Author | Liu Zhiqu
The summer masterpiece and science fiction horror film " Alien: Death Ship " (hereinafter referred to as "Alien") has reached a box office of 360 million in less than a week after its release, and has won the daily box office champion for 6 consecutive days , box office The forecast is expected to rise from less than 200 million before the release to more than 800 million, and it is expected to become the best-selling horror film since 2017.
As a sequel to the IP series introduced again after 6 years, "Alien" attracted a lot of attention once it was released. "Large-scale, uncensored" and "the most disgusting and terrifying film in history" have become eye-catching selling points. The entry "Aliens frightened 8-year-old children and parents complained to the movie theater" once topped the hot search list.
Judging from box office data, "sci-fi horror" represented by "Alien" and "Resident Evil" has always been the most popular branch of mainland horror films . The fame of the "Alien" IP, the lack of hot-selling cooling products during the summer season, and the controversy over "parent reports" all contributed to the right time and place. "Alien" also relied on its superb space thriller and science fiction horror to catch this wave. heat.
data comes from Maoyan
"Science fiction horror" - "Science fiction" may be just the icing on the cake, but "horror" can be a market savior. This kind of "science fiction +" movies that integrate science fiction into other genres are not uncommon nowadays. Following horror films, comedies, romance films, etc. have also "slapped" on the banner of science fiction and moved towards the path of soft science fiction.
"Alien: Death Ship" sold 200 million in 3 days, parents reported to boost reverse marketing
On August 16, "Alien: Death Ship" was officially launched in mainland theaters. In less than a week, , a sci-fi horror film with the words "Minors Watch with Caution" on the poster, has exceeded the box office of 350 million, becoming the box office champion of horror films/thrillers in 2024.
As the summer season comes to an end, the popularity of many box office actors is gradually declining. The belatedly released "Alien" has occupied the daily box office champion since the second day of its release. As of August 21, the average daily box office accounted for At about 40%, it has surpassed " Rebirth " and " Detective Conan: Million Dollar Pentagram " released on the same day for many consecutive days.
It is quite rare for a horror film to sell for over 100 million yuan in mainland China. is a relatively niche film branch, and the capacity of horror films in the mainland market has always been very limited. In terms of quantity, in the past five years, there have been no more than 30 horror films released in theaters in mainland China each year, and the box office generally does not exceed 10 million. Only a handful of them can be remembered.
Horror movies are usually released during holidays or special festivals, such as May Day, summer, and festivals such as Chinese Valentine's Day and Ghost Festival. The former is to gain a sense of presence during the period when theater traffic increases, while the latter focuses on holiday occasions and couple consumption. After all, many low-cost domestic horror films are subject to factors such as cost and policy, making marketing very difficult.
"Alien", which was released after the Chinese Valentine's Day and before the Ghost Festival, is undoubtedly also striving for holiday effects and support from couples. According to Maoyan platform data, the ratio of men to women in the user portraits of "Alien" is basically the same, with 45.6% of the audience aged between 20 and 29 years old. There are many young people watching together in the theater. On the second day after
was released, the entry #Aliens frightened parents of 8-year-old children to complain about the movie theater# topped the Weibo hot search list. The entry has been read 140 million times and discussed 23,000 times. Many messages about "Alien" have netizens expressing their opinions on the matter.
Subsequently, other “negative” terms such as # Alien Too Scary # # Alien Disgusting # also appeared on the hot searches. However, these hot searches did not have much negative impact on "Alien", but instead promoted the film's promotion of . After entries such as #Alien scares parents of 8-year-old children to complain about the cinema# appeared, 26,000 new people wanted to watch "Alien" on the Maoyan platform.
Indeed, "scary" seems to be a compliment to horror movies, and news such as "parents report literary and artistic works" has become a cliché that often generates controversy. The entry marketing caused netizens to express their opinions and take sides, which increased the discussion and increased the exposure of the film, making more people pay attention to "Alien".
The "Alien" series has always been famous for its large-scale horror and horror. Counting "Alien: Death Ship", only three of them have been introduced to the mainland, and the first two have been deleted. . Thanks to the certain popularity of the "Alien" IP itself and the temptation of "not cutting it once" when it was introduced, the help of hot search terms quickly took effect.
