This article is from WeChat official account:Yiyuguancha (ID: yiyuguancha) , author: Dewey, head picture from: “I Want Us Together” stills
Under the exceptionally high profile of the “Schedule Theory” in 2021, a re-establishment of a schedule under the name of the homophonic “I love you” on May 20 also exudes strong energy on ordinary Thursdays.
According to the Beacon Professional Edition, the box office reached 234 million yuan on May 20, and the number of movie viewers exceeded 6.21 million, achieving “520 best working day”.
Although it has a box office of 61.25 million yuan in the zero field of the Hollywood blockbuster “Fast and Furious 9”, the bigger surprise is the performance of the waist romance film “I Want Us Together” for the premiere of over 100 million yuan, plus Last month, as many as 7 romance films were set to create a strong “couple watching atmosphere”. This “520” schedule is extraordinary.
After the 51 box office champion “Your Wedding”, the waist love movie once again demonstrated a box office harvest that cannot be ignored.
“Your Wedding” stills
Actually, since the 2017 “Predecessor 3: Goodbye Ex” sold at 1.94 billion yuan in the New Year’s Eve, the waist romance movie has once again risen to an important position in the mainland market. Although there are no such films squeezed into the largest domestic schedules such as the Spring Festival and National Day files, they can also become the “victorious generals” of the central period, and even the “absolute kings” of the small periods.
“Couples have always been the main consumers of theaters. Single dogs are actually very reluctant to go to theaters to look for abuse. So now in each schedule, in addition to head movies, I hope that some good-quality waist romance movies will increase the ticket warehouse. And these In 1991, various domestic small schedules began to be hot, and romance films are often the easiest to create the concept of schedules. ‘520’ was originally an ordinary Thursday, and now it can break 200 million and get the box office performance on Saturday. Yesterday, “I Want us to be together”The appearance of the reality is pleasantly surprised. “A theater manager said to Yiyu Observation.
Mainstream schedules need to be elevated, and the cold market needs “love schedules” to boost
Yiyu has sorted out “Predecessor 3: Goodbye Predecessor” (December 29, 2017), all box offices have exceeded 100 million A waist film dominated by love themes. First of all, it is clear that this article (chart) discusses that the romance films listed in this article are all waist films dominated by love themes, and the rest of the head works with complex love elements Not in the discussion.
Waist romance movies have gradually developed rapidly in the past five years, showing a box office appeal that cannot be ignored. The market prospects of this type in the mainland are worth looking forward to. In addition, these kinds of movies have penetrated into various stages, taking on the rigid demand for content and increasing the overall ticket warehouse.
For example, New Year’s Day box office champion “Predecessor 3”(1.942 billion), “Love” (684 million), 51 box office champion “Later Us” (1.361 billion), “Your Wedding “(784 million), Dragon Boat Festival champion “The Best of Us” (418 million), and the rest of the Lunar New Year files include “If the Voice Can’t Remember “(335 million), summer files include “Love Apartment” (555 million) and so on. The former relies on the advantages of the theme, and under the large-scale viewing atmosphere and holiday bonuses, it is hot and popular; the latter is in the long-term period such as Lunar New Year and summer vacation., Achieved good results.
However, focusing on the love period, the traditional “2.14 Valentine’s Day” has not been able to be effectively developed due to the Spring Festival file. Faced with the high publicity costs of the Spring Festival file, the waist romance can only be discouraged. As this year’s “schedule theory” is extremely hot, the traditional Qixi Festival is bound to become a battleground for military strategists. The “Midsummer Future” directed by Chen Zhengdao and starring Zhang Zifeng and Wu Lei has long been in it.
In addition to these two traditional Valentine’s Days, the “self-made love schedule” in recent years can be described as a series of surprises.
The classic case can be traced back to November 11, 2011. The first “Thirty-three Days of Broken Love” that created the concept of “Singles’ Day” used “broken love” to correspond to “single sticks”, and it was a big success in the end with 320 million Yuan’s amazing box office. It is a pity that with the main traffic of e-commerce shopping on the Singles Day, “Double 11” has become a shopping spree, and this “self-made love schedule” will hardly improve.
“Thirty-three Days of Broken Relationship” stills
Until May 18, 2018, when the “Super Time Cohabitation” premiered, due to the strong offensive of the Hollywood blockbuster “Avengers 3”, the initial performance was mediocre, but the follow-up relied on the “520”(Online Valentine’s Day) The concept of love schedule creation and its own film reputation have broken a blood path, reaped the long tail effect, and finally won 900 million yuan in the box office.
On March 14, 2019, the Taiwanese romance film “A Story More Sad Than Sad” did not have much traffic exposure, but it succeeded in using “White Valentine’s Day” as a gimmick, plus “Looking and crying” as the main announcement Fadian won surprisingly on the short video platform, and shocked the industry with a box office of 959 million yuan.
