Interface News Reporter | Zhang Youfa
" Catch the Baby " has become the long-awaited rescue work of the summer season.
This year’s summer season had a bad start. According to Maoyan Professional Edition, movie box office data in June was only 2.231 billion yuan, a 46% drop from last year’s 4.134 billion yuan. Compared with other major sales periods, summer sales follow the principle of being driven by hot sales. Since there is no work that quickly heated up the market like last year's ": She Disappeared ", the summer movie market has been relatively lukewarm.
According to data from the Beacon Professional Edition, the box office of "Catch a Baby" has exceeded 1.3 billion in just over 4 days. On weekdays, the attendance rate of "Catch a Baby" exceeds 10%. It is the only movie with an attendance rate of more than 10%, which can be seen from its stimulation of the audience's enthusiasm for watching movies. The Lighthouse Professional Edition and Maoyan Professional Edition have adjusted the box office forecast of this film to more than 3.5 billion.
The performance of "Catch a Baby" can quickly heat up the market, proving once again that comedies are still in urgent demand in the domestic film market. But comedy works that can truly meet this demand are still scarce.
Shen Teng's box office appeal
The popularity of "Catch a Baby" is closely related to the box office appeal of its two leading actors, Shen Teng and Mary, especially Shen Teng. The Beacon Professional Edition shows that since the first film collaboration in "Charlotte Trouble " ten years ago, the total box office of Shen Teng and Ma Li's co-starring movies has exceeded 12 billion yuan. The establishment of the brand effect of
stems from the national identity established by Shen Teng and Ma Li through the continuous production of Spring Festival Gala, variety shows and comedy movies. In an era of fragmented and multi-media communication, just as Wu Jing has become a symbol of family and country narrative, the combination of Shen and Ma has gradually become a symbol of comedy.
Shen Teng made his debut on the Spring Festival Gala in 2012, portraying the well-known "Hao Jian" in the sketch "Today's Happiness". After that, he gradually accumulated his own nationality in the process of participating in many Spring Festival Gala sketches.
In 2014, Shen Teng attended Luyu Date. The host Chen Luyu felt embarrassed when he saw Shen Teng backstage, "I really always thought your name was Hao Jian." Shen Teng responded, "Yes, it's the same. I go to the mall. Also, people said they would like to come to Mr. Hao for promotion.” So when he appeared in TV series and movies to promote, “there was no effort to promote Shen Teng.”
But the movie "" starring him and Ma Li was released in 2015. After "Charlotte Trouble" became a small hit and earned 1.444 billion at the box office, Shen Teng also began to establish a brand effect in the field of comedy movies for the public. By 2019, some self-media have labeled Shen Teng the "new generation king of comedy".
In addition to movies and Spring Festival Gala, Shen Teng is also accumulating comedy brands in the field of variety shows. In " Ace vs. Ace ", his on-the-spot reactions often appeared on Weibo hot searches. Some viewers said, "Shen Teng and Jia Ling carried this show." In daily interactions on Weibo, Shen Teng's ability to receive comments often goes out of the circle.
's influence beyond the circle is crucial to the promotion of the film. The "2023 China Film Market Annual Inventory" released by the Beacon Research Institute shows that the per capita movie viewing frequency in the country in 2023 is 2.58 times, which means that a large number of low-frequency movie viewing users may only enter during important periods such as the Spring Festival, National Day and summer vacation. Cinema.
For these audiences, Shen Teng and Ma Li are undoubtedly more attractive. Shen Teng's gold medal partner Jia Ling in "Ace vs. Ace" has been successful in the past Spring Festival, which also strongly proves this point.
Audiences even invented a measurement unit such as "Han Teng Quantity" to accurately determine the real connection between the movie and Shen Teng. This also proves, to a certain extent, Shen Teng's personal effect on publicity. When "Catch a Baby" was released this time, many accounts also used the slogan "100% content".
After the epidemic, the release cycle of movies has become shorter and shorter. Cinema practitioners once told Interface Entertainment that many movies are often released and released without any notice. As propaganda increasingly pursues cost reduction and efficiency improvement, it is particularly important that Shen Teng and Ma Li's appeal can play a role in breaking the circle of propaganda.
