Text | Mou Entertainment As of noon on August 19, the box office of the animated film "White Snake: The Floating Life", which has been in theaters for 10 days, has finally exceeded 300 million. Objectively speaking, the box office of 300 million is not bad this summer. However, f

Text | Mouyu

As of noon on August 19, the box office of the animated movie " White Snake: Floating Life ", which has been released for 10 days, finally exceeded 300 million .

Objectively speaking, the box office of 300 million is not bad this summer. However, for "White Snake: The Floating Life", which received 129 million in the box office on the first day of release, the box office trend in the later period did not meet expectations. Maoyan's box office forecast also started from 0. The 662 million during the screening period has dropped to 544 million today. It is highly likely that it will be difficult to exceed the 570 million box office of " White Snake 2: Green Snake Raises ".

As the third work in the light-chasing animation "White Snake" series, IP itself has accumulated a fixed audience, so "White Snake: The Floating Life" broke the first-day box office record for summer animated movies in the past three years on the first day it was released, and set a new record The first-day box office record for a Light Chasing animated film. The problem with

is that although the influence of classic IP can attract "IP fans" to enter the theater and get off to a good start, if you want to drive more viewers into the theater, you can only rely on the quality and reputation of the film itself , "White Snake" The declining box office trend of "The Floating Life" means that the content of the movie does not actually meet the audience's expectations.

In this year’s summer environment where animated movies are gathering together, the market difficulties encountered by the leading domestic animation label Light Chaser Animation may explain the general poor performance of Chinese comic movies in the summer.

The more technology advances, the more screenwriters regress.

The "White Snake" series is a famous work of light-chasing animation. It is not only the leading IP of the light-chasing brand, but also has considerable influence in the entire domestic comic market. Therefore, in "White Snake: The Floating Life" "Before its release, market expectations were very high, and it was even expected to boost the film market.

But in fact, the box office of "White Snake: The Floating Life" dropped severely on the second day of its release, 50 million less than the first day. 10 days after its release, the single-day box office growth was less than 10 million. This means that has Apart from IP fans who entered the theater on the same day, the movie failed to attract more new audiences. The main reason for the serious lack of stamina of "White Snake: The Floating Life" lies in the plot content.

According to the Douban score, "White Snake: The Floating Life" with a score of 7.1 is actually not bad, and is even better than "White Snake 2". However, as a sequel to the first " White Snake: The Origin of ", it is obviously not qualified. Compared with While complaining about the "bad" plot, more viewers of chose to use "boring" to describe .

If we look at the traditional folk tale White Snake, the first "White Snake: The Origin" is more like a prequel, and the content of the sequel "White Snake: The Floating Life" is actually the main film. The whole movie revolves around the well-known Xu Xian and Bai Snake. There are not many innovations in the adaptation of the story of the lady, which is also the main source of boredom.

In the case of insufficient innovation, "White Snake: The Floating Life" itself has a lot of controversies, and the plot cannot be restored solidly and logically. The climax point of "The Flooding of Jinshan" is omitted, although it is to take over the "White Snake" 2", but to a large extent the plot has difficulty in stimulating the audience's emotions.

A small detail that many viewers may not have noticed is that the story of the first "White Snake: The Origin" is set in the late Tang Dynasty, so "White Snake: The Floating Life" is set five hundred years later when Xiaobai found Xu Xian, the reincarnation of A Xuan. Press The time should be in the early Ming Dynasty, but the background of the movie is set in Lin'an in the Southern Song Dynasty. In order to copy the traditional Xu Bai story background, there are bugs in the basic timeline of the movie, which proves that there is indeed a lack of polish in the script.

takes over the ending of "White Snake: The Origin" and connects the beginning of "White Snake 2: The Rise of the Green Snake". In order not to swallow the setting and make the trilogy form a closed loop, the third part definitely has certain limitations in creation. But the lackluster plot also surprised the audience.

With the failure of "White Snake: The Floating Life" at the box office and word-of-mouth, the entire White Snake series of movies has exposed a problem that is difficult to ignore: not only want to reap the dividends of classic IP, but also want to attract more new users, resulting in light-chasing animation During the creative process, he vacillates between conservatism and innovation..Although

innovation can bring more freshness to the audience, it also needs to face the problem of whether new plots, new settings, and new styles are accepted. There are certain risks, especially when audience preferences and market environment are elusive. , the first two parts of the White Snake series both innovated on the original traditional stories, but their reputations were completely opposite.

Being conservative means being more "safe". Chinese classic traditional stories have a certain audience base, which is conducive to the spread of film content. Currently, most animated films are adapted around traditional classic IPs, but clichéd stories are also unavoidable. It creates boring, tedious problems.

In fact, the adaptation of classic IP in the Chinese comic market is essentially a multiple-choice question in "Would rather be wrong than boring, or would rather be boring than safe" , the cyberpunk-style innovation in "The Robbery of the Green Snake" failed to achieve expectations After the effect, it is normal to choose to play safe in the light chasing animation.

