Text | Mirror Entertainment, Author | Gu Zhenguan After the summer sales were sluggish, it has become increasingly important to see whether the National Day sales, the third largest time of the year, can inject a boost into the market. Currently, there are nearly 40 new films to

After the summer sales stalled, it has become increasingly important to see whether the National Day sales, the third largest time of the year, can inject a boost into the market.

Currently, there are nearly 40 new films to be released in September and National Day. Although the number is large, it continues the trend of insufficient summer films, that is, the proportion of top films with potential stocks is too small. Combining the summer movie market insight reports released by Maoyan Research Institute and Beacon Research Institute, we can already make a rough judgment on the market trends of the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day movies.

html "Wild Child ", released on September 13, and " Determination to Run away ", released during the Mid-Autumn Festival, are the few popular movies before the start of the National Day period, but they are mainly plot-based heartwarming movies. The box office ceiling is not optimistic.

The highlight of the National Day file is " Transformers: Origins ", "Volunteers Part 2", " Crisis Route ", " Access to Safety ", " Road to Fire " and several other leading films. Although "Volunteers Part 2" has not yet officially announced its schedule, the director's birthday greeting picture released on the film's official Weibo account in August clearly mentioned "2024 National Day Special".

In the National Day release, "Volunteers Part 2" and "Crisis Route" are representatives of traditional theme themes and action themes, while the disaster film "Safety" and the highway anti-trafficking film "Road to Fire" are new ones. Representatives of genres, combined with the market data from the summer season, it seems that in this confrontation between the old and the new, the new genre has a greater chance of winning.

However, no matter who will win the National Day holiday, the old or new genre, the most critical thing for the entire film industry is the urgent need for high-box office masterpieces to promote market recovery.

There are a lot of heart-warming dramas, but Mid-Autumn Festival has limited imagination.

After the summer schedule went through twists and turns of being scheduled, updated, and temporarily withdrawn, "Wild Child" was finally selected to be released before the Mid-Autumn Festival. Although the film focuses on a warm background of protection and redemption, it is based on the real incident of "The Wandering Brothers" and focuses on the group of "children in social difficulties", which means that its temperament is not well matched with the Mid-Autumn Festival. If it is released during the Mid-Autumn Festival, it may It faces the same dilemma as "Let's Shake the Sun Together" released during the Spring Festival.

Although the competition in this year's Mid-Autumn Festival is not fierce, the degree of homogeneity in the top echelons is quite high. It is indeed a better choice to release "Wild Child" before the start of the Mid-Autumn Festival. The Mid-Autumn Festival movies cover drama, animation, suspense, comedy and other genres. Currently, the top three movies that Maoyan wants to watch are "Determination to Run Away" and " Wish You Happiness!" "" and "The Great Sage Conquers the Demons" are all family-oriented and affectionate family-friendly content, and "Avenge the Shame" is also a family-friendly comedy with family elements.

The reason why competition in the Mid-Autumn Festival is not fierce is mainly because the top content during the period is mostly feature films. Before the start of this year's summer season, the "lack of blockbusters" did not completely make the outside world lose confidence. After all, the 2023 summer drama film " in the octagonal cage" has a box office of 2.2 billion, proving the box office upper limit of this type. But this year The situation is not so optimistic. The box office of summer dramas such as "There is a Shop in the Clouds" and "Retrograde Life" did not meet market expectations. The

Lighthouse Summer Insight Report provides a set of intuitive data, that is, since 2023, the overall box office market share and average box office of single films for films with "drama" as the main type have begun to decline. Since "The Octagon" became a hit, there has been no A feature film breaks the 500 million box office ceiling. In the report, frequently mentioned words in reviews of summer feature films show that not deliberately sensationalizing, the content being realistic, and the ending being handled appropriately are important considerations for audiences when choosing feature films.

Judging from the trailers, the horizons of several feature films currently released during the Mid-Autumn Festival are relatively broad, such as "Determination to Run away" about "middle-aged women living a free and easy life", "I wish you happiness!" "Thinking about the meaning and value of marriage, but cruelly, vision and intention can only help the box office in a very limited way. The box office of "Stop and Go" and "Grandma's Grandson", which scored high marks in terms of not deliberately sensationalizing, being realistic in content, and handling the ending appropriately, only stayed at the 100 million yuan mark.

