"China News Weekly" reporter/Li Jing
Published in the 1126th issue of "China News Weekly" magazine on January 22, 2024
"Wansen Zhang, it's snowing." On New Year's Eve, when the character in the movie "Twinkle, Twinkle, Shining Star" said this classic line, the ending song played, artificial snowflakes floated in the theater, and the audience cheered They stood up and said to each other: "Happy New Year!" Many couples hugged each other tightly.
Seeing this scene, Li Huyu, the marketing director of Shenyang International Cinemas Xueyuan South Road store, was a little excited. He used the ritual sense of "snowing field" to make the audience feel warm on the New Year's Eve night and bring them a wonderful experience. The romantic memories even turned the New Year's Eve movie viewing into a surprise, which made him feel that all the "travelling" he had done to "snow" was worth it.
The romantic idea of letting snow fall in the theater sparked a craze among young people to watch the snow. The act of meeting to watch the movie "Twinkle Twinkle Star" on New Year's Eve almost became a secret code for "I like you", helping the film to break through in China. The fastest domestic film pre-sales in film history exceeded 70 million, and it also became the box office champion on the first day of pre-sales for domestic films in Chinese film history.
According to Beacon Professional Edition statistics, as of 21:31 on December 31, the total box office for the 2023 New Year's Eve period exceeded 700 million, setting a new record for the New Year's Eve box office in Chinese film history.
This is also the first time since August 6 that the single-day box office has exceeded 500 million yuan after 146 days.
The bustling New Year's Eve period brings a successful conclusion to the prosperous 2023 film market.
On New Year's Day 2024, the National Film Administration announced the full-year film report card for 2023 - the total box office was 54.915 billion yuan, returning to the level of 2017, with 1.299 billion moviegoers, and the domestic film box office was 46.005 billion yuan, accounting for 83.77% of the box office. The top ten are all domestic films and are of various genres.
The Chinese film market has swept away the shadow of the COVID-19 epidemic and ushered in a long-awaited recovery.
Watching movies becomes large-scale performance art
Nearly a month before the release of "Twinkle Twinkle Star", Li Huyu received a notice from the film crew to arrange a "snow resort". This unprecedented publicity was of great significance to the 1,314 participating "snow resorts" across the country. This is the first time for a movie theater, so it is certainly not easy to implement it.
The film studio provided the theater with more than 40 handheld snow spray cans, but the snow spray cans, which are about the same size as a can of Coke, have almost no effect in the auditorium of Nuo Da, and are also a fire hazard.
"As a confined space, theaters have strict fire protection requirements, and safety is indeed the most important thing. I really don't dare to joke about it." Li Huyu told China News Weekly, so he gave up the snow can provided by the film crew. The theater spent more than 1,000 yuan on its own to purchase two small snowmaking machines.
The snowmaking machine can spray snowflakes about 9 meters high and 12 meters away. The effect is good, but the problem comes again.
Artificial snowflakes are made by condensing a raw material called snowflake oil and water together. If the amount is large, it will easily leave marks on clothes, and accumulation on the ground will make it slippery.
Li Huyu originally planned to make a beautiful backboard in the lobby. It snowed heavily in front of the backboard. After much deliberation, he canceled it. He was afraid of the danger caused by large gatherings of people, and was also afraid that the amount of snow would stain the guests' clothes. Instead, Complain.
The "snowing" in the theater must be completed, but it is impossible to completely simulate the effect of natural snow and let snow fall in every corner. Li Huyu decided to be more conservative and only set up the space between the front row and the middle and back rows. Artificial snow has fallen on the aisle area, and non-slip carpets have been laid.
Later, he saw a lot of pictures of "avalanches" and "localized heavy snow" on the Internet, and felt that his decision was right. But he also understood his peers. After the "cold winter" in the theaters in the past two years, they were finally recovering. They all wanted to give the audience the best experience. It was actually the first time it snowed in the theater, and they were inexperienced, so it was inevitable that they would use too much force.
Paying attention to mobilizing the audience's emotions, creating a sense of atmosphere, and even allowing the audience to participate can be said to be a new approach to film promotion in 2023.
In July 2023, the Chinese premiere of the movie "Barbie" restored the dreamy pink Barbie paradise, with a pink beach, a dream wardrobe, a party dance floor with shining light balls... Even the check-in table was filled with Barbie fans, almost turning the cinema pink Party scene.
