Nowadays, people have to look for a movie, TV series or variety show to watch when they eat. I am different. When I eat, my favorite thing is to look for bad movies.
In my opinion, bad movies are the best show for dinner.
First of all, the bad film perfectly solves the problem of missing the plot after eating. As we all know, bad movies have no plot at all.
Secondly, bad movies give people a different kind of happiness.
You are disappointed when you read “Creed” if you don’t understand it, and feel that your IQ has been crushed by Nolan. But you can’t watch bad movies. You will have a sense of superiority in the director’s IQ, and your appetite will become better when you are happy.
Finally, whether you have finished watching it or not, you can close the movie after eating and do other things. Anyway, there is no loss or worry about a bad movie until you finish watching it. It is simply a perfect artifact.
Because of this, I have developed a good habit, but for any bad movie, I just wait for a while to watch it on the video website, and I will definitely not go to the movie theater to contribute to the box office.
In the past few years, the days of bad movies have not been easy. No matter how big your marketing is, many audiences are just like me, just not going to the cinema.
But just a few years ago, these marketing brought huge benefits to bad movies. In this issue, let’s talk about the rise and fall of bad film marketing.
01
The fact that bad movies can also get a high box office starts from seven years ago.
In 2013, Andy Lau, Zhang Jingchu, Lin Chiling, and Tong Dawei gathered many big-name celebrities, and “Heaven’s Secret · Fuchun Mountain Living Picture”, which featured China’s first spy blockbuster as a selling point, received rave reviews as soon as it was released.
This work is a blockbuster with mixed action, sadomasochism, 3D, science fiction and many other commercial elements. The plot is empty and the characters are embarrassing. It set an ultra-low score of 2.9 on Douban.
The paradox is that its box office went against the word of mouth. It won 46 million box office on the first day, broke 100 million in two days, topped the list, and finally ended with 300 million box office, which was a great victory.
From today’s point of view, 300 million at the box office does not seem to be a big deal, but in 2013 it was enough to enter the top ten domestic films at the box office.
Only a year ago, “Thailand” did not open the domestic film billion box office era, the Chinese film market officially surpassed Japan to becomeThe world’s second ticket warehouse. Prior to this, the highest record for a domestic film was Feng Xiaogang’s “Tangshan Earthquake”, with a box office of only 670 million.
“Fuchun” opened the door to “bad film marketing”, and its success also made the capital market realize that the quality of the film itself and word-of-mouth has nothing to do with the box office.
The audience’s crazy complaints and the joint efforts of film critics have not stopped this work from advancing forward. On the contrary, Beijing, who is responsible for the marketing of the film, is infinitely comfortable and is very happy to use this high level of attention to win the box office.
So a strange phenomenon appeared during the Dragon Boat Festival in 2013. With the mentality of “you can’t comment if you don’t watch it” or “you have to see how bad it is”, the audience buys tickets to enter the venue. In some places, the attendance rate of “Fu Chun” is as high as 100%.
Unfortunately, I am one of them.
The special feature of “Fuchun” is not only in the “bad film marketing”, but also in its commercial operation.Work mode.
From the very beginning, creating a good movie was not within the scope of the producer’s consideration. How to return capital is the true proposition.
The four stars of Andy Lau, Zhang Jingchu, Tong Dawei and Lin Chiling are aimed at a wider audience.
The same is true for its chaotic commercial elements. Actions, love, science fiction, etc., are all aimed at a wider audience.
At the marketing level, “Fuchun” is positioned as a relatively blank “special agent film” in China, giving up first-tier city audiences early, and going to second- and third-tier cities for publicity, supplemented by local media reports.
In current terms, it means “market sinking.”
The idea of making movies based on products has undoubtedly won the favor of capitalists. For them, finding market positioning, hiring big-name celebrities, and doing promotion and promotion can be done with only money and can be controlled. This is what they are best at.
And content creation is the uncertainty.
In other words, if word-of-mouth can’t affect the box office, then why focus on the movie itself? Once you find a way to make money easily, capital will naturally avoid complicated and uncontrollable situations.
With the rapid increase in the box office of domestic films, movies have become a shortcut for capital to make money. This production method of disregarding content, focusing only on celebrities and propaganda, is not an exaggeration to say that it has opened the door to the era of bad movies made in China.
If “Fuchun” only opened a door in the era of streaming movies, then Guo Jingming’s “Little Times” series kicked the door open.
02
June 2013 can be regarded as the darkest June for domestic films. There are not only “Living in Fuchun Mountain”, but also “Fuji Detective” and “Little Era 1”.