11.5 billion yuan. This is the latest box office for the entire summer season at noon on the last day of the summer season. It seems impressive at first glance, but if it hadn't been for the unexpected explosion of "Alien: Death Ship," this summer's final box office mig

1.5 billion yuan.

This is the latest box office for the entire summer season at noon on the last day of the summer season.

looks quite strong at first glance, but if it were not for the unexpected explosion of " Alien: Death Ship ", the final box office of this summer's summer might be less than half of last year's - the strongest summer in history at 20.618 billion.

This year's schedule champion is undoubtedly " Catch a Baby ", with a box office of 3.2 billion. But under "Catch Me", there is only one film that has exceeded one billion, compared with five films last year. There are only three films in total that have exceeded 500 million.

What’s even more surprising is that two of the top five at the box office are imported Hollywood blockbusters, and four of the top ten at the box office are Hollywood films. It's not that Hollywood is so powerful, but that the "seeded players" in domestic films don't perform well overall.

The only blockbuster that met expectations at the box office was "Catch a Baby", and the only real box office dark horse was " Silently Kills ".

Summarize the characteristics of this year’s summer movies: It is difficult for blockbusters to become popular, and it is difficult for dark horses to become popular.

Some experts try to find the answer outside the cinema, such as "The popularity of the Olympics has led to audience diversion."

But these are evasive.

Today we will take a look at the top 3 summer box office hits, as well as 5 blockbusters whose box office did not meet expectations, to see their respective successes and failures.

There are highs and lows at the box office, but heroes should not be judged by success or failure. This year's box office loser may be next year's big winner.

is a solid summer release and the king of box office success.

1. Why is the big winner?

No. 1 box office: "Catch a Baby" Box office: 3.243 billion

It can be said that "Catch a Baby" was screened on a large scale in advance and successfully heated up the market. It is a pity that the next blockbuster , failed to put the The market enthusiasm ignited by the film has continued to burn.

"Catch a Baby" earned 156 million at the box office on the first day of screening, and the single-day box office reached 200 million on the second day of screening. Since then, the film has been unstoppable, breaking through 3 billion all the way, once again proving that the combination of Shen and Ma is the box office myth of Chinese movies.

In the current movie market, comedy is the best box office success, and comedy relies heavily on the audience's recognition of comedians.

Since the May 1st release of "Thelma and Louise" can earn 781 million at the box office, there is no reason why Shen Ma + Jia Bing's "Catch the Baby" should not go further.

With these three trump cards, "Catch Me" doesn't have to rely on vulgar jokes, and it doesn't go the route of being ugly and pissing people off. It relies on the contrast brought by The Truman World to create joy, and it's still funny. Treating guests with cigars and performing a slam dunk with a grandma who has been paralyzed for many years made the theater laugh out loud.

But there is another reason why the film became a hit, and it is the topic of education.

From Ma Jiye's perspective, this "Truman Show" is simply terrifying. The first eighteen years of his life were all fake, and everyone around him except his parents was NPC.

If it weren’t for the hilarious Shen Ma duo playing the parents, this would be a horror film.

In the current involutional education environment, should children be raised poor or rich? This book will trigger endless discussions among countless viewers. Everyone has their own opinions and no one can ever convince anyone.

When the film uses a Shenma combination and a black comedy to carry this theme, box office success is inevitable.

The success of "Catch a Baby" has once again proved that after Chinese movies experienced a box office rush of heavy industrial blockbusters, comedy films have returned to the top of the box office. After all, in this country where memes are everywhere, it is increasingly difficult for the audience to laugh. In this era, laughter is king.

No. 2 box office: "Silent Kill" Box office: 1.349 billion

"Silent Kill" caught everyone off guard when it came out. Many people thought this was a dark horse, but they didn't expect it to be so powerful.

But if you successfully summarize the box office success of last summer's summer season, you will find that the film is actually a domestic "Southeast Asian Crime Universe" "thrilling spectacle + strong topic" movie.