"Alien" has been rated by as many as 167,000 people on Douban. Some of the high praises are IP fans: "This new work is second only to the first or two in my heart"; some are passers-by who came to test their courage: "I bought an imax. Tickets, I watched the finger-stitching version"; many netizens are also expressing their support for the uncut film - and the reason why "Alien" can become a case of "0-cut large-scale horror film" successfully introduced this summer is also related to Its subject matter "science fiction horror" has a lot to do with it.
"Science Fiction +" leads the horror film market, and "soft science fiction" has become a popular comedy.
It is not enough to attract the attention of the audience by "scaring children into being reported". The film itself is an important lever to support marketing, otherwise it will be easy to get high. Drive low and go. Especially for niche horror movies, the audience base is very weak. Except for a few IP fans and horror film enthusiasts, the remaining many passers-by will come into contact with them out of curiosity or curiosity.
"Alien" scored 7.7 on Douban. The box office of Maoyan and Beacon is expected to exceed 800 million. The highest number of views of a single video related to the film on Bilibili reached 1.51 million . In contrast, another horror film " Overtime Horror " was released on Chinese Valentine's Day not long ago, but its box office has not exceeded 4 million.
data comes from Maoyan
Obviously, the dilemma of horror films still exists, especially domestic horror films. In recent years, only one horror comedy " Demon Bell " starring Shen Teng, Yue Yunpeng, and Papi Jiang reached a box office of 363 million. ; The following "Far Cry" (box office 88.91 million) and "bi仙" (box office 58.09 million) are already works 10 years ago, and both are facing a flood of negative reviews.
Since "ghosts" cannot appear in horror films, domestic horror films generally follow the scare routines of Japanese and Korean horror films, piling up elements such as long-haired female ghosts, evil children, and strange phenomena. Therefore, in the end, they need to borrow hallucinations, mental illness, and artificial framing. "Forcibly explained", Frequent is frequently complained by the audience as a bad movie with no logic.
Different from the supernatural, mysterious and supernatural that traditional horror films are keen on, "science fiction horror" like "Alien" uses science fiction as the theoretical background to put the real universe, genes, Internet, psychology and other common sense in plain sight. On the surface, it not only explains the rational reasons for the appearance of horrifying people and things on the material level, assists in completing the rationality of the narrative, but also seems to wrap a layer of cotton cloth called science on the horror film, which invisibly eliminates part of the lethality, allowing More people have the courage to enjoy it, expanding the audience.
"Science fiction horror" is actually a concept with a long history. The science fiction novel "Frankenstein" written by British writer Mary Shelley in 1818 is considered to be one of the origins of science fiction horror. In the field of movies, after the sci-fi boom in the 1970s and 1980s, there were a large number of classic sci-fi horror works such as "Alien" (1979), "The Thing" (1982), and "The Fly" (1986).
The sci-fi horror enlightenment work in the Chinese mainland market is undoubtedly the "Resident Evil" series . "Resident Evil 4: God of War Reborn" was the highest-grossing horror film in mainland China from 2000 to 2010, with a box office of 135 million, bringing a new branch of science fiction horror to Chinese audiences. Coincidentally, the 2010 "Avatar" and " Inception " raised the popularity and promotion of science fiction movies to a new level, and "science fiction" has since become a familiar movie label for mainland audiences.
017 is an important time for mainland horror film theaters. The final film in the "Resident Evil" series, "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter," was released this year and the box office soared to 1.1 billion.In the same year, "Alien: Covenant" also met the mainland audience for the second time as an "Alien" work after "Prometheus" (2012); not only that, there was also another science fiction horror film "Alien" without an IP background. "Awakening" became a dark horse, ranking behind "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter" and "Alien: Covenant", earning 135 million box office - the three occupied the 1st, 3rd, and 4th places in the 2017 horror film box office rankings.
