"Brother, please, lend me another 500. ”
On December 6, 2023, at Jimei University in Xiamen, Fujian, China, Xiaoshuai, who was shy in his pocket, launched a loan application to his roommate:
Why do you borrow so much?
Mei wants to see the snow.
There is no snow in Fujian.
There are in the cinema.
After getting the money, Xiao Shuai, who is in a second-tier city, made an important decision and spent 400 yuan to buy two movie tickets from scalpers, and the movie name is "Twinkle Twinkle Twinkle Star".
In China, countless handsome Xiaomei hold mobile phones in their hands, waiting for the mercy of the ticket issuer.
The ticket price of "Bright Stars" ranged from 50 yuan to 199 yuan, and the pre-sale box office directly exceeded 70 million yuan in less than 1 day, and the scalpers who smelled the smell of blood rushed in and directly fried the ticket price to more than 200 yuan.
With the joint efforts of many parties, the pre-sale box office directly surpassed "Detective Chinatown 3" and became the box office champion on the first day of pre-sale of domestic films in Chinese film history.
The success of the announcement of "Bright Stars" was accompanied by huge controversy, and some people said that it must be a love saliva film similar to "Predecessor 3";Some people say that it is a bad movie that is purely hyped.
But no matter what, this publicity exceeded expectations, scalpers, passers-by, fans, publicity, producers, theaters, a** field, roasted starch sausages, selling snow spray cans, producing snow machines, and making campus white-walled ......The sudden traffic and the splashing wealth made either party unprepared, and this result was enough to shock Zhang Yimou a hundred times again.
The reason for the success of this film can be said to be simple. That's it:Cinemas can snow.
A film that shocked the nation
It's not that ordinary movie theaters can't afford to go, but movie theaters that can snow are more cost-effective.
The movie version of "Twinkle Twinkle Twinkle Star" is an adaptation of the original "Bright Star" TV series. The original plot tells the story of Lin Beixing (played by Zhang Jianing), who frequently travels back to high school by mistake, and finds that his fate is closely related to Zhang Wansen (played by Qu Chuxiao), and finally the two parties redeem each other across time and space.
This TV series has been evaluated by 170,000 people on Douban, and the score is in the upper middle of 68 points level, there is a certain basis for adaptation.
But the adaptation is not a random editing, it is not a change that can be successful, and the IP is larger with 170,000 evaluations, 7The 4-point "Why Sheng Xiaomo" TV series, after being adapted into a movie, laughed at 3The title of 7 points is a big bad movie, and it was angrily sprayed as shit by the audience.
There are countless similar lessons from the past, and I also think that it is very likely to be a bad movie.
But "Bright Star" is so successful in publicity and distribution that it has had a circle-breaking effect, to the extent that it affects the A-share entertainment sector, which has to make me think about it.
is like what a netizen said: "Most of them are young couples who follow the trend", which also proves the commercial success of the movie.
The core theme of the promotion is:A romantic New Year's Eve date at the cinema.
On December 31, New Year's Eve, at 13:14, I went to watch a love movie with my lover that can snow, and the concept of "snow" attracted the attention of many passers-by.
Snow resorts, as the name suggests, are when you see a certain part of the movie, the movie theater will start to artificially snow.
Kind of interesting, right?
But this form of publicity is easy to recall the fear of being dominated by "The Last Night on Earth".
As a niche literary film, "The Last Night on Earth" was tens of millions less at the box office before its release.
But because of the ghostly publicity, telling passers-by that the movie was screened on December 31, and just after the broadcast was just after 0:00 to the New Year, you could "kiss the New Year's Eve" with the protagonist, and the pre-sale was a great success, and the pre-sale box office circled in for a full 15.9 billion yuan.
Because of the publicity, the literary films that are difficult to be understood by ordinary people have been packaged into simple and easy-to-understand romantic films, so that many people know for the first time what is the threshold for watching movies and what is "fraudulent" publicity.
The Last Night" first day 3190,000 refunds, an astonishing achievement.