For young audiences, the CP effect of Shen Teng and Ma Li also has a profound impact.On Bilibili, which has mainly young users, many mixed videos of the two leading actors have been played more than one million times. Outside the premiere theater of "Catch a Baby" this time, Interface Entertainment also saw many CP fans spontaneously gathering and creating large self-made CP promotional posters.
CP mixed editing video of two people Source: b station
The penetration and appeal of the sinking market is another reason for the box office surge of "Catch a Baby". Lighthouse Professional Edition shows that on July 17, "Catch a Baby" accounted for more than 70% of the box office in third- and fourth-tier cities.
Local comedy movies are already popular in the sinking market. The "Research on Domestic Comedy Movie Types" released by Yien in 2022 shows that from 2015 to 2022, the proportion of domestic comedies in the third tier and below reached 49%, 5 percentage points higher than the market. The comedy appeal of Shen Teng and Ma Li is even stronger in the sinking market. The influence of
is very obvious on short video platforms such as Douyin. According to the Beacon Professional Edition, when the premiere was held on July 13, the number of new views of #电影片狗# ranked first on Douyin’s Douyin topic list. After that, it stayed at the top of the list for several days in a row. According to the "2022 Douyin sinking market data insight report" released by the Juchuang Engine City Research Institute, the sinking market provided Douyin with 61% of its content supply sources, 55% of its content viewing ratio, and 57% of its interactions. quantity.
Film market analysts once told Jiemie Entertainment that it is difficult for imported film marketing to have penetration on Douyin because many short video users are not familiar with Hollywood stars such as Tom Cruise. However, Shen Teng and Ma Li appear to be very friendly to these users, which also makes it easier for related materials to trigger reposting and like effects. The word-of-mouth effect of the
movie itself ensures its long tail effect. Last year Shen Teng's " Super Family " was also regarded as a summer rescue film. The first day of release accounted for 36.8% of the film schedule. However, due to poor reputation, the daily film schedule and box office of the movie fell rapidly. , the final box office of 300 million was also far lower than market expectations.
"Catch Me" adopted a large-scale screening method and quickly scored 7.5 points on Douban. It currently remains at 7.4 points. This score is considered excellent among comedy movies and ranks among the top among new summer movies. Among the movies starring Shen Teng in recent years, the Douban score of 7.4 is second only to "Charlotte" and " Speeding Life 2".
The hunger for domestic comedies
For this year’s slightly weak film market, comedy is still the biggest common denominator for audiences.
"Journey to Thailand" is China's first domestic film to exceed 1.9 billion, which is not unrelated to its positioning as a comedy. In an interview with Yang Lan at the time, director Xu Zheng himself expressed great surprise, "I didn't expect that the audience's hunger for domestic comedies would explode like this. Now it has become an event and is no longer a movie."
is here Driven by this kind of hunger, comedy movies such as "Charlotte Trouble" have been successful. "Research on Domestic Comedy Movie Types" shows that in recent years, the annual box office output of comedy movies has been basically around 10 billion, with an average market share of 22%. Although the reputation of comedy movies has been up and down in recent years, most of them can achieve good box office results based on good reputation.
As the film market relies more and more on big schedules, the social and family-friendly nature of the schedules has also put forward more demands for comedies. In recent years, movies that have been successful in big time periods include pure comedies, and many of them also incorporate elements of comedy, such as the realistic-themed " Article 20 ".
In the past two years, changes in film supply have further increased the demand for comedies. Bona Chairman Yu Dong mentioned in a previous conversation with Interface Entertainment that many films have been released intensively in the past two years, but each company has insufficient reserves. There are not enough films put into production in 2023 and the number of blockbusters is insufficient, which has affected this year's summer schedule.
In the absence of heavy industry blockbusters, comedy has become a trump card to attract audiences. When the market has been relatively deserted in the past two years, comedies often stand out. For example, last year's ", " was released in April. The final box office exceeded 1 billion, but its Douban score was only 5.8.This year's "", which scored 5.3 on Douban, has a box office of close to 800 million.
The public has such a strong demand for comedy, but comedy stars with national status are a scarce resource. The four films that finally entered the Spring Festival this year, with the exception of "Bear Infested: Reverse Time and Space", the remaining three films can be labeled as comedies, and star Shen Teng, Ma Li and Jia Ling respectively.
