The film industry has to come up with a "killer weapon" to break the crisis

　　Since March, the domestic movie box office has fallen into a trough, and the single-digit ticket sales of many cinemas have only been in single digits, and many theaters have been forced to close every day.

In this regard, some theaters attribute the immediate crisis to repeated epidemics, and expect relevant departments to issue supportive policies to relieve the urgent need.

　　At this stage, various places have made moves to bail out the film market.

Wenzhou and Jinhua in Zhejiang have successively issued documents to give theaters a monthly subsidy of 25 yuan per seat according to the number of seats.

Immediately afterwards, Shenzhen also supported cinemas, with a maximum subsidy of 600,000 yuan for a single enterprise.

The help of these real money is undoubtedly a help to the film market.

However, the film industry should also realize that although policy support is a good medicine, it can cure the symptoms but not the root cause.

Excessive reliance on policies is not a long-term solution, and it will also cover up the real "root causes" of the industry.

　　On the surface, affected by the epidemic, the home economy has risen, and online entertainment forms such as short videos and online movies have attracted the "attention" of the public, and there is a tendency to replace offline movie viewing.

The deeper problem is that in the past two years, the supply of the film market has been insufficient, and the audience's willingness to watch movies has decreased.

The epidemic in 2020 caused a large number of production crews to stop working. Today's "film shortage" in the film market is the "sequelae" of the epidemic that year.

The high-quality films currently reserved in the market are more willing to squeeze into popular schedules such as National Day and Spring Festival in order to "seek stability". On weekdays, either no new films are released, or they are all "deja vu", which to a certain extent dampens the audience's enthusiasm for entering the cinema.

　　To attract audiences back to the cinema, we must come up with the real "killer", that is, sufficient and high-quality films.

Last year's National Day, "Changjin Lake" activated the film market and brought a temporary prosperity to the film market.

However, one "Changjin Lake" is far from enough. If the cinema wants to get out of the predicament and get out of the downturn, it needs more "Changjin Lake" to carry the box office banner.

The greater significance of "Changjin Lake" to the film market is to boost industry confidence.

The impact of the epidemic on the film market is only temporary. Upstream film production companies should maintain strategic focus, strengthen their awareness of high-quality products, enhance market competitiveness, and reserve sufficient "ammunition" for the future recovery of the film market.

　　In recent years, due to risks such as industry downturn and repeated epidemics, capital has become more and more cautious about investing in film and television, and financing difficulties have slowed down the development of the entire industry.

The film creation cycle is long and the investment is large. It is difficult to ensure the operation of the enterprise and the film project reasonably and efficiently by relying on the company's own funds.

Film companies should use the power of financial institutions to help themselves "replenish blood and nourish qi".

Financial institutions should formulate special services and products according to the characteristics of film companies, so that funds can actively, efficiently and orderly participate in the film industry.

　　From another perspective, the current crisis is an opportunity for theaters to reshuffle.

Although the total number of screens in my country has exceeded 80,000, ranking first in the world, compared with the number of theaters with rapid growth, the average number of moviegoers in theaters across the country has continued to decline in recent years.

This also exposes the problem of unbalanced and insufficient cinema construction in my country.

In some economically developed areas, the excessive concentration of theaters has caused a decline in the number of people in a single hall.

This may force cinema chain companies to integrate cinema chains across regions and ownerships, stimulate the survival of the fittest in the market, and promote the large-scale and intensive development of cinema chains.

　　In the long run, the "immersive" consumer experience in theaters will not change.

The value of movie theaters is not only entertainment consumption, but also functions to meet social needs.

Confidence is more important than gold.

The industry should turn the crisis into an opportunity, seize the deep-seated contradictions and problems in the film market, and conduct in-depth research on the changes in the supply and demand of the film market, so that the development of the film industry will gradually get on a healthy track.

(Source of this article: Economic Daily Author: Jiang Tianjiao)