"The Disappearance" specializes in dealing with scumbags, "Desperate" is about "more people watching the movie and less people being cheated", and "Silent Kill" is about "preventing school violence and retaliating with tooth".

In this era where the audience’s demands for watching movies are becoming more and more simple and crude, only thrillers that directly attack the public’s inner fears, preferably summarizing all the selling points in one sentence, can become dark horses at the box office.

Ke Wenli, who studied under Chen Sicheng, has learned the secret to making hits.

's sharp personal image style, exquisite audio-visual aesthetics of crime films, and a plot that is far "harder and more heart-wrenching" than traditional suspense films, including sealing mouths with glue, throwing corpses from high places, revenge in the night, and hammering one after another. The character design of "Evil Man" and the outstanding performances of actors such as Wang Shengdi, Wang Chuanjun, Cai Ming, etc. are indicative of this.

directly attacks the dark side of human nature and faces social topics such as school bullying, domestic violence, child abuse, and violation. This is where.

The film features a large amount of thriller elements, many controversial topics and large-scale scenes, like a spicy taste bomb, full of emotional topics, the audience will not be bored in the theater, and everyone can talk about it after leaving the theater.

If it doesn’t explode, who will?

This is why "Rebirth", which is almost the same as "Rage" in terms of subject matter, genre, and audio-visual style, has also won 288 million.

A crime thriller with strong topics, strong twists and fierce visuals, it will be a stable box office player in the summer.

Together with comedies, they form an unparalleled pair of dark horses at the box office of domestic films.

No. 3 box office: "Alien: Death Ship" Box office: 610 million

The global box office of "Alien: Death Ship" has approached US$300 million. The predicted domestic box office is 800 million+, and the budget for a movie is only 8,000 For an R-rated film that cost US$10,000 and was originally planned to be invested in streaming media, it far exceeded expectations. No wonder the director personally wrote a letter of thanks to the Chinese audience.

Some people attribute the success of the film to the IP effect, which obviously misses the point. The total domestic box office of Ridley Scott's "Prometheus" + "Covenant" cannot beat "The Last Ship" .

The real reason: is not that it is "Alien", but that it is the best science fiction thriller in domestic theaters in recent years.

Domestic horror film audiences have been hungry for so many years and suddenly discovered a good thing. How could they not gather in the theater?

Facts have proved that what audiences love to watch is no longer high-cost visual blockbusters, but large-scale movies that are powerful, fierce and top-notch.

In a closed space, the extremely stylized "Alien: Death Ship" is like a space movie The highlight of the high-difficulty version of "A Quiet Place" is to create a visual spectacle of avoiding alien slime in the weightless state of space.

For movie-watching needs that cannot be met by domestic films, whoever can provide the box office will own it.

The factor behind Miao Hand Ou Wan’s box office success is that the film also unintentionally touched the hearts of countless working people.

The reason why the heroine in the film had to go to outer space to find an abandoned cabin to feed the aliens was because after working 12,000 hours, she could have changed planets, but was temporarily stipulated to add another 12,000 hours.

Workers can never get off work, perhaps more terrifying than any alien.

2. Why didn’t they explode?

After looking at the box office winners, let’s look at the seed players who didn’t explode at the box office. What’s the reason?

What needs to be pointed out again is that I don’t think they are losers. Even in terms of film quality, there are many excellent films below. They just have not caught up with this box office trend.

Part 1: " decrypted "

The biggest problem with "Decrypted" is that it is not very successful at the box office, but a movie that is not a hit may not be a good movie.

When Chen Sicheng bravely stepped out of his comfort zone and challenged biopics, a genre with a very high threshold for viewing, and at the same time added high-IQ duels and spy battles, a huge adventure began.