Since then, "Science Fiction Horror", an unpopular movie category, has officially entered the horizons of mainland audiences and has a place in theaters.. In addition to IP series such as "Maze Runner" and "Resident Evil", several independent films will appear to join the competition from time to time, such as "The Invisible Man" and "Megan" released in the past two years. The box office champions of mainland horror films in 2020, 2022, and 2023 are all sci-fi horror; in the first half of this year, there is also the same type of " A Quiet Place: Invasion Day ". If there are no other high-box office masterpieces in the second half of the year, the horror films of 2024 The crown will probably also go to "Alien".
On the one hand, it increases the audience. On the other hand, "science fiction" can also solve the logical problem that most domestic horror films have always criticized the audience - that is, horror films cannot contain supernatural phenomena . In science fiction horror, there are both large-scale special effects films such as "Alien" and "Maze Runner", as well as low-cost examples such as "The Mist" and "The Invisible Man" that make a big difference with a small amount. As horror films generally have low budgets, methods like the latter two that integrate science into horror and create new styles of horror films are very worthy of reference for domestic horror films.
For horror films, "science fiction" can provide a good box office for the film. In addition to benefiting from the elimination of horror elements by science, it also benefits from the national popularity of the science fiction theme itself. In recent years, the popularity of composite soft science fiction domestic films created using "Science Fiction +" has increased significantly, especially the science fiction comedies represented by Happy Twist and the Bears series: "Crazy Alien" and "Bear Bears Reversing Time and Space" "The box office of " Alone on the Moon " reached 3.1 billion.
The production threshold for "hard science fiction" such as "The Wandering Earth" is too high, while "soft science fiction" with relatively low costs and less hard-core plots is easier to come out. Science fiction romance films such as "Mermaid" and "Passengers" and "Soft Science Fiction" Mock documentaries such as "Space Exploration Editorial Department" belong to the category of soft science fiction.
The flourishing of "science fiction +" works has pointed out a new way out for domestic horror films that have been languishing for many years: put aside old tricks such as female ghosts, evil children, old houses, and mirrors that cannot be used in new ways, and set your sights on space. , the Internet, optical illusions, biomagnetic fields... there are countless elements that can be used for scientific fantasy, and using materialistic technology to create a sense of spiritual horror may be able to explore the potential of domestic horror films - or even "Chinese science fiction horror films". Unique prospects.
Author | Liu Zhiqu
The summer masterpiece and science fiction horror film " Alien: Death Ship " (hereinafter referred to as "Alien") has reached a box office of 360 million in less than a week after its release, and has won the daily box office champion for 6 consecutive days , box office The forecast is expected to rise from less than 200 million before the release to more than 800 million, and it is expected to become the best-selling horror film since 2017.
As a sequel to the IP series introduced again after 6 years, "Alien" attracted a lot of attention once it was released. "Large-scale, uncensored" and "the most disgusting and terrifying film in history" have become eye-catching selling points. The entry "Aliens frightened 8-year-old children and parents complained to the movie theater" once topped the hot search list.
Judging from box office data, "sci-fi horror" represented by "Alien" and "Resident Evil" has always been the most popular branch of mainland horror films . The fame of the "Alien" IP, the lack of hot-selling cooling products during the summer season, and the controversy over "parent reports" all contributed to the right time and place. "Alien" also relied on its superb space thriller and science fiction horror to catch this wave. heat.
data comes from Maoyan
"Science fiction horror" - "Science fiction" may be just the icing on the cake, but "horror" can be a market savior. This kind of "science fiction +" movies that integrate science fiction into other genres are not uncommon nowadays. Following horror films, comedies, romance films, etc. have also "slapped" on the banner of science fiction and moved towards the path of soft science fiction.
"Alien: Death Ship" sold 200 million in 3 days, parents reported to boost reverse marketing
On August 16, "Alien: Death Ship" was officially launched in mainland theaters. In less than a week, , a sci-fi horror film with the words "Minors Watch with Caution" on the poster, has exceeded the box office of 350 million, becoming the box office champion of horror films/thrillers in 2024.
As the summer season comes to an end, the popularity of many box office actors is gradually declining. The belatedly released "Alien" has occupied the daily box office champion since the second day of its release. As of August 21, the average daily box office accounted for At about 40%, it has surpassed " Rebirth " and " Detective Conan: Million Dollar Pentagram " released on the same day for many consecutive days.
