After May of next year, commercial genre films may experience a “disruption.”
Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “poison eye” (ID: youhaoxifilm) , Author: Jiang Yuqi Released with authorization.
Coming out!
After a year of anticipation, “Yubai” finally announced its final release on August 21, becoming the first domestically produced blockbuster confirmed to be released since the movie theater resumed work. Coupled with the “Interstellar” that has already been released, the upcoming “1917”, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” and other masterpieces, many fans are feeling that this August is afraid to live in the cinema.
With the help of a large number of popular movies, the market began to heat up. Last week’s weekend, the country’s cumulative total box office reached 123 million, a year-on-year increase of over 30%. Although this result has only returned to the level of about 25% on the average weekend last year, considering that the resumption of work has not been fully spread, and the restrictions on attendance and filming, this figure still brings a lot of boost to the industry— —Under this background, the set of “Yai Bai” will undoubtedly play a huge role in revitalizing the market.
Part of the videos currently finalized
However, in addition to the excitement, Poison Eye (ID: youhaoxifilm) also had to put forward some cold thinking: Although from the film stock, there are still “Chinatown Detective 3”, “Jiang Ziya” and “Fengshen Trilogy” Waiting for popular movies to be shown, many movies have the ability to support a large period outside the Spring Festival, but once these backlogs are exhausted, will the theaters encounter difficulties in supplying commercial movies?
This is not alarmist. During the Shanghai Film Festival this year, many practitioners have raised concerns about the possible crisis.
Bona Films Chairman Yu Dong pointed out at the Shanghai Film Festival’s Golden Jue Forum that the current operating rate of the film industry is still very low, and the reserve of films can last until March and April next year. There will be a group of people who have established the party for a hundred years in the summer. A gift film, but the next schedule will be relatively empty; Li Jie, president of Alibaba Pictures, also told Dumo that the problem of the decline in film supply after the summer next year will be exposed, and there will be a crisis of outage; the general manager of Yinglian Media said Wusheng is in In an interview with Poison Eyes, he mentioned that the current industry’s film reserves are sufficient, but from next year 5From the beginning of the month, the blockbuster visual effects will be out of files for a period of time…
In Li Jie’s view, the supply difficulties are related to the changing trends of the industry during the epidemic: “(After the epidemic), movies are definitely no longer an industry chased by capital. This year is completely defoaming. Many funds in the industry will Withdrawal. On the positive side, the industry is de-bubbling, and business companies with financial strength and core capabilities will stay; but on the negative side, there are some very dynamic and creative content companies (in the short term). ) May be under some pressure. It is estimated that the supply of movies for the next period of this year will drop by about two-thirds compared with the same period last year.”
Many SMEs have a deep understanding of Li Jie’s views. A producer introduced to Dumo that his company invests (including co-investment) in several films every year, but because of the long-term closure of theaters this year and the delay in setting up a backlog of films, it has not only increased the company’s cash pressure, but also Some of the films being filmed and produced were also hindered by the slow down payment.
Another new and cutting-edge company that has just been established said to Poison Eye that several of the company’s works were favored by several investment companies after winning venture capital awards at the film festival last year. The original team planned to show off this year. , But because of the chain reaction brought about by the epidemic, now we can only receive a “suspended” reply from the management when we move forward, and many projects are also on hold.
For some large companies, although the financial pressure is much smaller than that of small and medium-sized companies, due to the large scale of the projects involved, after shelving due to the epidemic, it will take more time and Better timing. For example, Bona’s “Ice and Snow Changjin Lake” was suspended due to the epidemic, which caused a loss of more than 150 million yuan. Although the project has been restarted, it will not be officially started until November this year.
As for the decrease in the number of start-up projects, Yu Dong pointed out that it is not just a question of funding. “It may be a question of confidence, it may be a question of unhappy creators, or a question of unhappy shooting, because after all, the movie It is not (only) a production line, but also an artistic creation”. In response to this, he also appealed: “Everyone should give creators more encouragement and support in order to create more good movies.”
