On August 31, the 2024 Chinese film summer season ended. During the three-month period, the performance was not as expected - according to data from the National Film Administration, the total box office for the 2024 summer season (June 1 to August 31) was 11.643 billion yuan. At

At the seventh "China Film New Forces Forum" held recently during the Changchun Film Festival, Mao Yu, deputy director of the Central Propaganda Film Bureau, said: "Since the summer season, although about a hundred films have entered the market, The performance of the market has sounded a warning to us. Compared with the same period last year, the number of audiences and box office dropped by 22%, highlighting the deep-seated and structural problems of Chinese movies. "The crisis has arrived and change is imminent."

cannot catch up with the entire summer schedule

, which is more than 90 days long, with just one " catch the baby ". There cannot be only one top work that can "heat up the scene". Taking last year's summer season as an example, the works that exceeded 3 billion yuan in box office include "All or Nothing" and "The Lost Girl", the ones that exceeded 2 billion yuan were " The Gods Part 1 " and "The Octagonal Cage", and the ones that exceeded 1 billion yuan were His works include " Chang'an Thirty Thousand Miles ". However, in this summer's summer season, there is only one "Catch a Baby" with a rating of more than 3 billion yuan, a movie with a rating of 2 billion yuan or more is absent, and "Silent Kill" is a movie with a rating of 1 billion yuan or more.

The shortage of heavyweight blockbusters has meant that this year’s summer season is still in a “cold market” after nearly half of the season, until July 13, when “Catch a Baby” began to be screened in advance on a large scale. On that day, driven by the film, the single-day box office reached 308 million yuan. This was the first time that the single-day box office of the market exceeded 300 million yuan since the beginning of the summer season this year. It was also the first time that the box office of the market exceeded 300 million yuan in a single day after 70 days since May 4 this year. exceeded 300 million yuan.

The box office success of "Catch a Baby" is not difficult to understand. The lovable comedy genre, coupled with the high-ethnic combination of Shen Teng and Ma Li, made the audience feel as if they had returned to the family-friendly atmosphere of the Spring Festival.

After "Catch a Baby" continued to maintain the Japanese crown for more than half a month, " Retrograde Life " directed and starring Xu Zheng and the Chinese comic sequel " White Snake: Floating Life " successively tried to take over. However, both films only surpassed "Catch Me" on their opening day, and then lost their grip on the market. By mid-August, as the money-attracting capacity of "Catch a Baby", the top summer film, was almost saturated, the market once again fell into a situation of "leaderless".

The remake of " A Dream of Red Mansions " has been criticized miserably, and IP has become a double-edged sword

One of the most controversial works in this summer's release is " A Dream of Red Mansions: A Good Match " directed by Hu Mei. As of press time, the film had a rating of 3.6 on Douban, with more than 58% of netizens giving it a low score of 1 star. The film was "better than 0% of romance films and better than 1% of costume films" on the Douban platform. This film, which is positioned as a "youth version of "A Dream of Red Mansions"", has caused complaints from netizens in almost every aspect, from casting, plot, and performances to persuasion and soundtrack.

Netizens who have read the original novel of "A Dream of Red Mansions" and the 1987 version of "A Dream of Red Mansions" have set off a wave of error correction on the Internet. For example, netizens pointed out that the characters in the film had many behaviors that were inconsistent with their historical background and social status: Zhou Rui's family went to pick up Lin Daiyu, but they sat directly in Lin Daiyu's sedan; Bao Dai was playing in bed, and the maid squatted under the window and said, "They every It's like this every time, they roll together without even using a stick of incense." Bao Dai got into trouble, and Zi Juan and Xi Ren said, "We can't control it, let's go." Zhou Rui's family also complained in front of everyone that Sister Feng was owed money... Some netizens said with a smile: "I admire the status of the workers in this film."

"Dream of Red Mansions" has been remade again and again, but it has been ridiculed that "one Dai is not as good as one." Are classics outdated? Netizen "Soup Noodles" commented: "It is unfair to "Dream of Red Mansions" to talk about whether the original work is outdated when the remake has not even reached the passing mark." As for the film, it was originally made for young people born in the 90s and 00s. Some netizens refuted the statement: "I don't like watching it! The '00s' generation will not take the blame!"

Under many negative reviews, "A Dream of Red Mansions: A Beautiful Marriage", a remake of the four famous classics, encountered market backlash. As of the time of writing, the total box office Only 5.3476 million yuan.

In addition, Wu Ershan's live-action movie "Under the Stranger" adapted from the popular comic "Under the Stranger" also encountered verbal and written criticism from fans of the original work. The latter did not reproduce the box office glory of last year's "Fengshen Part 1" directed by Wu Ershan.

Chinese comics have big applause but little box office, and they still need to work hard to stabilize their position.