Prior to this, from the "Detective Chinatown" series to the "Manslaughter" series invested and supervised by him, and then to "She Disappeared", his grasp of social hot spots and public sentiments and the presentation of crime spectacles were unrivaled. As long as he continues down this path, he is unlikely to lose.

But Chen Sicheng finally made "Decryption", a movie that paved the way for Chinese movies.

The movie is adapted from Mai Jia’s first novel, with a luxurious supporting cast of Chen Daoming, Daniel Wu, and Yu Feihong. Chen Sicheng also injected enough entertainment elements into the film.

Such as the master-disciple duel.

From the beginning of the master-disciple playing chess, the teacher stole a chess piece, then the teacher stole Rong Jinzhen’s notebook, and finally, Rong Jinzhen bypassed the fog, cracked the secret, and took the credit Give in and save your mentor from prison.

The whole contest is like a chess game, forming a perfect closed loop.

The movie also uses classic spy movie techniques. For example, after Rong Jinzhen cracked the password, we killed the enemy agent at the last minute and shattered the enemy's plan to assassinate the leader.

Chen Sicheng also invited Wang Baoqiang to play the blind man A Bing in "The Conspiracy", completing a tribute.

There are suspense, stories, feelings, and twists. Chen Sicheng has done everything he can to make "Decryption" a box office success.

But the box office ultimately stayed at just over 300 million. I think there are two reasons.

First of all, it is too ambitious and has too many branches, making it difficult for ordinary viewers to calm down and understand it.

Secondly, the artistic style of the film makes it difficult to sink.

In the final analysis, Chen Sicheng took the initiative to abandon the box office hit model he created and chose to be profound and innovative.

But it can be seen that young people are not very convinced about this kind of innovation.

Chen Sicheng was right, and so were the audience. It was Chen Sicheng’s decryption of the audience that was wrong this time.

The second part: " Under the Stranger "

The biggest problem of "Under the Stranger" is that it challenges the superhero blockbusters that compete with Marvel and DC, but this is a shrinking market.

Although similar to last year's " Conferred Gods Part 1 ", Wu Ershan started a "foreigner training camp" for traditional martial arts training. The film's ambition to challenge high difficulty and break through genres is also worthy of recognition, but the comic book movie is the biggest The difficulty lies in breaking the circle.

Wu Ershan's past works "Painted Skin II" and "Searching for the Dragon" were big fantasy IPs. "Fengshen Part 1" naturally has a huge audience, and it is easy to break out of the circle once it is filmed, but "Under the Stranger" is relatively It's a niche movie, even if it's a well-received drama, it's not a ratings hit.

failed to make money at the box office, which is actually not unexpected.

First, the movie coincided with Marvel's comeback "Deadpool and Wolverine", and the audience had more viewing options;

Second, the movie failed to break through in the end.

It can be seen that the 2.6 billion box office miracle of "Fengshen Part 1" has given all parties a lot of confidence.

So they are willing to give director Wu Ershan another try in the fantasy genre.

But perhaps the huge box office success of the fantasy genre was an accident.

Even if Wu Ershan "accidentally" created several box office miracles, it is still an accident, not inevitable.

The third part: " Retrograde Life "

Xu Zheng made a technically more perfect movie with a very mature overall narrative, but he failed to replicate the success of " I am not the god of medicine ".

Because the audience has changed.

Some people accuse "Retrograde Life" of consuming suffering.

But if a movie that talks about the economic trend, social reality, mid-life crisis, and the reality of delivery workers through the profession of "delivery workers" is about consumption suffering, then how can we make this subject so that it is not consumption suffering?

Is it true that if you don’t shoot, you won’t suffer from consumption? But if you don’t take pictures, the hardships faced by delivery workers will disappear?

Perhaps Xu Zheng’s only miscalculation was that he starred in this movie himself. If he was just the director and stood behind the movie, maybe the clamor of “a rich man playing a poor man and letting the poor buy a ticket to see it” would be smaller.