It is quite rare for a horror film to sell for over 100 million yuan in mainland China. is a relatively niche film branch, and the capacity of horror films in the mainland market has always been very limited. In terms of quantity, in the past five years, there have been no more than 30 horror films released in theaters in mainland China each year, and the box office generally does not exceed 10 million. Only a handful of them can be remembered.
Horror movies are usually released during holidays or special festivals, such as May Day, summer, and festivals such as Chinese Valentine's Day and Ghost Festival. The former is to gain a sense of presence during the period when theater traffic increases, while the latter focuses on holiday occasions and couple consumption. After all, many low-cost domestic horror films are subject to factors such as cost and policy, making marketing very difficult.
"Alien", which was released after the Chinese Valentine's Day and before the Ghost Festival, is undoubtedly also striving for holiday effects and support from couples. According to Maoyan platform data, the ratio of men to women in the user portraits of "Alien" is basically the same, with 45.6% of the audience aged between 20 and 29 years old. There are many young people watching together in the theater. On the second day after
was released, the entry #Aliens frightened parents of 8-year-old children to complain about the movie theater# topped the Weibo hot search list. The entry has been read 140 million times and discussed 23,000 times. Many messages about "Alien" have netizens expressing their opinions on the matter.
Subsequently, other “negative” terms such as # Alien Too Scary # # Alien Disgusting # also appeared on the hot searches. However, these hot searches did not have much negative impact on "Alien", but instead promoted the film's promotion of . After entries such as #Alien scares parents of 8-year-old children to complain about the cinema# appeared, 26,000 new people wanted to watch "Alien" on the Maoyan platform.
Indeed, "scary" seems to be a compliment to horror movies, and news such as "parents report literary and artistic works" has become a cliché that often generates controversy. The entry marketing caused netizens to express their opinions and take sides, which increased the discussion and increased the exposure of the film, making more people pay attention to "Alien".
The "Alien" series has always been famous for its large-scale horror and horror. Counting "Alien: Death Ship", only three of them have been introduced to the mainland, and the first two have been deleted. . Thanks to the certain popularity of the "Alien" IP itself and the temptation of "not cutting it once" when it was introduced, the help of hot search terms quickly took effect.
"Alien" has been rated by as many as 167,000 people on Douban. Some of the high praises are IP fans: "This new work is second only to the first or two in my heart"; some are passers-by who came to test their courage: "I bought an imax. Tickets, I watched the finger-stitching version"; many netizens are also expressing their support for the uncut film - and the reason why "Alien" can become a case of "0-cut large-scale horror film" successfully introduced this summer is also related to Its subject matter "science fiction horror" has a lot to do with it.
"Science Fiction +" leads the horror film market, and "soft science fiction" has become a popular comedy.
It is not enough to attract the attention of the audience by "scaring children into being reported". The film itself is an important lever to support marketing, otherwise it will be easy to get high. Drive low and go. Especially for niche horror movies, the audience base is very weak. Except for a few IP fans and horror film enthusiasts, the remaining many passers-by will come into contact with them out of curiosity or curiosity.
"Alien" scored 7.7 on Douban. The box office of Maoyan and Beacon is expected to exceed 800 million. The highest number of views of a single video related to the film on Bilibili reached 1.51 million . In contrast, another horror film " Overtime Horror " was released on Chinese Valentine's Day not long ago, but its box office has not exceeded 4 million.
data comes from Maoyan
Obviously, the dilemma of horror films still exists, especially domestic horror films. In recent years, only one horror comedy " Demon Bell " starring Shen Teng, Yue Yunpeng, and Papi Jiang reached a box office of 363 million. ; The following "Far Cry" (box office 88.91 million) and "bi仙" (box office 58.09 million) are already works 10 years ago, and both are facing a flood of negative reviews.
Since "ghosts" cannot appear in horror films, domestic horror films generally follow the scare routines of Japanese and Korean horror films, piling up elements such as long-haired female ghosts, evil children, and strange phenomena. Therefore, in the end, they need to borrow hallucinations, mental illness, and artificial framing. "Forcibly explained", Frequent is frequently complained by the audience as a bad movie with no logic.