Combined with the market situation of the summer season, we can see that what limits the box office performance of feature films, in addition to the audience's increasingly high content requirements, is the issue of cost-effectiveness. The Maoyan Summer Insights Report shows that among the reasons for not watching movies during the summer, the top reasons for not watching movies during the summer were "not having the movies I want to see", followed by "going to the cinema is expensive in terms of time and money" and "movie tickets are too expensive and not cost-effective." ". When the budget-conscious movie-watching trend takes shape, the ones that will be most affected will be heart-warming dramas.

Of course, the impact of content quality on the box office of feature films still exists, but it is not the decisive factor. Mid-Autumn Festival "Determination to Run Away" and "Wish You Happiness!" "Both of them are plot themes with family elements, which are too "plain" compared to the two National Day dramas. "Safety" and "Way of Fire" in the National Day movie are both plot-based themes, but the former is superimposed with disaster elements , the latter is superimposed with criminal elements and has more advantages in theater audio-visual experience and cost performance.

At present, the suspenseful crime film "All Suspects" is theoretically expected to break through in the Mid-Autumn Festival due to its differentiation advantage. However, the film is adapted from the novel of the same name by Japanese mystery writer Oyama Seiichiro. In view of the fact that in recent years Adaptations of the same genre, "The Devotion of Suspect

New genres challenge traditional themes, National Day schedule is full of suspense

Maoyan Summer Movie Insight Report shows that due to the sharp decline in the number of top movies, although the total number of movies released in this summer's summer movie and the number of movies over 100 million are both the highest in the past 6 years, There are only 3 films with a box office of over 500 million yuan. During the same period, the number of days with a single-day box office exceeding 100 million yuan was 51, a decrease of 29 days year-on-year. The difference between the National Day schedule and the summer schedule is that it tests the short-term explosive power of the film. The same thing is that both require sufficient support from head movies to fully exert the schedule effect.

From 2019 to 2021, the National Day box office market was around 4 billion. In 2023, it was 2.734 billion, an increase of 83% from 1.497 billion in 2022, but it has not yet returned to the 2021 level. After the summer movie season is cold, the public will become more cautious in their consumption decisions when watching movies in theaters. Under this environment, it would be very ideal if this year’s National Day movie can be the same as the performance of the market in the same period last year.

According to traditional thinking, "Crisis Line" and "Volunteers Part 2" are the types with box office advantages during the period. If the National Day release is to reach the level of 2023, "Crisis Line" and "Volunteers Part 2" will The box office of a single film must be at least 700 million. "Transformers: Origins", "Safety" and "Way of Fire" each achieved a box office of about 400 million to 500 million, but it is still difficult to achieve this goal.

Looking at "Volunteers Part 2", which has a relatively good box office estimate, although it has a Douban score of 6.9 and a box office of 868 million, the first film's box office on the National Day in 2023 is 525 million. Judging from the box office performance of the National Day movies "Return of Ten Thousand Miles" and "Volunteers: Attack" in the past two years, the volume of main theme themes in the National Day movies is now shrinking, which is different from the earlier "My Motherland and Me" and "The Captain of China" The box office differences for other movies are quite large.

The situation of the action movie "Danger Line" is not optimistic either. Lighthouse’s summer insights report shows that as the audience has retreated to the male circle over the age of 25 or even over 30, the classic category of action is facing the problem of attracting new people. The summer movies "Tornado", "Mad Max" and " The proportion of new users of action movies such as "Customs Front" has not exceeded the genre average line, nor has it successfully replicated the breakthrough of "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City", while the box office of "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City" was 684 million.

However, the traditional thinking may not be suitable for this year’s National Day schedule. At present, the box office champion of the schedule may also be between "Safety" and "Way of Fire". After all, the two films are closer in temperament to this year's dark horse contestant "" eliminates the three evils of every week" " silently kills ".This year's box office results of "The Three Evils", "Silent Kill", and "Alien: Death Ship" can all be classified as victories for the ultimate genre film. At the same time, the strengths of several films focus on keywords such as novelty, tension, and excitement. On the big screen, watching movies on the big screen is more cost-effective.

Judging from the trailers, "In and Out" and "The Road to Fire" are relatively rare domestic film works. The former focuses on the human choices made by death row inmates in the face of natural and man-made disasters, while the latter is about anti-trafficking, but compared with previous films An anti-trafficking film that takes the route of warmth and bitterness, "Road to Fire" is more of an action-revenge film and a road-trip movie in terms of genre. In terms of quality, it is closer to Ning Hao's western crime film "No Man's Land". Its box office imagination is better than that of "No Man's Land". Safe entry and exit" is higher.