This directly led to the official release of the film. Wearing pink to watch "Barbie" became a ritual and an unwritten tacit understanding among the audience. Perhaps there has never been a movie that has made the audience's "dress coordination" reach this level.
Many viewers and Weibo bloggers even painted their profile photos pink to express their support for "Barbie", just like a large-scale performance art.
"Fengshen Part 1: Chao Ge Fengyun", which was released at almost the same time, originally had a script that started in hell. However, soon after its release, the publicity team keenly captured the attention of many netizens to the new actors, so the publicity materials instantly turned into coconut trees. In the live broadcast room, the "Muscular Man Proton Group" quickly emerged from the circle, and the road show also became the Proton Group dancing and showing off their abs... The counterattack became a hot topic, and a spin-off variety show "Fengshen Training Camp" was also launched.
Since the diverse gameplay of short videos can create an endless stream of hot memes and strong emotional resonance, platforms such as Douyin have naturally become the focus of publicity.
A video on the official Douyin account of the film "Chang'an 30,000 Miles" with over 6.45 million likes shows the scene at the end of the film when the poet Li Bai with white hair and beard shouted "The boat has passed the Ten Thousand Mountains" and the audience shed tears. The text in the video reads: "Only at this moment do I understand that 'the boat has crossed the Ten Thousand Mountains'. Don't be afraid. The most difficult moment has passed."
Some people say that movie promotions are now more lively than movies, and each one is better than the other.
Movies are no longer just about walking into a theater to gain a sense of immersion, but also include a sense of entertainment, variety, and participation outside the theater.
All the "emotional resonance publicity", "interactive publicity", "ritual publicity" and other new methods, "Twinkle Twinkle Shining Star" at the end of the year became the master, and "Snow Field" was hailed as such A stroke of genius in marketing.
Therefore, since the pre-sale of this film, it has relied on its strong IP appeal and successful "Xiaxue" marketing to dominate the industry, not only breaking the previous Chinese film pre-sale box office record held by "Detective Chinatown 3" , as of 0:34 on December 29, the total pre-sale box office of New Year's Eve films (including spot screenings) exceeded 500 million, with "Twinkle Twinkle Star" leading the way with a box office of 340 million.
Tickets labeled "Snow Resort" in theaters across the country are almost full, and it's hard to get a ticket.
Although "snowing" has brought him a lot of difficulties, Li Huyu appreciates this breakthrough from the film studio: "Our cinema will definitely support it. In the past, movies put the word 'suffering' first. After watching a movie, The audience is passively accepting. Now, at least to explain, the way of thinking of filmmakers is changing. They do not just give you a movie to watch, but treat the audience as customers, and are willing to improve services for customers, give customers new experiences, and increase Customer stickiness. This change in thinking is the most important.”
Realistic connections are evident, but doctrine has not yet been reached
Paying attention to the audience's emotions and feelings in publicity is just a microcosm of the change in the way of thinking of today's filmmakers. The core manifestation lies in the content.
Whether it is the global box office champion "Barbie" in 2023 or the two phenomenon-level "dark horses" in the mainland film market-"The Vanishing" and the "anti-scam propaganda film" "All or Nothing", which specializes in "love brain", they are all Because it successfully resonated with the "emotion of the times" and triggered a high level of topicality, it successfully became a hit.
Film director Guo Fan concluded in an interview with "China News Weekly" that this is to make it relevant to "me" on the basis of traditional narrative, and to give people a strong sense of reality.
To put it simply, after watching the movie, the audience can have thoughts or emotional releases about whom they want to talk to.
As for the effect, young people, who are the main moviegoers, have already "voted with their feet."
"She Vanishes" and "All or Nothing" are both drawn from popular news events.
The former is based on the case of a Chinese pregnant woman who fell off a cliff in Thailand. It combines the real-life crises of women in marriage and love with the dramatic plot of scumbag men being punished for their evil deeds, which is in line with the current hot female issues.
The director of "All or Nothing" who is applying for the Olympics is accustomed to collecting social news as material for his films. He told China News Weekly that before the project of "All or Nothing" was established, some news about cross-border fraud entered his field of vision. He saw that there were exist... This new type of crime is very touching. "I feel sorry for those who have been deceived, and I also feel that the methods of those scammers are really despicable, so I wanted to make a movie like this, hoping to serve as a warning."