In fact, Xu Zheng used mostly powerful actors such as Wang Xiao, Jia Bing, Feng Bing, Ding Yongdai, and Ding Jiali. They were not "208" at all, but the audience couldn't care less.

A small wing flapped by the audience’s emotions eventually formed an emotional storm and affected the movie’s box office performance.

But I still insist that the video is worth watching.

The fourth part: "A Dream of Red Mansions: A Good Marriage"

After the film was questioned, director Hu Mei posted many posts on Weibo to prove that "Daiyu is not ugly", and told about her 18 years of creative difficulties, and also posted many photos of Zhang Miaoyi. stills.

If you have actually watched the movie instead of just looking at the screenshots taken by bloggers, you will probably agree that Zhang Miaoyi plays Lin Daiyu, at least from the appearance point of view, there is really nothing wrong with it.

But the film’s box office failure was no accident.

First, Dream of Red Mansions has never been a topic for a blockbuster movie. The reason is very simple. After the classic version of Dream of Red Mansions, both Hong Kong, Taiwan and domestic entertainment have produced many works on the theme of Red Mansions, so that we naturally think that this is a hot topic, but have so many works ever exploded? There is not even one of

.

Secondly, the movie adaptation is too powerful.

Hu Mei’s idea of ​​strengthening the elements of intrigue and business war to improve the watchability of the film is correct. The question is, if the audience wants to see plot, why should they watch Dream of Red Mansions?

Can it be successful if we accurately restore the Dream of Red Mansions? Even more impossible.

Because the older generation of viewers who like Dream of Red Mansions will not come to the theater at all.

From a commercial point of view, this movie is not a question of how to shoot it, but a question of whoever shoots it is almost impossible to explode.

So will the Dream of Red Mansions TV series that Zheng Xiaolong is preparing be successful? I think so.

Because movie audiences and TV audiences are never the same group.

The fifth part: " Safe Evacuation from the 21st Century "

"Safe Evacuation from the 21st Century" is undoubtedly the most surprising movie in the summer.

is Li Yang’s first feature film in ten years, directed by the highly acclaimed short film "The Adventures of Li Xianji". The film can be called the "domestic version of "The Instant Universe"". Before its release, almost all film critics called it a masterpiece, creating a A film that is about to replicate the momentum of a dark horse that made billions at the box office in the past.

I believe that the feelings of film critics are true, but the reputation of film critics is never equal to the public's reputation, let alone the box office.

Take a plot as an example.

Wu Xiaoliang plays a highly skilled thug under the Third Master. His martial arts skills actually originated from a "Street Fighter" game card he borrowed from Wang Zhao, played by Zhang Ruoyun, when he was 18 years old.

In order to defeat this opponent, Wang Zha traveled back to 1999, replaced the game card given to Han Guang with the "Movie Girl" comic, and then traveled back to 2019. Han Guang has become an obese otaku.

Obviously, this kind of ingenuity and nonsensical absurdity with black humor will be a masterpiece if you get it, but if you don’t get it, you will be on pins and needles in the theater.

Some people believe that the film did not seize the opportunity to release the film, which triggered the evaluation of "abstract" and "incomprehensible" after the scale of screening was expanded, causing the film's final box office to stop at 110 million.

This view underestimates word-of-mouth communication in the era of social media. Could it be that the film is rushing to be released, so these word-of-mouth controversies cannot be spread?

The biggest problem with the film is not the screening strategy at all, but that it is simply a niche dark horse among movie fans, and cannot be a dark horse at the public box office.

Li Yang tried his best, and the score of 7.6 on Douban proves that the film critics are not fooling around. It just didn't explode.

didn’t explode, it’s not wrong.

3. Summary of the summer movie: Chen Sicheng’s prediction has been half fulfilled

In addition to the 8 movies mentioned above, there are of course many movies with good box office in the summer movie, such as " There is a Commissary by the Cloud" "Healing movies like "Despicable Me 4" and cartoons like "White Snake: The Floating Life".