In the 2019 summer season, "Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes into the World" became the top of the schedule, with a box office of 4.346 billion yuan during the period. Last summer, "Chang'an 30,000 Miles" ranked among the top five summer box office movies, with a box office of over 1.6 billion yuan during the period. But this summer, Chinese comics failed to have similar hits. "White Snake", the third part of the "White Snake" legend series, had the best market performance among Chinese comics released in the summer, with a box office of 390 million yuan. However, this result is far inferior to last year's "Chang'an 30,000 Miles", and even worse than the first two works in this series. The Douban score of 7.9 for "Down to Earth" created by the Guangzhou team proves that it has entered the high-scoring Chinese comic series. Audiences commented that it is "a dark horse", "a feast of Chinese visual aesthetics" and "no worse than Chasing Light and Color Strip House". However, as of the time of writing, the film had grossed 38.04 million yuan in box office during the period, and its good reputation has not fully stimulated the movie-going craze.

Why is it so difficult to get a good result on the big screen for a highly anticipated Chinese comic? In addition to the lack of major hits in the film market this year and the live broadcast of the Olympic Games attracting more national attention, it is also because compared with other genres, the audience of Chinese comics is more concentrated on the mainstream group of Chinese films - young audiences. As a result, big-screen Chinese comics have to compete not only with rivals released at the same time, but also with various more mature animation works in large numbers and styles on the Internet, as well as richer entertainment consumption methods.

At the "China Film New Power Forum", Mao Yu, deputy director of the Central Propaganda Film Bureau, pointed out: "The number of moviegoers in China is still decreasing, and the problem of young audiences alienating theaters has not been effectively changed. The film industry must be sober. Realize: Today’s film competition is not a competition between film companies, but a competition between film companies, but about mutual encouragement and mutual unity to cooperate with various forms of entertainment such as short videos, online games, online live broadcasts, vertical screen dramas, and virtual reality cultural and travel experiences. Competition, how can people still think about the beauty of movies while enjoying the joy of traveling, enjoying the scenery and hanging out with friends? "

[Analysis]

"Summer Movie" does not need to exist?

Don’t be fooled by the temporary film shortage!

In 2024, Chinese movies’ New Year’s Day, Spring Festival, Qingming, and May Day movies all set new box office records. Why did Dudu fail to achieve success at the box office during its summer season? As a period when most people don’t take vacations, is it still necessary for the “summer period” to exist?

“This year’s summer schedule is not as good as expected, not because of the schedule itself, but because the heavyweight films accumulated in the past few years have been released one after another.” A cinema insider told reporters, “Although the summer schedule seems to have an influx of nearly 100 movies, movie, but in fact the schedule has encountered a real film shortage."

Mao Yu, deputy director of the Central Propaganda Film Bureau, also pointed out that "the product supply of Chinese films is still insufficient, high-quality content is scarce, and high-quality, diverse, especially representative films. There are still very few large-scale productions at the film industry and technological level, and they cannot yet meet the needs of the audience."

Combined with the summer season, Hollywood blockbusters that once dominated this period have obviously lost their box office advantage in recent years. This year, only "Alien: Deathstroke" broke the 500 million yuan box office mark. "Deadpool and Wolverine ", "Despicable Me 4", "Inside Out 2" and other IP-based seed works have only received A box office of three to four billion yuan. Judging from the box office, today's Hollywood blockbusters can only be regarded as ordinary genre films in the summer season. For example, many people went to see "Alien" for the horror effect, and "Deadpool and Wolverine" for the comedy. "Despicable Me 4" and "Inside Out 2" satisfied their parents during the summer. A must for watching cartoons with your children.

Domestic films play the leading role, and the burden placed on the creators is particularly heavy.This summer's summer schedule is like a quiz, which proves that although there are many movies in the schedule, only one "Catch Me" is "good". In fact, "Retrograde Life" directed by Xu Zheng was also a box office seed, but the film encountered a certain influence of online public opinion, and the box office only crossed the 300 million yuan mark during the final period.

Regarding the impact of online public opinion on movies, Mao Yu also pointed out this time: "The development environment of Chinese movies is becoming increasingly complex, and the impact of online public opinion on movies is intensifying. In the era of self-media, everyone is a self-media, and there are a thousand viewers for every thousand. The phenomenon of Hamlet is becoming more and more obvious, and the emotional expressions of film reviews are becoming more sharp and sharp. It is even more necessary for us to produce movies that can withstand the scrutiny of thousands of eyes. It is even more necessary for us to respect the voices of the audience, and it is even more necessary for us to treat the audience calmly, rationally, and equally. "

In the final analysis, the problem of summer movies is the current dilemma facing the Chinese film industry. In this regard, Mao Yu gave five directions for solving the problem: good stories, creative innovation, industrial change, global perspective and shared mission. "So far, our cinemas have 200 million fewer viewers than last year. I believe it's not that they don't love movies anymore, it must be that our movies don't satisfy them in the sense of the story." Mao Yu said, "We have The most professional and tolerant audience in the world."

When domestic filmmakers rise to the challenge, insist on innovation, and get out of the "film shortage", the Chinese film market will still have a hot summer season next year.

Article | Reporter Li Li