Part of the movie "net transfer" triggers "antagonism" in the theater, and the effect of the virtual film festival is mixed-

The "new welcome" battle for movie screenings

  On May 6, the Hong Kong Film Awards was announced. "You Young" won 8 awards including Best Film and Best Director. It is worth noting that this is an online award, unprecedented. From May 1st to 5th, Beijing International Film Festival and iQiyi held the Spring Online Film Festival. Although the effect of this film festival is mixed, as a "testing water" under the background of the global new crown epidemic, it is destined to go down in history. On April 10th, "Wizard Elf 2" produced by Universal Pictures was screened online in North America, and it generated US $ 100 million in revenue in three weeks. This is the only theater movie in North America that has broken the window and has been screened directly online.

  From offline to online, is it a helpless move in a special period, or is it the beginning of a new era of film screening?

It will take time for global cinemas to resume normal operations

  On May 8, the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council issued the "Guiding Opinions on Doing a Good Job in the Normalization of New Coronary Pneumonia Epidemic Prevention and Control", pointing out that in accordance with relevant technical guidelines, on the premise of implementing prevention and control measures, appointments and current restrictions are adopted. Open theaters, entertainment halls and other closed entertainment and leisure places. In other words, the movie theater can open the door, provided that the prevention and control is done well, and reservations and current restrictions are required.

  More than a hundred days have passed since the cinemas in the country were closed. As of May 2, the movie box office in the mainland this year reported only 2.24 billion yuan, a drop of more than 22 billion yuan from the 24.44 billion yuan in the same period last year, a drop of more than 90%. In 2020, there was only one movie in "Transformed Agents" breaking the box office at the box office, while as many as 6 movies had exceeded 1 billion yuan at this time last year. On April 29, Wang Xiaohui, director of the National Film Administration, said that the direct economic loss of the entire film market is huge. It is currently estimated that the annual box office loss will exceed 30 billion yuan.

  North America, the world's largest film market, also suffered huge losses. Since March 20, 5,500 theaters in the United States have closed, and about 150,000 employees have been dismissed or taken without pay. AMC, the largest cinema chain in the United States, recently announced that it plans to issue $ 500 million in bonds to avoid bankruptcy. Recently, Texas, the United States announced that cinemas and restaurants can resume work on May 1, but the attendance rate should not be higher than 25%. But AMC said that unless a new blockbuster is released, they will not rush to reopen the door.

  In South Korea, 48,000 spectators walked into the cinema on April 25. This is an increase from the 45,000 people on the 18th week ago. However, based on factors such as maintaining social distance, each theater reduced the number of screenings, and also adopted anti-epidemic measures such as ticket sales in separate seats.

  Although mainland China has begun to allow theaters to open, it may take a long time to return to the level before the epidemic. There are two main problems here. One is to solve everyone's fears and attract the audience to watch movies in the theater, which is to gather popularity. Another problem is the source of the film, that is, there must be a movie to play.

  Judging from the currently public information, the blockbuster movies that were previously withdrawn have not announced a new schedule. Only "Creed" directed by Christopher Nolan, originally scheduled to be released in North America on July 17, has not been changed. Nolan said that the film will be finished as soon as possible. But there are also foreign media reports that the producer Warner Bros. will determine within a week whether the "Creed" will be released as scheduled, or postponed to 2021.

  Right now, the epidemic in the United States has not improved significantly. The industry predicts that the full recovery of North American theaters will be in June at the earliest. If the epidemic does not end, even if it is resumed, it will not bring a good box office for the new film. In particular, the two largest film markets in the United States, New York and Los Angeles, which contributed nearly 20% of the box office in the United States, are still the hardest hit areas.

  Industry insiders said: "Only elementary school students can go to school fully, and there is no confirmed patient in the school for a period of time, social anxiety can be completely eliminated. Only then, the audience will come to the cinema as before." Social surveys show that even the epidemic It is completely controlled, and the willingness of mainstream movie viewing groups to watch movies in a short period of time will not be too strong. Therefore, if the movie theater wants to return to the normal state before the epidemic, it may require a longer buffer period than expected.

Whose cheese was moved by the cinema line "turning the net"

  Is the movie just needed? For the audience, the answer is simple, yes or no. For film practitioners, it is not only just needed, but also a job.

  The cinema line was shut down, hitting the global film industry. Some film production companies have begun to try to put theater films online. The "Liang Mom", which was originally scheduled for the Spring Festival in Mainland China, was bought out by the parent company of Toutiao today at a price of more than 600 million yuan and played online for free. The producer recovered the cost, and the byte-beating harvested the traffic, but to a certain extent, it harmed the interests of the cinema line. Several cinema managers who were interviewed by the reporter expressed their outrage at this, arguing that the producers violated the rules and violated the spirit of the contract.

  "Jiang Ma", "Big Winner", "Fat Dragon Crossing the River" and other changes to the "screen transfer" behavior of online screenings have triggered a crisis of trust between domestic cinemas and film and television companies. In North America, this problem cannot be circumvented.

  In March of this year, Universal Pictures announced that "Wizard Elf 2" will be released in North America according to the original schedule (April 10), and video on demand will be launched on the same day. Because most theaters in North America closed on April 10, the film was not actually shown on theaters. According to Universal Pictures recently, three weeks after the on-demand online broadcast of "Wizard Elf 2", sales reached nearly 100 million US dollars, and the film has already made a profit. Global CEO Jeff Schell said: After the outbreak, it will consider the simultaneous release of the film in the theater and online.

