng is succeeded by " Conferred Gods Part 1 " and "Desperate".
Compared with last year, this summer’s summer season lacks at least three blockbuster movies worth over 1 billion yuan (or two movies worth over 2 billion yuan).
"Decryption", "Under the Stranger", "White Snake" and "Retrograde Life" are the most popular first movies among the summer movies that have been released. Their box office will largely determine This summer’s big market.