In order to write a realistic enough script, the Olympic bid collected a large amount of relevant news materials and documentary videos, interviewed police officers on the front line of anti-fraud, survivors who were deceived into dens and finally rescued, people who had experienced being deceived, and even personally interviewed Participated in police crackdowns.
It can be said that the goal of bidding for the Olympics has been achieved.
Li Huyu told China News Weekly that the police station in the area where his theater is located organized several private theaters and invited residents from surrounding communities to watch and educate them on the law. Only then did he learn that people in the communities surrounding the theater had been defrauded of hundreds of dollars. Ten million, fraud is not far away from you.
Therefore, this has become Li Huyu’s favorite film in 2023. On a larger scale, it has practical significance. On a smaller scale, it has stirred up people who barely enter the theater. He heard the two stories with his own ears at the entrance of the theater. An elderly couple in their 70s said they wanted to buy tickets to watch "All or Nothing".
According to statistics from the Beacon Professional Edition, after the popular summer season in 2023, the proportion of senior movie fans who have watched movies more than five times a year has increased significantly. At the same time, the movie-watching habits of low-frequency users are being cultivated.
"To a certain extent, these movies have become the audience's unique 'mouth substitute' and expression." Wang Zheng, chairman of Beijing Zhonghuan Spring Cinema Management Co., Ltd., commented to "China News Weekly". In his eyes, they can easily make the audience produce emotions. Sense of immersion, "Would you like to think that I had encountered such an experience at some point? Maybe I didn't know it at the time, but now that I know it through the movie, I will have a sense of 'lucky' empathy."
From this perspective, movies that link to social hot topics and can mobilize the audience's emotions are more likely to attract attention and make the audience pay for them in the future.
However, although the box office of such topical movies is high, the quality has caused controversy. This can be seen from the fact that "The Vanishing Her" and "Desperate" have continued to rise in the box office, but their reputation scores have "dived".
Many viewers also commented online that films like "The Lost Girl" and "All or Nothing" were very engaging and emotional when watching them, but when I thought about them after leaving the theater, they seemed to be just like that, and there would be no second viewing. impulse.
According to Zuo Heng, director and researcher of the Film Culture Research Department of the China Film Art Research Center, this is the result of the lack of artistic level. Perhaps it is because of the need to cater to the changes in the viewing habits of young people in the video era. Zuo Heng feels that many movies Watching it feels like watching a long video related to social hot spots in the theater. These movies have "sufficient means and know how to make things happen." However, truly excellent works cannot just be satisfied with topics and popularity. How do they add artistic language and ideological depth to the movie? These young filmmakers still have a long way to go compared to industrial efforts.
Regarding the artistry of the film, the director once gave his own answer during his Olympic bid: "I may be shallow. I feel that my expression is not that valuable. I would rather make the audience like it. Pure expression may not be so consistent with my creative views." ." What he always pursues is a balance between personal expression and the audience market.
He even feels that he is not qualified for art. For him, any suitable subject matter, as long as it can be delivered to the audience appropriately, communicate with them, and reflect on himself from the feedback, is enough to be grateful.
Hollywood's worst year
Although "Barbie" is a topic about women like "The Lost Girl", and it claimed the annual global box office championship with a box office of 1.44 billion US dollars, in the Chinese mainland market, this film only received 250 million box office, ranking 46th on the annual box office list. Bit.
Hollywood's failure in the mainland is nothing new, but 2023 is almost the worst year since Hollywood began entering the Chinese mainland market in 1994.
The "2023 China Film Market Annual Inventory Report" released by the Beacon Research Institute shows that a total of 76 films will be introduced in 2023. Compared with the number of imported films introduced from 2020 to 2022, 53, 43, and 55, the number of imported films released has increased, but the box office The volume has declined, and at the same time, the box office of Hollywood's "big killer" superhero movies and visual effects blockbusters has further shrunk. None of them exceeded 1 billion throughout the year, and the box office of imported movies only accounted for 16.23% of the annual box office.
The three major cash cows in the mainland market: Marvel movies, "Transformers" and "The Fast and the Furious" all had new movies released last year. In the past, when these big IP Hollywood movies were released, domestic blockbusters basically stayed away, but that's different now.