Traditional Valentine’s Day also has movies. For example, on the Chinese Valentine’s Day in 2020, theaters have just resumed work and are waiting to be revived. “I’m Waiting for You at the End of Time” meets the market’s demand for romance movies, with a total box office of 505 million yuan. Effectively relieve the pressure of theater survival, and successfully break the curse of the traditional Valentine’s Day not selling out.
And this year’s “520 schedule”,At the beginning of April, 7 love films including “Your Wedding”, “I Want Us Together” and “Deep Love” were finalized, achieving the “520 Strongest in History”. Although only “I Want Us Together”, “Love Letter”, “The Legend of the White Snake” and other films were released in the end, it was unable to make “520” a phenomenal box office volume, but it also made an ordinary Thursday hot sale.
“I Want Us Together” stills
With the increase of classic cases, the feasibility of “self-made love schedules” with waist romance films as the mainstay continues to rise. If the large-scale period is a gathering place for family-friendly blockbusters suitable for audiences of all ages, then the “self-made schedule” is suitable for genre films with a certain degree of audience differentiation.
Love themes are easier to create schedules, and couple viewers, as the main consumer group, are more likely to be attracted by love gimmicks. In addition to the traditional Valentine’s Day, Chinese Valentine’s Day, White Valentine’s Day, 520 and other must-have festivals for couples, the rest also include Singles’ Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year’s Eve and other warm and festive festivals can also be developed.
Even the homophonic stalk is being further developed, such as “419”(For one night). What’s even more exaggerated is that netizens have been The 14th of each month is defined as a different Valentine’s Day, such as Black Valentine’s Day in April, Rose Valentine’s Day in May, Kiss Valentine’s Day in June, and Silver Valentine’s Day in July…
“Businesses always hope that the more festivals the better, so that they can continue to stimulate consumption. The domestic self-made small love schedules have begun to show their power. Although they are not mature, they have already made the theater very happy. These self-made small loves Files can digest more love movie projects, and these times are generally in the cold market on weekdays. The creation of a love atmosphere attracts the attention of couples and audiences, which can alleviate the crowded “schedule theory” and the bleak workday. Cinemas. Life is better.” A studio manager in a second-tier city shared.
Total box office on May 20, data source: Beacon Professional Edition
“The essence of making love schedules is to create a festive atmosphere to stimulate the consumption of couple audiences. Couple audiences are the main force of cinema consumption, whether they are first-line or second-line or young people in small towns. Through schedule manufacturing, they are given a must to watch the movie. Reason.”
Waist romance films need to create a love schedule by themselves, with a love theme that is suitable for the current social couples to attract the same type of film to be released, and find a way out for yourself. In the workday cold market with new film vacancies, you don’t have to pursue hot selling, you only need to get the corresponding attention and get hundreds of millions of yuan in box office. For many waist movies, it is definitely a profitable business. Compared with waist movies that run through the big schedule, it is easy to fall into a negative word-of-mouth vortex or because of the potential energy shackles that become the cannon fodder of the schedule, the choice of these love schedules is undoubtedly worthy of careful consideration.
Young directors and new actors need a “test gold” for waist romance films
Waist love movies, which can be frequently created and have a hot “love schedule”, are closely related to the variety of romantic movies and the diverse topics.
The creative vitality of waist romance films is inseparable from its unique creative advantages. Low cost, short filming cycle, uncomplicated scene selection and landscaping work, and the main creative team does not need to demand top filmmakers and other “favorable” factors. Coupled with young directors and new actors, they can create a love suitable for current social topics. Films, and create breaking content on the short video platform, forming a festive atmosphere full of rituals. This is the conventional way of thinking about waist love movies with small and big things.
As of press time, “I Want Us Together” had a box office of 108 million yuan in its premiere on Thursday, with a Douban score of 6.9. As a low-cost romance film, it is really rare. The film is produced by Gongfu Pictures, the producer of Chen Guofu’s company. The director Desert is a young director who has filmed the series “Hello, Old Times”. The female lead actress Zhang Jingyi comes from an actor under Dongshen Future, who has cooperated with Gongfu Pictures for many years.
Yiyu Watch compiled information about major romance films in the past two years, and further analyzed the composition of the main creative lineup, the performance of the sinking market, and the tactical layout of the production company.
In these waist films, young directors and creators are the main force. “Your Wedding”, “I’m Waiting for You at the End of Time” and “If the Voice Cannot Remember” are the second theatrical movies of directors Han Tian, Yao Tingting, and Luoluo. The cumulative box office of the above three directors exceeded 500 million yuan. Young creators successfully transitioned to the backbone of romantic genre films.