  At the same time, Disney also said that many films such as "Artemis' Fantasy Adventures" will skip the theater line and log in to the streaming media Disney +. It is understood that the number of paid members of Disney + has exceeded 50 million, and Hulu, another streaming media of Disney, has exceeded 30.7 million.

  Universal Studios and Disney's comments angered Adam Aron, CEO of AMC Cinema. He said: "AMC will not show any Universal Studios movies in its theaters in the United States, Europe and the Middle East. It will take effect immediately." Regal, the second largest theater in the United States, also said: "We will not show movies that do not comply with the window period. . "

  AMC calls on the issuer to communicate sincerely with the screening party and is willing to discuss different window strategies and economic models with Universal Pictures. Universal Pictures responded that it would continue to release new films directly in the theater in the future, and put the movies on-line on demand at a reasonable time. As for the direct launch strategy of "Wizard Elf 2", Universal Pictures explained that it is to provide entertainment for the audience at home when the theater is closed and outdoor entertainment cannot continue. The president of the American Cinema Owners Association, John Fissian, said he advocated that the producers postpone the release of the film instead of paying it directly to the streaming media platform.

  Zhao Jun, vice chairman of the China Film Critics Society, believes that the relationship between online and offline is not hostile, and the future development direction of cinema cinemas should continue to grow in symbiosis with the Internet. The epidemic has ruthlessly exposed the weaknesses of the film industry, but it is not broken, and the film industry will be integrated into the Internet industry faster and more thoroughly. Zhao Jun suggested that for Cinema Cinema, it is the current direction of innovation to make good use of its offline platform and introduce the Internet team to vertically design independent intellectual property software to amplify its own traffic value.

  The theater is closed, but the demand for entertainment will not decrease, which makes some streaming media platforms profitable. Netflix's financial report for the first quarter of 2020 showed that 15.77 million new subscription subscribers were added, a year-on-year increase of 64%, and the total number of global users was close to 183 million. Among them, operating income was 5.768 billion US dollars, and net income was 709 million US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 106.1%. At present, the company's market value has reached more than $ 190 billion, surpassing the traditional film and television giant Disney.

  According to industry insiders, the film and television company changed the theater movie to online paid play. Although it showed "injustice", it also became an important means for its own stop loss. It's just that this is worse for global cinema. The "transition" behavior moved the cheese of movie theaters and some professional publicity companies.

There are many opinions about the online film festival

  The 39th Hong Kong Film Awards is the first "Cloud" award in the true sense. The award ceremony was only 25 minutes and 55 seconds, and the award process was only 12 minutes. The famous director Er Dongsheng sat alone in the theater, accompanied by only 17 envelopes with award lists. It is understood that after the award ceremony, the trophy will be delivered to the winners by express delivery.

  Just over the May Day holiday, the Beijing International Film Festival Spring Online Film Festival screened 32 movies through iQiyi in 5 days. In order to be more like a film festival, the festival also specially invited Chen Kaige, Tong Dawei and Tan Zhuo as curators.

  The reporter noticed that in addition to the online premiere of five films such as "Marriage Story" and "Spring Tide", the other films are some old movies, and even "Rizhao Chongqing" and "Fucheng Mystery". A long literary film. In order to create a cinematic viewing atmosphere in the physical studios, this exhibition also adopted a limited number of ways to grab tickets, which caused many fans to be dissatisfied. At the same time, because of concerns about resource outflows, all movies can only be viewed using the mobile app, and screen casting is not allowed. Netizen Hu Qian said: "I can understand the meaning of the online film festival, but I can't understand it. I can only watch movies with a mobile phone." Some insiders believe that the participation of the three specially invited curators failed to form a good interaction with the online film festival. .

  Despite various shortcomings, such an attempt to cooperate with the film festival and streaming media must have the possibility of long-term development in the future. Breaking through time and space, admitting more viewers, and speeding up the transfer of movie rights are the advantages of online compared to offline, and should be the direction of online film festivals. On this basis, the creation of a sense of participation and ritual in watching movies should become the focus of the online film festival.

  Abroad, the Miami Film Festival, which opened on March 6, was canceled for the last four days due to the epidemic. In order to ensure that all awards can still be awarded smoothly, the organizing committee has opened the channel for members of the jury to watch the remaining events online. The subsequent Garden State Film Festival directly opened the online mode and uploaded all 240 shortlisted films to the Internet.

  Cannes Film Festival, one of the three major film festivals in Europe, has been postponed or closed due to wars and other reasons since its birth in 1939, but it has not been interrupted since 1968.

  For the online film festival, the head of the Cannes Film Festival, Fu Mao, clearly expressed "not understanding". For him, the annual gathering of filmmakers at the Cannes Film Festival means gaze, noise, cheers and market. Fumao believes that the film festival is a geographical organization that cannot be separated from a specific spatial environment, and the Internet is based on the logic of new media and is precisely based on a decentralized structure. Film festivals built on the Internet as a medium, although they can reach more viewers, may also cause blurring of focus and dilution of attention.

  At the same time, Fumao said that the film festival is more than just a movie, it also includes many other things, such as red carpets, cocktail parties, lectures, forums, master classes, business negotiations, press conferences and luxurious opening and closing performances, etc. .

  The question of "whether streaming media will replace cinemas" has not yet been answered, and "whether online film festivals will replace physical film festivals" has become the focus of new debates. The operators of well-known international film festivals have clearly opposed the holding of virtual film exhibitions, while others are struggling to explore the feasibility of online mode.

  Changing from offline to online may be a temporary helpless move, but it will undoubtedly change the format. Perhaps, the 1.0 era of parallel cinema and offline film festivals has come inadvertently.

  Our reporter Dai Yuliang