"Fast and Furious 10", which performed best at the box office, had a cumulative box office of 984 million yuan. The previous film in the series, "Fast and Furious 8" released in 2017, had a cumulative box office of 2.671 billion yuan, ranking second in the box office that year. "Fast and Furious" "Passion 10" could not beat the romantic comedy "Ex 4".
Marvel's "Ant-Man 3", "Black Panther" and "Captain Marvel 2" each had a lower box office than the previous one. Only "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" slightly saved its face, but "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" compared with its predecessor at the mainland box office It's also falling.
"Transformers" was once Hollywood's biggest trump card in mainland China and the youth of a generation of movie fans in mainland China. It broke the record in Chinese film history and won China's annual box office championship.
This year's "Transformers 7: Rise of the Power Rangers" box office in mainland China was only 655 million. Compared with the 1.976 billion box office of the series' peak "Transformers 4" in 2014, it was almost halved and then halved.
In the past, Hollywood's ability to innovate was extremely strong, but in the past 10 years, Hollywood has not produced any new character IPs.
"The Bourne Supremacy", "007", "Harry Potter"... have been cooked for decades. The same protagonist setting and the same story line have made the series of movies produced by Marvel and DC get higher and higher ratings on Douban. It is getting lower and lower, which also makes many movie fans more and more disappointed.
With the development of China's film industry, Chinese audiences have gradually removed their filters for Hollywood blockbusters. Their hesitation has made everyone feel that watching Hollywood movies is just for fun. Everyone has such special effects, especially with various software Even the upgrading of artificial intelligence has made special effects easier, and Chinese filmmakers have had the opportunity to catch up with Hollywood.
In 2023, domestic films will account for five-sixths of the market share throughout the year, with box office revenue reaching 46.005 billion, accounting for 83.77% of the total film box office. The top ten films at the box office are all domestic films.
In terms of quantity, 432 domestic films will be released in 2023, reaching the highest number in five years.
Among the 73 movies with a box office of more than 100 million yuan, 50 were domestic movies, accounting for 68.5% of the total.
Among the top 5 box office films of the year, "Man Jiang Hong" is a costume suspense, "The Wandering Earth 2" is a science fiction IP, "All or Nothing" and "The Vanishing Her" combine suspense, crime, love and other elements, and "Fengshen Part 1: Chaoge Fengyun" Known as the "heavy industry" of mythology, both subject matter and content reflect the trend of multi-dimensional diversification.
The following "Octagonal Cage", "Thirty Thousand Miles from Chang'an", "Bear Infested: Accompany Me "Bear Core"", "Solid as a Rock" and "Unfamiliar Life" cover inspirational, history, animation, crime, comedy...
It is worth noting that although there is a gap of more than 1 billion between the 4.544 billion of "Man Jiang Hong", the highest box office of a domestic film in 2023, and the 5.772 billion of "Changjin Lake" in 2021, the average box office of domestic films this year reached 1.06 billion, the data in 2019 and 2022 are 0.94 and 0.85 respectively.
This proves that the audience not only trusts head content, but also begins to embrace many waist content.
For example, "Crossing the Angry Sea", which examines the love of parents and interrogates and analyzes the self-righteousness and selfishness and indifference of this love, presents extreme emotions rarely seen on the Chinese big screen.
Another example is "Cosmic Exploration Editorial", whose style is difficult to classify. It explores deeper philosophical issues behind the comedy and provides a tragic song for the small and frustrated.
These small and medium-sized films have received box office revenue that exceeded outside expectations. Many movie fans said that it would be the biggest surprise to encounter such a film in theaters in 2023.
New directors come to the table collectively
A few years ago, in order to write the "civilian science" in "Space Exploration Editorial Department", director Kong Dashan spent more than 700 yuan to participate in an event called the "First International Forum on the Exploration of Interstellar Civilizations", he had no idea that the movie To get so much attention.
He told "China News Weekly" that it belongs to the moment but transcends reality and talks about nonsense seriously. This sense of dislocation is in line with his "bad taste."
For "bad taste" to find its own audience, I have to thank director Guo Fan for escorting him throughout the whole process. Guo Fan encouraged him to write the script, and Guo Fan also "begged" for the investment.