Maoyan Summer Insights Report shows that among the types/themes of theater movies that audiences are looking forward to seeing and the preferences of young audiences, in addition to comedy, the traditional advantage track suitable for all ages, suspense, realism, fantasy, crime, etc. have become The key content direction to attract young people to watch movies. Comedies, animations, dramas, and fantasy themes account for a relatively high proportion in this summer's summer season, while the supply of suspense crime themes has declined. This may also pave the way for the box office of National Day films "Safety" and "Way of Fire".

The publicity front has shrunk, precision marketing has become mainstream

The Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching, but many movies in the current schedule are somewhat silent on the publicity. After entering September, the Douyin topic of "Determination to Run Away" has basically remained at 1 The number is 1 per day, and the number of Weibo topics is around 3. "I wish you happiness!" 》The number of topics on each platform is close to that of "Determination to Run Away". Against the background of the shrinking box office of heart-warming drama films, the marketing of many feature films during the Mid-Autumn Festival is relatively Buddhist. In addition, after the summer season was sluggish, the marketing front of many films during the National Day holiday also shrunk compared to previous years.

The Lighthouse Summer Insight Report points out that the two major marketing channels Weibo and Douyin have declined in driving force at the box office during the summer. The two major channels have different problems. Weibo’s movie marketing shows that the film content is inherently attractive. However, the trend of discussions outside of movie content continues to exist, that is, entertainment-based discussions related to movies can generate more buzz on Weibo. Judging from the announcements and releases of Mid-Autumn Festival films, the film market is also keenly aware of this trend.

"Wild Child", which is about to be released, has stepped up its marketing in the past two days. Compared with the Douyin channel, the film pays more attention to Weibo. On September 11, there were nearly 20 hot topics on the Weibo of the film, and most of them were directly related to the starring Wang Junkai. The marketing focus It is to take advantage of Wang Junkai’s traffic and topicality. In contrast, the Weibo topics of "The Determination to Run Away" are very few related to the content itself. The film chose to incubate multiple in-depth topics on Douyin, such as #The Determination to Run Away Focuses on Mental Violence#, #Who understands the embodiment of female power? #wait.

Content-oriented marketing is indeed more in line with the platform atmosphere of Douyin. However, judging from the Lighthouse Summer Insights Report, the summer Douyin channel shows a lack of continuity in content exposure, as well as promotion from likes to fans, from works to hits. The problem of reduced conversion efficiency. Last summer, the average daily topic views of many movies on Douyin were 1.16 billion, and the proportion of official Douyin videos with one million likes was 2.5%. This year, these two figures have increased to 560 million and 1.1%.

But in the final analysis, the crux is the decrease in the attention of the summer movie market. Maoyan’s summer insight report shows that the cumulative time on the list of the top 5 box office films in this summer’s summer season on both Weibo and Douyin is far inferior to last year’s top 5 box office films. The film’s long-term index and attention have declined year-on-year, and film-related topics have become difficult to become a topic. After the national hot spots become normalized this year, due to cost considerations, in addition to the Spring Festival, the promotion and distribution of movies in other large and small schedules need to further move towards precision marketing.

To put it further, it is to focus on the core selling points of the film in a shorter and faster way, and to hit the needs of public consumption. In this regard, the summer release of "Silence" can be regarded as a marketing model. The film was scheduled 12 days before the release, and the core selling points such as "school bullying" and "large scale" were emphasized before the release, so as to achieve thematic resonance and resonance with the audience. Value empathy, after the release, "stimulation" and "reversal" will be used as new communication points, continuously strengthening the film's genre appeal.

So far, among the top films released during the National Day holiday season, the core promotion point of "Crisis Route" is relatively vague, while the promotion of "Safety" focuses more on the two main points of "the new film directed by the director of "Life Events"" and "adaptation of real events". The promotion strategy of "Road to the Fire", which is closest to the temperament of "The Three Evils" and "Silent Kill", is also similar to the two dark horse films, such as emphasizing the cool film label, the ruthless background, and the explosive anti-trafficking temperament, such as It also aims at the pressure relief demand prevalent in the current movie viewing market.

Against the background of tightening publicity and distribution budgets, films to be released in the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day releases are becoming more targeted in multiple dimensions, including the selection of publicity channels and promotion of selling points. After the summer season, when the number of movie theaters per capita dropped sharply, the space for promotion and icing on the cake has also been compressed. How many functions can be played depends on the explosive power of the content.