In addition to the small number of domestic startups, changes in Hollywood may also affect the supply of films.
On the one hand, due to the severe epidemic in North America and parts of Europe, a large number of Hollywood movies are still on the sidelines and the latest schedule has not been determined. Although Warner said that the “Creed” will consider abandoning its global distribution and take the lead in some countries and regions where the epidemic is relatively stable.Released, but considering issues such as piracy, it is not easy for this model to extend to most films.
“Creed” Mainland China has been reviewed
On the other hand, some Hollywood blockbusters that were still filming and post-production at the beginning of the outbreak were forced to stop production (including “The Matrix 4”, “Jurassic World 3”, etc.), even though it was as early as June Many crews have resumed work, but there are also many restrictions on staffing and work patterns. Considering that many of these films were originally aligned with the schedules of the next one or two years, the most pessimistic prediction may be that in the second half of this year and even one or two years thereafter, the schedule and supply of imported Hollywood blockbusters will be affected. Certainly affect.
In addition, some practitioners are also worried that changes in Sino-US relations may also have a certain impact on the introduction of films (including approval of films) and co-production cooperation. An industry insider who knows about overseas cooperation pointed out to Drug Mouth: “Before the epidemic, China and the United States had already encountered some difficulties in related cooperation. Therefore, during this period, the two sides are actually in a’cold period’ in cultural cooperation. The cooperation between the industry, including the Sino-US co-production, is not as close as before.”
It’s worth noting that “moving out of files” does not mean that there are no movies to play. The more important thing is that the lack of headline movies will affect the diversity of movies, especially the supply of commercial movies. decline. The direct pressure brought by this change is that the audience’s enthusiasm for watching movies in some important periods will be greatly reduced, and the number of inactive fans will be relatively reduced.
Take the summer file as an example, what is the driving force for the annual summer box office growth?
Judging from past data, it is the hit movies that determine the “lower limit” of box office growth. Looking back at the box office changes during the summer of 2014-2019, 2014’s “Transformers 4”, 2015’s “Monster Hunt”, 2017’s “Wolf Warriors 2”, 2018’s “I am not a Medicine God” and 2019 “Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes into the World”, the box office share of the single film has accounted for the file18% or higher of the total box office of the period, in contrast, the box office of these summer vacation files has achieved different levels of growth. Before the release of “Nezha: The Devil Boy”, the industry’s forecast for the summer vacation in 2019 was generally very pessimistic.
In contrast, in the summer of 2016, no real hits were born during the entire period. “Warcraft” with the highest box office during the period only achieved 1.47 billion box office, accounting for 11% of the box office. Therefore, the box office during the summer vacation this year did not rise but fell, a year-on-year decrease of 0.32%.
Box office results of some movies in the 2016 summer vacation
(Data source Lighthouse Professional Edition)
The emergence of explosive models can arouse the enthusiasm of many inactive movie fans, and then while hitting a higher single-piece box office, it can also bring the whole market. Therefore, if there is not enough eye-catching support, the summer vacation of 2021 may be as cold as 2016. What is more worth looking forward to now is whether there will be an attractive enough “Me and My Motherland” in the summer next year Powerful gift film.
Whether there is a big hit determines the “lower limit of growth”, and the diversity of the film determines the “upper limit of growth”.
From 2014 to 2019, with the exception of the 2016 summer box office decline, the box office growth rate for the summer vacation box in 2018 and 2019 was less than 7%, while the box office growth rate in the remaining years exceeded 30%. In addition to the depletion of demographic dividends and the slowing down of industry development, the low differentiation of films is also an important reason.
Data from the Beacon Professional Edition shows that among the films released in the summer of 2019, the user portraits of the three films “Nezha: The Devil’s Child”, “Heroes of Fire” and “Galaxy Tutorial” are very similar. They are all young women and white-collar workers. Movies with a high percentage of users. Considering that these movies have a relatively recent release time, it is easy to form a box office diversion when the target group is similar, which will affect the popularity of the market. This year, the summer box office increased only 2.26%.