This kind of "passing on and guiding" is reflected in many movies in 2023. For example, "The Disappearance of Her" is produced by Chen Sicheng and is also one of the screenwriters. "I Passed Through the Storm" is produced by Wang Hongwei and Lu Yang, and "School Dad" is produced by Wang Hongwei and Lu Yang. It is a project in Huang Bo's "HB+U" new director assistance plan... This allows new directors who have a better understanding of the preferences of the new generation of audience groups and are more confident and open in creation to usher in a collective debut in 2023 .
In 2023, a total of 23 new directors will have their feature film debuts released.
Looking at the box office list, "The Disappearance" ranked 4th in the annual box office list and was a "big hit" in the summer; the animated film "Chang'an 30,000 Miles" ranked 7th; ranked 17th and May 1st box office The runner-up "King of the Sky" and "School Dad" with the theme of "Chicken Baby" and ranked 24th are all works of new directors.
In addition, there are 11 new directors whose works have exceeded 100 million in box office, such as "Tea No. 2 Middle School", "So Many Years", "Corridor Pavilion", "I Passed Through the Storm", "Priceless Treasure", etc.
Among the 30 movies with a box office of between 10 million and 100 million, 16 were made by new directors, more than half.
Many of them are masterpieces of literary and artistic films and have won numerous awards at domestic and foreign film festivals, such as Kong Dashan's "Space Exploration Editorial Department", Wang Jing's "Endless", Liu Jiayin's "It's Worth It", Wei Shujun's "Collection of Stories from Yong'an Town" and "Gentle Shell" by Wang Mu.
Most of these new directors are from majors and have studied in professional schools. In addition to the support of the previous generation of filmmakers, their collective appearance may be due to the withdrawal of hot money that began in 2018 and the resulting resumption of the film and television industry. Shuffle.
This "bubble squeeze" that lasted for several years has left behind young people who truly love movies and are more motivated. When the total investment in movies decreases and the selection of movie projects is medium and small, the choice of movie types simply adopts the pursuit of stylization. In order to gain the possibility to break out of the industry with a small talent, it leaves room for new directors.
In this year when many new directors came to the stage, as leaders in the Chinese film industry, the performance of the "big directors" was quite mixed.
Zhang Yimou's treasure trove lasts forever. Although "Man Jiang Hong" has a polarizing reputation, it won the box office championship anyway. This is also Zhang Yimou's highest-grossing work. "Solid as a Rock" is also among the top ten box office movies in 2023.
Chen Kaige's "Volunteers: Attack" only had a box office of 850 million, not to mention Feng Xiaogang's "If You Are the One 3". Its reputation was completely ruined. For several days, its single-day box office could not compare with the documentary "Taylor Swift: The Age". Concert Tour".
It may be too simple to make either-or judgments or suspicions, but there are still clues to follow as to what kind of great director the audience chooses.
"Zhang Yimou's strategy is to use private public IP at the right time to integrate the most popular stars and comedians to create a stage that impresses the office politics of the Southern Song Dynasty. The logic of cultural psychology is actually consistent with the Spring Festival Gala in the golden period of that year. This also shows that the Chinese audience’s aesthetic taste and film culture tend to be more traditional.” Zuo Heng told China News Weekly that Feng Xiaogang’s failure was because he still combined his ideal of metropolitan fashion with that of the 1980s. The literary and artistic youths of the 1990s who are citizens of the city serve as aesthetic objects.
This means that he has no way to gain the support of tradition, nor can he win the recognition of younger, more urban audiences.
The audience has become segmented, and they can pay for a variety of cultural products, but the premise is that these products must impress some kind of psychological appeal or value empathy among them.
Among the top ten films at the annual box office, second-tier cities accounted for the largest box office, accounting for 38.04%, followed by fourth-tier cities, accounting for 29.68%, third-tier cities accounted for 17.93%, and first-tier cities accounted for 14.35%.
The "2023 Film Market and Audience Research Report" released at the 2023 China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival shows that audiences born after 1995 are the largest force in the current film market, accounting for 27.7%, and audiences born after 2000 are gradually entering the market.
The film market is sinking, and audiences in second-, third- and fourth-tier cities have become the most important force in the movie-viewing landscape. How to find their own audience and anchor the film's niche positioning is probably a question that every director must consider.
"China News Weekly" Issue 3, 2024
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