Different from the supernatural, mysterious and supernatural that traditional horror films are keen on, "science fiction horror" like "Alien" uses science fiction as the theoretical background to put the real universe, genes, Internet, psychology and other common sense in plain sight. On the surface, it not only explains the rational reasons for the appearance of horrifying people and things on the material level, assists in completing the rationality of the narrative, but also seems to wrap a layer of cotton cloth called science on the horror film, which invisibly eliminates part of the lethality, allowing More people have the courage to enjoy it, expanding the audience.
"Science fiction horror" is actually a concept with a long history. The science fiction novel "Frankenstein" written by British writer Mary Shelley in 1818 is considered to be one of the origins of science fiction horror. In the field of movies, after the sci-fi boom in the 1970s and 1980s, there were a large number of classic sci-fi horror works such as "Alien" (1979), "The Thing" (1982), and "The Fly" (1986).
The sci-fi horror enlightenment work in the Chinese mainland market is undoubtedly the "Resident Evil" series . "Resident Evil 4: God of War Reborn" was the highest-grossing horror film in mainland China from 2000 to 2010, with a box office of 135 million, bringing a new branch of science fiction horror to Chinese audiences. Coincidentally, the 2010 "Avatar" and " Inception " raised the popularity and promotion of science fiction movies to a new level, and "science fiction" has since become a familiar movie label for mainland audiences.
017 is an important time for mainland horror film theaters. The final film in the "Resident Evil" series, "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter," was released this year and the box office soared to 1.1 billion.In the same year, "Alien: Covenant" also met the mainland audience for the second time as an "Alien" work after "Prometheus" (2012); not only that, there was also another science fiction horror film "Alien" without an IP background. "Awakening" became a dark horse, ranking behind "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter" and "Alien: Covenant", earning 135 million box office - the three occupied the 1st, 3rd, and 4th places in the 2017 horror film box office rankings.
Since then, "Science Fiction Horror", an unpopular movie category, has officially entered the horizons of mainland audiences and has a place in theaters.. In addition to IP series such as "Maze Runner" and "Resident Evil", several independent films will appear to join the competition from time to time, such as "The Invisible Man" and "Megan" released in the past two years. The box office champions of mainland horror films in 2020, 2022, and 2023 are all sci-fi horror; in the first half of this year, there is also the same type of " A Quiet Place: Invasion Day ". If there are no other high-box office masterpieces in the second half of the year, the horror films of 2024 The crown will probably also go to "Alien".
On the one hand, it increases the audience. On the other hand, "science fiction" can also solve the logical problem that most domestic horror films have always criticized the audience - that is, horror films cannot contain supernatural phenomena . In science fiction horror, there are both large-scale special effects films such as "Alien" and "Maze Runner", as well as low-cost examples such as "The Mist" and "The Invisible Man" that make a big difference with a small amount. As horror films generally have low budgets, methods like the latter two that integrate science into horror and create new styles of horror films are very worthy of reference for domestic horror films.
For horror films, "science fiction" can provide a good box office for the film. In addition to benefiting from the elimination of horror elements by science, it also benefits from the national popularity of the science fiction theme itself. In recent years, the popularity of composite soft science fiction domestic films created using "Science Fiction +" has increased significantly, especially the science fiction comedies represented by Happy Twist and the Bears series: "Crazy Alien" and "Bear Bears Reversing Time and Space" "The box office of " Alone on the Moon " reached 3.1 billion.
The production threshold for "hard science fiction" such as "The Wandering Earth" is too high, while "soft science fiction" with relatively low costs and less hard-core plots is easier to come out. Science fiction romance films such as "Mermaid" and "Passengers" and "Soft Science Fiction" Mock documentaries such as "Space Exploration Editorial Department" belong to the category of soft science fiction.
The flourishing of "science fiction +" works has pointed out a new way out for domestic horror films that have been languishing for many years: put aside old tricks such as female ghosts, evil children, old houses, and mirrors that cannot be used in new ways, and set your sights on space. , the Internet, optical illusions, biomagnetic fields... there are countless elements that can be used for scientific fantasy, and using materialistic technology to create a sense of spiritual horror may be able to explore the potential of domestic horror films - or even "Chinese science fiction horror films". Unique prospects.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-