Chinanews Client Beijing, November 14th (Ren Siyu) In the 12th year of the "Double 11" shopping festival, Tmall and JD.com's turnover of 769.7 billion yuan once again set a historical record. However, the cinema did not catch up. After the excitement of this wave of shopping festivals, after the National Day stall with the second highest box office in history, the movie market in November ushered in a downturn of "lack of stamina". Why?
Source: movie poster.
The "disappearing" Hollywood blockbuster
On November 11, 2011, the movie "33 Days of Broken Love" took advantage of the momentum of "Double 11" to win a single-day box office of 47.636 million, and the final box office exceeded 300 million. On November 11, 2020, the national movie single-day box office only exceeded 30 million, some practitioners sigh: "In the past such a low market, there was only New Year's Eve a year."
National movie box office data on November 11, 2020.
Source: National Film Fund.
This phenomenon does not only occur on the "Double 11" day. According to the data of the National Film Specialty Office, from November 2 to 8, the box office of the National Film Week fell below 400 million, a record low for the market in 12 weeks.
Among them, the best-performing films were "King Kong River" and "My Hometown and Me" released in October. "The Wind and Waves" ranked third with a box office score of 46.9 million yuan.
The film weekly report released by Tuopu Data showed that last Tuesday, the box office of tier cities accounted for 47.40%, a decrease of 37.79% from the previous month; the box office of first-tier cities performed better, with a month-on-month decline less than the national average, and strong resilience; third-tier cities had a month-on-month drop of nearly 40% , Is the ticket warehouse with the most month-on-month decline.
Source: Tuopu Research Institute.
Speaking of the downturn in the movie market this month, Zhu Teng, general manager of Beijing Universal Art Cinema Management Co., Ltd., analyzed, "The main movie "King Kong River" is not up to expectations. The new imported film is an old one that has been released many years ago. The market urgently needs something similar. The blockbuster of "Black Widow" came to boost."
Looking back on previous years, imported blockbuster movies accounted for a higher share of the movie box office in November.
For example, in 2019, "Frozen 2", "Terminator: Dark Fate", and "Children of the Weather", in 2018, "Venom: Deadly Guardian", "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald", and "Invincible Destruction King 2: Rape" "Internet", as well as the 2017 "Thor 3: Ragnarok", "Justice League", "Murder on the Orient Express", etc., among which a few hit movies have set a single box office of over 1 billion.
Source: National Film Fund.
However, affected by the epidemic this year, many Hollywood blockbusters have chosen to postpone and change their files. Marvel Universe Films announced their bid farewell to 2020. Disney's two new films "Out of Control Players" and "Tragedy on the Nile" have also recently announced their withdrawals.
Although there were many imported films released in China in November, most of them were re-released films with relatively average reputation, and their contribution to the overall box office was limited.
For example, the Hollywood film "Hellboy: The Rise of the Blood Queen" released on November 9th, the first day of the film accounted for 36.78%, and the box office was 13.1261 million yuan. From the data point of view, this blockbuster that was originally expected to boost the movie market did not Did not attract too many viewers into the theater.
Investigating the reason, most netizens concluded that "the quality of the film is not good enough." In addition, the film was released in North America in April last year, and the film's reputation has already matured in advance.
Screenshot of the Douban rating of "Hellboy: The Rise of the Blood Queen".
Is it possible for domestic films to "explode"?
After the loss of Hollywood blockbusters, the November box office task fell to the head of the new domestic film.
In fact, in the past few years, some domestic films have counterattacked during this period by virtue of word of mouth, such as "The Unknown Person" in 2018 and "You are the Younger" released at the end of October 2019. 2" became the box office champion in November.
So in November this year, will there be such a hit?
In early November, the domestically produced film "The Wind and the Waves" was released. The producer Don He once said in an interview, "Because of the absence of imported films this year, we feel that "The Wind and Waves" is also responsible for contributing to the market."
"The Wind and the Waves" tells the story of the protagonist Song Hao who was forced to escape from his hometown due to an accident, and returned to his hometown for funeral 15 years later, but unexpectedly discovered the truth of the year. The leading actors Zhang Yu and Song Jia contributed performances praised by the audience. However, This film has been divided into word-of-mouth reviews, and it has not achieved "explosive" box office results.
The poster for the movie "The Calm Sea".
Zhu Teng, general manager of Beijing Universal Art Cinema Management Co., Ltd., said, “In fact, there is no off-season in the studios, mainly because there are not enough movies. There are too few blockbuster movies.” According to data from the China Film Distribution and Exhibition Association, the number of new movies released this week has reached 18, the number is actually quite large, but the lack of commercial films may still be difficult to drive the box office substantially.
Among them, "The Hot Blood Chorus" tells the conductor Yan Zilang (played by Andy Lau) led a group of "waste chai" students to learn chorus from scratch and face the setbacks and challenges of life together, but this musical drama also faces The issue of narrow audiences. As of 20:00 on the 12th, the pre-sale box office of the film was about 1.15 million on the first day; "Hot Air Balloonist" was released overseas in September last year, with a moderate reputation, and the pre-sale box office was about 620,000; The relatively good sales data is the animation "Wang Wang Team's Super Power Rescue", which is expected to bring some heat in the children's film market.
The poster of the movie "Hot Blood Choir".
Many people pin their hopes of boosting the box office on the releases of "De Violence" and "One Second" at the end of November.
The starring actors of "Deviolation" are Wang Qianyuan and Wu Yanzu. "The actors of "Deviolation" seem to be more attractive, but they are afraid of being a third-rate story of a first-class actor. If the word of mouth is popular, it is expected to last about 3 weeks." Zhu Teng Say.
The poster of the movie "De-violence".
"De-violence" announced that it will be released on November 20, avoiding direct competition with Zhang Yimou's new film "One Second", but whether "One Second", which is similar to the theme of "Return," can attract the main audience Young people walk into the theater and still have to wait for the evaluation after the show.
Crowded New Year and Spring Festival stalls
After the National Day stalls and before the Lunar New Year stalls, there are no holiday blessings. From historical data, November is not a hot time for theaters, and affected by the epidemic, this number may be even lower this year.
The forecast report released by Tuopu Data shows that if there is no major production film airborne in the near future, the market will be deserted or will continue to the Lunar New Year schedule in December.
Some analyses have mentioned the concept of "scheduled superstition". Corresponding to the "calm" in November, many large-scale commercial films are stationed in this year's Lunar New Year and next year's Spring Festival.
The competition pattern of "want to watch" films for the New Year's Day in 2020.
Source: Lighthouse Research Institute.
The epidemic and the recovering film market have increased the concerns of film and television companies in choosing schedules. Many films have bet "treasures" at the end of the year and the beginning of the year, hoping to attract audiences and get more box office in the atmosphere of the New Year. .
In the few days from December 24th to New Year’s Day, there will be film collections such as "The Bomb Disposal Expert 2", "Do You Still Love Me Tomorrow", "Qing Ya Collection", "Send You a Little Red Flower", and "Warm Hug" Released.
The Spring Festival file next year can be described as "the strongest and most congested in history". Up to now, 8 movies have been arranged for the Spring Festival file in just a few days. In the future, there may be a large number of new films announced and finalized. The city's filming has brought a lot of challenges.
2021 Spring Festival video poster.
The slightly deserted November film market is in desperate need for high-quality and high-reputation blockbusters to detonate. At the same time, can this period of time provide industry insiders with another perspective: the cooling-off period may be another opportunity for entry?
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