It is obvious that in the past two years, Hollywood blockbusters have become more and more "not good" in China. In addition to external factors such as the epidemic and censorship, the Chinese have begun to have "aesthetic fatigue" on the assembly line fast food movies, and the trade relationship between the two countries has also had a greater impact.
For Hollywood , the Chinese market has always been the main money-making channel. But now the influence of Hollywood movies in China has not been what it used to be, and the box office revenue has also been hit hard.
A Hollywood film producer bluntly stated in a recent interview that in the past, China was the "golden goose" for Hollywood to recoup its investment and capital needed to produce these big franchises, but now this "golden goose" The effect is gone.
In other words, the Chinese market is hard to make money.
Back in 2012, Hollywood was embracing an explosive collaboration with China that lasted for several years. This year, China's import quota for American film companies was expanded from 20 to 34 films per year, and the film company's share of ticket revenue also increased from 13% to 25%. Thanks to continued box office growth in China, Hollywood has hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue for the next few years.
However, in 2018, all those brilliance came to an abrupt end. The U.S. film industry has also been affected by Trump’s tariff policies.
At the time, The Motion Picture Association of America was planning to renegotiate the Sino-US film trade talks. However, Trump has publicly stated that he does not like the liberal style of Hollywood, so during his tenure, the needs of the American film industry cannot take precedence over trade between China and the United States. Hollywood's ambitions to grow in the Chinese market were thus "cut off".
But in the opinion of this Hollywood filmmaker, Hollywood movies are cold in China, mainly because of China's censorship and restrictions on American movies. This year, many movies, including Disney and Warner Bros. , have not been released in China. But from the perspective of Chinese audiences, the "aesthetic fatigue" of American cookie-cutter movies is the root cause.
For a long time, Hollywood blockbusters have been obsessed with creating personal heroic IPs. A hero character and cool fighting scenes constitute a movie. However, with more and more homogeneous content on the market, Chinese audiences have become more and more indifferent to such films, and are reluctant to go to the cinema to watch such a nutritious film at a "high price".
takes " New Batman " released in March this year as an example. It invested 100 million US dollars, but it only received 115 million yuan at the box office in the Mainland. Another " Moonfall " invested US$146 million, and 5 days after its release in China, the box office only reached 68.75 million. It can be found that it is becoming more and more difficult for Hollywood blockbusters to break 100 million yuan in China. Data cited by
The Hollywood Reporter shows that in 2012, American films accounted for more than 48% of China's box office revenue, but by 2016, that proportion had dropped to 36% and to 12.3% in 2021.
At the same time, the box office revenue of the Chinese film market is increasing year by year. In 2020, China became the world's largest film market for the first time, with a total box office of $3.1 billion, surpassing North America's $2.28 billion. In 2021, the Chinese film box office will be about 6.4 billion US dollars, which is 1.43 times that of the North American market. This also shows from the side that Chinese people now prefer domestic films.
So what's so good about Chinese movies?
First of all, compared with the mature film industry in the United States, my country's film production technology is definitely not as developed as theirs. However, in terms of film content, the content of domestic films is based on the audience of Chinese people, and it can more empathize with the audience in terms of emotional transmission, so it can gain more value recognition.
For example, "Hello, Li Huanying ", which caused a sensation in the domestic movie box office last year, because the plot content is close to life, it has aroused the empathy of many young audiences, and the total box office has reachedmore than 4 billion. In contrast, American heroism films are too far from our lives, and cultural values do not resonate to achieve this effect.
Finally, for the current Chinese film market, Hollywood may be a thing of the past, and localized films with Chinese characteristics will become more and more powerful in the Chinese market. This is a reality that Hollywood has to face.
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