The director of “The Best of Us” Zhang Disa, the director of “Xibao” Wang Danyang, and the director of “I Want Us Together” Desert are all their first theater movies, and they have guaranteed a breakthrough of 100 million yuan through the waist romance movie. The commercial appeal of the yuan box office.
When young directors no longer focus on self-expression and nostalgia in film venture capital meetings, and embrace the commercial market closely, romantic films have low investment costs, can reduce risks, and the story construction is clear and uncomplicated, and can be managed well, and The market prospect is prone to explosions, and it has undoubtedly become the best commercial test field for young directors.
In addition, waist romance films have also become the best themes for production companies to train new actors.
Romance films have relatively more demand for acting skills, and the pure appearance and good looks can make up for the lack of hard power to a certain extent. The most typical example is “Your Wedding”, “If the Voice Cannot Remember”, and “Sadness Goes Against the River” produced by Enlight Media. The leading female actor is the newcomer Zhang Ruonan, whose cumulative box office reached 1.5 billion yuan. A new generation of florets that cannot be ignored.
“If the Voice Cannot Remember” Stills
It can also be seen from the above chart that the waist love movies are subject to subject restrictions, coupled with the fact that most of the first creations of young directors, the quality of the works is not too hard, etc., making Douban scores mostly in a negative atmosphere. Of the 22 works that exceeded 100 million yuan, only two had a score of 7 or more, and only seven passed. The remaining 15 works were given the title of bad film.
The advantage of the waist romance is that even if the negative word of mouth is fermented in the later period, most of the works do not have a long tail effect. For example, the 51st file “Your Wedding” was ruthlessly crushed in the later period of “Above the Cliff”, but the waist love Films benefited from the easier development of pre-screening marketing and publicity work, such as creating short videos to break the circle of viral traffic, which often ushered in good opening results. After couple viewers really “cried out” and “deeply moved” through the influence of short videos, they became more tolerant of the reputation of romance films. For young directors who are fledgling and have first contact with cinema movies, the pressure they face from word-of-mouth affecting the box office is relatively small.
As mentioned above, waist romance films are easier to create amazing topics on social media platforms dominated by short videos. From “Predecessor 3” to “A Story More Sad Than Sad”, as well as “Your Wedding” in May 1st this year, the short video marketing of “cry out” is indispensable. In addition, such as this time “I Want Us Together”, also hit # to watch the movie at 13:14 on the day of 520, I want us together# topic, and the effect is remarkable.
In addition, coupled with the marketing potential, the current waist romance films are easier to open the sinking market.
The movie “Your Wedding” in the chart is the most popular love movie in the past two years. So far, it has a box office distribution of 790 million cities, and the third, fourth and fifth tiers account for 54%. “I am waiting for you at the end of time” has a box office of 505 million. The third, fourth, and fifth line accounted for 55%.
Data source: Yien Data
Although waist romance movies have been plagued by negative word-of-mouth, extreme 2~3 ratings are not uncommon, but for young couples in small towns, Douban ratings are not the most important. These waist love films can often achieve a passing score of 7 to 8 on the ticketing platform. That is to say, waist love films that are not of good quality in the eyes of movie fans are more likely to be forgiven by young couples in small towns.
According to the statistics of Yien, the total box office of 23.533 billion yuan in 2021, of which the third, fourth and fifth tier reached 11.537 billion yuan accounting for 49%, and its box office spending power is basically the same as that of the first and second tiers. A new wave of development is bound to usher in a waist romance film that has a unique advantage in sinking.
The demand for the creation of waist romance films in the future will continue to be strong, and a complete genre film system will gradually be formed. From newcomer training to content market demand, it is showing a healthy development.
Of course, waist romance films still need to find some new breakthroughs in the existing model framework to improve the quality of the film and explore the love topics that meet the needs of the current young people. Only the quality of the content is improved. When making love schedules by yourself, it will attract movies of the same quality to join to form an agglomeration effect. Otherwise, it will be ruthlessly abandoned by the heavily involved domestic market.
It can be seen that on the topic of future romance films, long-distance relationships, sibling relationships, online dating, year-end relationships, etc., these more realistic and impactful content will be discussed by many young directors and young actors. Main tune.
Perhaps “520” and other love periods are still weak in establishing a mature period. Although the “self-made love schedule” marketing gimmick comes first, it is undoubtedly good for the promotion of the box office vitality of the Chinese film market and the development of Chinese film genres if a movie-watching atmosphere is created on a cold working day.
Chinese films still need more “self-made schedules”. Not only romance films, but other types of films are also worth opening up schedules. After all, with specific content activating specific groups of people, the overall film market can be further prosperous, and these Genre films are also the best experimental field for young domestic creators.
I look forward to the emergence of more types of “self-made romance film schedules” in the Chinese film market after the “self-made romance film schedules” represented by “520”.
This article is from WeChat official account:Yiyuguancha (ID: yiyuguancha) , by Dewey