The team of "Catch Baby" is Shen Teng + Ma Li, and is directed by Yan Fei and Peng Damo. This pair has already established a cooperative relationship during the Spring Festival Gala. The Spring Festival Gala sketches that are familiar to the public, such as "To Help or Not to Help" and "Follow What They Want", were completed by this comedy team. The subsequent successes of " The Richest Man in Xihong City " (with a guest appearance by Ma Li) and "Catch a Baby" also proved the ability of this golden partner to ensure a lower box office limit. The two directors
also tried to reflect the continuity of the brand in this movie. "Catch a Baby" buried many easter eggs from "The Richest Man in Xihong City". Almost every supporting role and supporting role in "The Richest Man in Xihong City" was in "The Richest Man in Xihong City". There are opportunities to appear in "Catch a Baby", and many of the lines echo the previous ones, creating a call back effect similar to that in talk shows. The success of the combination
is directly related to its closeness to the needs of the audience. From stage plays, Spring Festival Galas to movies, the comedies they create are often rich in jokes and have become widely circulated memes in the Internet era. The two directors once mentioned in an interview, "Actually, there is really no trick to writing comedy, but we have to consider more whether what we express can resonate with more people."
"Any drama must To have a relationship with reality, comedy must grit its teeth and stand with the times," screenwriter Ning Caishen once said.
For example, the success of Feng Xiaogang and Ge You's comedy movies in the previous stage also lies in grasping the pulse of the times and finding the largest audience group. Statistics show that from the late 1990s to the beginning of the new millennium, the ratio of urban to rural movie audiences in China was 2:8, while box office revenue was 8:2. Therefore, Feng Xiaogang set his movie-watching target to be urban young audiences from the beginning.
Happy Twist is a comedy group that realized the needs of the Internet earlier. For Happy Mahua, they also need to find new Internet groups beyond the traditional audience of dramas. Zhang Chen, the founder of
Happy Twist, once went to Zhongguancun to conduct research and found that there were a large number of white-collar workers gathered there. They were familiar with the language of the Internet but suffered from heavy work pressure. Listening to jokes was their pastime. After targeting this group, the second round of performances of "I Want to Eat Mahua Now" was moved to Haidian Theater in 2006. The attendance rate began to pick up, and almost every venue was full. "In the last seven performances, each scalper earned an average of 8,000 yuan. money".
On May 17, 2012, Zhang Yiwu, a professor at Peking University, publicly stated that Happy Mahua is the only outstanding brand in Chinese dramas that has achieved great success in the past ten years. “It has two precise directions. One is to be close to the communication laws and development direction of the Internet, and the other is to be close to young people. The spiritual needs of the audience."
This experience also allowed the two directors to better understand the needs of the audience. Yan Fei once mentioned in an interview that their advantage is that "they often face the audience through stage plays, so they know how to impress the audience. Like us and we know what the audience likes”.
's high-density jokes and memes, supplemented by a strong plot, are obviously the key to this type of comedy capturing the audience.
"Charlotte Troubles" uses the genre of traveling back to the student days, and contains the diaosi's fantasy of transcending life. "The Richest Man in Xihong City" is a windfall that requires spending 1 billion in a short time. "Doll" adopts a concept similar to The Truman Show and contains thoughts on education. These comedies often use high-concept narratives overlaid with social topics, so they can attract large audiences into theaters.
An example that reflects the influence of this setting is that after the release of "The Richest Man in Xihong City", the online article "Losing Money Becomes the Richest Man Starts from the Game" repeatedly used the movie's routine of intending to lose money but making money. Phenomenal online writing has even become a genre of writing.
's "2023 Chinese Market Annual Inventory Report" shows that combined with the high-frequency comments of the top five box office in the 2023 summer season, "educational significance" has become a feature of the season. In this period with strong parent-child attributes, "Catch a Baby" highlights the topic of education, and to a certain extent, it also captures the resonance of the audience. Looking at the Douban comment section of "Catch a Baby", apart from Shen Teng and Ma Li, many are discussing the education methods in the film.
Some people think that the educational story in the film is similar to a horror film, while others think it should not be taken too seriously. After all, for a large number of viewers, it is rare to enter a theater and just smile.
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