(Economic Observation) How can the movie industry save itself in the post-epidemic era after the Chinese movie industry has suffered serious losses?

  China News Service, Beijing, July 15 (Wang Qingkai, Jiang Xinya) Wanda Film Co., Ltd. announced recently that it expects a net loss of 1.5 billion to 1.6 billion yuan (RMB, the same below) in the first half of this year, while a profit of 524 million yuan in the same period last year . The Chinese film industry has been hit hard by the new crown pneumonia epidemic. How can the film industry save itself after the epidemic era?

On May 9th, a cinema in Chaoyang District, Beijing, which has not yet resumed operation, opened the doors of the theaters for ventilation. China News Agency reporter Hou Yushe

The epidemic's film industry continues to suffer setbacks

  The Wanda movie announcement mentioned that the large loss was due to the closure of all more than 600 cinemas in the country during the epidemic, the failure of the movie "Chinatown Detective 3", which was mainly controlled by the cast, to be released, and the payment of rigid costs.

  The impact of the epidemic on the film industry is far more than that of Wanda Film. At the beginning of this year, when the epidemic broke out, many movies such as the movie "Jiang Ziya", "Chinatown Detective 3", "Pioneer" and "囧妈" that were expected to be released in the Spring Festival were successively withdrawn.

  In the end, "囧妈" chose to change the movie to a free online premiere and cooperated with online platforms such as Douyin and Watermelon Video. Douyin parent company ByteDance paid 630 million yuan for the "Liang Mom" ​​party. However, the online premiere mode of "囧妈" was not smooth, and the move was boycotted by dozens of movie theaters.

  Affected by the epidemic, the vast majority of movie theaters have yet to resume work, and the turnover of the few movie theaters that have resumed work is not optimistic. Many movie theaters announced that they would be permanently closed due to their inability to support the costs during the epidemic. From June to now, the three chain stores of Lumiere Cinema in Chongqing, Changshu and Nanjing have announced their permanent closure.

  The National Film Administration revealed at the meeting of the film system's response to the epidemic that the direct economic losses caused by the epidemic to the film industry in the short term are huge. It is currently estimated that the annual box office losses will exceed 30 billion yuan. Box office losses and irrecoverable costs directly affect practitioners in the film industry, and many practitioners have to leave.

  This year, some big IP adaptation movies have been highly anticipated, such as "Mulan", "Black Widow", "Speed ​​and Passion 9", "Little Yellow Man", etc. These films should have been released in 2020. Today, half of 2020 has passed, and it is still far away.

In the post-epidemic period, how should the movie industry save itself?

  Offline cinemas have been frustrated, and home isolation has created an opportunity for online video playback platforms. In the first quarter of 2020, Tencent Video's membership reached 112 million, a year-on-year increase of 26%. Not only China, the well-known overseas streaming media platform Netflix announced in mid-April that it had added 15.77 million paying users worldwide, much higher than the 7 million previously expected.

  Chen Xuguang, a professor at the Peking University School of Art and director of the Film and Television Research Center, said that although the new crown epidemic has brought great damage to the film industry, it has also brought new models such as online broadcasting, cloud transmission, and "Internet + film, TV series".

  In Chen Xuguang's view, the "Online Model" and "Divide and Conquer" models of "Liang Ma" provide a new way of thinking for the development of the "Internet + Era" film industry. After the epidemic, the film industry will embrace the Internet more fully. Filmmakers should also more actively explore the new mode of "offline + online" in order to effectively promote the post-epidemic revival of the film industry.

  Regarding the closure of many offline theaters, industry insiders pointed out that during the closure of theaters due to the epidemic, multiple theaters and film companies organized funds or issued announcements to raise funds to alleviate the difficulties of the industry, which also caused the merger of theaters and theaters. Integration has once again entered the public eye. In the "post-epidemic era", the domestic theater market needs to become bigger and stronger through capital increase, equity participation, mergers and acquisitions, cross-regional mergers and acquisitions, etc. This may enable the cinema to achieve integrated development.

  Chen Xuguang believes that if the film and television industry wants to regroup in the post-epidemic era, or even ride the wind and waves, it is necessary to pay attention to the changes in the audience's aesthetic habits and needs to meet the audience's "imaginative consumption" as a starting point to break through. And to meet the audience's "imagination consumption" needs can start from the fusion of movie and TV drama series, disaster-themed movies and fantasy fantasy TV series.

  While seeking self-help online and offline, the creators of the film industry are also accumulating strength. Many Chinese film directors said that they did most of the work during the epidemic when they were doing desk work and preparing the script for the next project. They hope to bring new ideas and new opportunities to the film and television industry through the 5G era.

  Ning Hao, a well-known Chinese director, believes that as long as humans still exist, stories will exist, and movies are the best way to tell stories. As long as people need stories, movies will continue to exist. Film practitioners will gather together to warm up in the cold winter of the epidemic, overcome the most difficult stage, and greet the industry recovery and recovery moment. (Finish)