But after playing the safety card, the logic of the entire series of movies became contradictory. "White Snake: The Floating Life" not only retained the plot of the original work, Xu Xian was scared to death by Xiao Bai's original form of the giant snake, but also wanted to subvert the traditional coward. Assume that Xu Xian decided to exchange his life for Xiaobai's life, but this is inconsistent with Xu Xian's cowardly character in the subsequent innovative story "The Green Snake Rips".

oscillates between innovation and playing safe, which is both necessary and harmful to the audience's perception. It exposes the shortcomings of light-chasing animation in plot creation, seriously hinders the aesthetic visual effects, and further deepens the market's understanding of light-chasing animation. Light animation has the impression that "the more technology advances, the more screenwriters regress to ".

is a leading domestic animation brand. The problems encountered by light-chasing animation largely reflect the plight of the entire domestic animation market. As the volume technology exceeds the volume content, domestic animated films are gradually losing steam.

The crisis of the Chinese comic's failure to withdraw from the summer release of the

animated film was vividly demonstrated in this year's summer release.

According to Beacon Professional Edition statistics, a total of 18 animated films have been released in the summer of 2024 so far, 6 of which have a box office of over 100 million. However, among these six films, only one, "White Snake: The Floating Life", is a domestic animated film, with a box office of over 100 million. Ranked third, the remaining five are all imported animated films. The poor performance of Chinese comics has become a phenomenon that cannot be ignored in this summer season.

In fact, there is no shortage of high-quality and big IP movies in this summer’s domestic animated movies, such as the classic Pleasant Goat IP, Ali IP, Erlang Shen IP, and “ Fall”, which has the best reputation among domestic movies in the summer and has a Douban score of 7.9. "Mortal World ", as well as Bai Yueguang's " Umbrella Girl " in the Chinese comic market. The film reserves are actually very strong, but all of them were sold out at the box office without exception.

and " Inside Out 2" and "Volleyball Boy!" which have a box office of over 100 million! ! Compared with imported animated films such as "Battle at the Junkyard", domestic animated films almost all fall behind in terms of plot content.

It is a recognized fact that the technical capabilities of domestic animated films have been significantly improved in recent years, and visual effects have become the advantage of national comics. From this summer’s summer release of the representative of 3D animation "White Snake: The Floating Life" and the representative of 2D animation From the performance of "Umbrella Girl", we can clearly feel the progress of Chinese comics in technical special effects. In contrast to

, where almost all the positive reviews are given to the visual effects, almost all negative reviews are given to the plot. is so beautiful that every frame can be used as a wallpaper, and has a fragmented plot with no new ideas. It’s a regular match for domestic animated movies. The only exception in the summer release of

is "The Legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl", which is a new adaptation and interpretation of the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. It innovates on the basis of the classic IP. The plot is actually relatively complete and innovative, but the problem is that the innovation is too big. Created around the descendants of the Weaver Girl, the popularity and influence of the innovative characters and plots are limited, and the advantages of the classic IP are not used, resulting in a limited spread of the entire film.

In fact, the problems encountered by domestic animated films during the summer season can all be attributed to the lack of plots. With the exception of "Down to Earth", it is difficult for other domestic animated films to tell a complete story. Compared with "Inside Out 2" "Compared with the plot that deeply deconstructs and analyzes the different emotions generated during the growth process and helps the audience complete self-reconciliation, there is still a big gap in depth and value.

In the past ten years since "The Return of the Great Sage" in 2015, the Chinese comic market has experienced a wave of chaos, and the market structure and creative environment have undergone great changes.

At present, the entire domestic comic market presents a "two super and many strong" pattern , with Light Chaser Animation and Light Media running neck and neck. Among them, Light Media has two major brands: Color Bar House and Light Animation.

The top brands, Chasing Animation and Light Media, both chose the same creative track - the Chinese mythology series. They both faced the dilemma of innovation or conservatism in adapting the plot content. They were reluctant to take advantage of the dividends of classic IP and tried again. In order to attract young audiences with innovation, we can only patchwork on the large framework of traditional stories, resulting in the film's plot being neither fish nor fowl.

Compared with the optimization of script creation, leading brands have invested more resources in improving their technical capabilities, establishing a more complete animation production line, and exploring the latest AI technology to increase the production capacity of animated films. Putting film technology above film content, it is inevitable that domestic animated films will focus on plot. This is true for

leading brands, and small brands are flocking to Chinese mythology stories, such as Nezha, Sun Wukong, Erlang Shen... Although these classic IPs have been "bad" in filming, they are still popular among the audience. The popularity can still help animation labels obtain higher returns at the lowest cost.

Under the influence of leading animation brands, the entire domestic comic market has ignored script creation, but audiences are no longer tolerant of domestic animated films. They not only want the ultimate audio-visual experience, but also high-quality plot content. The collective rush of domestic films in the summer season may serve as a warning to the Chinese comic market.