But the ratings of these movies are not high, hovering around 6-7 points. Another problem with

is the lack of discussion.

The performance of the summer movie market reminds me of Chen Sicheng’s predictions 5 years ago.

What kind of movie will be a hit in theaters?

He believes that one is a blockbuster with a high industrial level, and the other is a movie with strong social attributes and high topicality.

But this summer’s box office success is the latter.

In addition, we can also see three hidden worries about Chinese movies.

First, those who can sink the market will win the world.

The top three box office releases this summer, "Catch a Baby", "Silent Kill" and "There's a Shop in the Clouds" all performed well in third- and fourth-tier cities. "Catch a Baby" is a comedy, and "Catch a Baby" relied on Golden Platycodon, Platycodon grandiflorum, Various spreads of thriller elements. "There is a Canteen by the Clouds" is an adaptation of the best-selling literary IP.

does not mean to complain about the sinking market, but if the top three at the box office are determined by the sinking market, then the aesthetics of the entire Chinese film industry can only collectively turn downwards, whatever is vulgar, but aesthetics can be popular, but it should not single.

Second, those who win word of mouth are no longer bound to win the world.

From a word-of-mouth perspective, the domestic films with the best ratings on Douban during the summer season, such as "Stop and Go", "Safe Escape from the 21st Century", and "The Hedgehog", did not have high box office numbers.

The era when the summer release of "I'm Not the God of Medicine" relied on word-of-mouth to counterattack seems to be fading away. Low scores will still drive away customers, but high scores may not attract audiences. The word-of-mouth effect of the film is losing its effectiveness.

And bad reviews of movies are no longer just bad things. For example, the word-of-mouth controversy of "Catch a Baby", the "girl abuse" question of "Silence", and the "chicken soup" evaluation of "There is a Canteen in the Clouds" did not prevent the film from becoming a hit. payment.

The focus is on the topic itself, not on whether it is a good or bad review. Once the box office explodes, bad reviews can also attract viewers to come and find out.

Third, the topic is more important than the movie.

If there is anything that is the biggest change in the Chinese film market, it is that the content of the film is no longer important.

As movie fans and audiences are increasingly lost, movies are increasingly relying on the sinking market. Any movie that can get the buzz has a chance to become a hit. There are fewer discussions about movies, replaced by emotions and issues.

Even if it is a Hollywood movie, such as "The Last Ship", it is still a topic of unexpected success.

A rule can be summed up in this summer’s movie:

The box office of a movie is linked to the topic. Breaking the circle + strong emotions equals a big hit.

Throughout the summer season, no movie relied on the charm of movies in the traditional sense to make it out of the spotlight. The topic of

is booming. The selling points of past movies are failing.

Visual blockbusters with big investment and big production no longer work.

Director titles and big stars are not easy to use either.

The success or failure of a movie's box office is more determined and influenced by forces outside of the movie.

Chinese filmmakers are entering a space capsule where aliens are lurking and are full of crises. They are facing a silent destruction of all past successful experiences. In this new box office game of catching dolls, no one dares to say that they will be able to catch them. Live doll.

Perhaps, except for the Shen Ma combination comedy and the "Southeast Asian Crime Universe" thriller for the time being.

One month later, many popular movies will be released on the National Day schedule.

includes Andy Lau and Zhang Zifeng's new film "Danger Line", Xiao Yang's "Safety", Ning Hao and Ge You's "Breaking Good", Jackie Chan's new film "Panda Project", and Chen Kaige and Zhu Yilong's "Volunteer Army" Part 2, etc.

each has the potential to become a hit, but the final winner should still depend on who has a bigger topic. How does

bring the lost young audiences back to the theater? The answer is no longer "visual effects", "story" and "stars". In today's Chinese movies, no matter who is king at the box office, traffic topics are king.

movie box office, what else are you doing in movies?