Therefore, this time, the announcement of "Bright Stars" also made many people vigilant and suspicious.
First of all, many passers-by saw the scene of snow in the movie theater and were very looking forward to it, and bought tickets one after another.
But after studying the details, some concerned netizens found that the so-called "snow field" is to let the audience hold a snow can and spray it on the ceiling by themselves.
On the one hand, the ticket price is slightly expensive, ranging from 50 to 100 yuan, and netizens in Shanghai even said that one of his snow resorts is 299 yuan, plus popcorn, and two tickets cost 660 yuan.
On the other hand, it is a hand-held snow spray can, which seems to be a little cheap, and it is 1 if you buy it in 16887 yuan a bottle, buy more and get more.
Some viewers were not happy when they saw it, and the romantic scene of indoor snow promoted by Douyin turned out to be that they took a small can and sprayed it themselves, so they clicked on the refund one after another.
It's like when you go to KFC on a crazy Thursday to order fried chicken, and the waiter gives you a pair of gloves and takes you to the back kitchen to kill the chicken.
Many audiences pay for the pursuit of a sense of ceremony, and without a sense of ceremony, there will be no box office.
There are many people who choose to refund their tickets because they are not in the snow resort.
Indians have a deep understanding of the sense of movie-watching ritual.
In November 2023, when "War Tiger 3" starring Salman Khan was released nationwide in India, some viewers spontaneously set off fireworks and danced to celebrate when they saw the climax in the cinema.
Note: This is a real event
Therefore, in order to meet the audience's demand for a sense of ritual, the cinema conveniently remembered a trick.
Some movie theaters decided to have a few employees spray snow by hand during the movie.
Some movie theaters have gone even further, directly introducing snow guns to snow to avoid the audience's worries about manual DIY.
Some movie theaters advertise that they have the largest amount of snow, and the number of "Bright Stars" they advertise is"Blizzard Field".
Some movie theaters are unconventional, buy bubble machines, and say that we have a "bubble field" here, in order to meet the ritual needs of different groups.
The theater was rolled up, the audience was satisfied, the fire department was not satisfied, and the cinema was asked to carry out fire rectification.
Back and forth, some movie theaters directly put out the strictest security checks in Chinese film history.
It is forbidden to carry matches, lighters and other flammable and explosive materials, and the static electricity must be removed before watching the movie, and 2 staff members are holding fire extinguishers and waiting for ......
The chaos of ticket grabbing and refund around the sense of ritual is endlessThe most feared thing is not the ticket issuer, but the scalpers who hoard tickets.
Some scalpers are surprised to find that they are not hoarding snow fields, even 1There was no snow tank for 7 yuan, and the refund button was urgently pressed.
In the end, with the joint efforts of many parties, as of December 7, Maoyan's first-day refund rate reached a full 181%, and the number of refunds on the platform is 3060,000 people. The cumulative box office of the three-day refund is estimated to be 22.42 million yuan, and the refund money is just about the cumulative box office of "Burning Winter" (27.06 million yuan).
Even if the refund rate is so high, the back waves of the Yangtze River push the front waves, and the tickets for "Bright Stars" are still hard to find.
The successful publicity method and the unexpected publicity results made the stock price of Beijing Culture Company, as an investor, rise and fall for 2 consecutive days, and everyone in the film industry couldn't sit still.
Dark and magical announcements
Before the successful release of the ritual sense of "Bright Star", the promotion of many movies on Douyin failed.
They constantly want to tell netizens how awesome their movies are.
So the publicity slice that we can see on Douyin usually looks like this:
The actor is awesome, which shocked Zhang Yimou, who watched the film.
The scene was awesome, which made Wu Jingjing, who was visiting the class, stupid.
The plot is awesome, which made Huo Siyan, who watched the premiere, cry.
Not only that, I am afraid that the audience will think that the reputation of these actors and directors is not real enough, and they will release more shocking reactions to attract everyone's attention.
I have to say that the reaction of moviegoers can sometimes show a higher acting talent than the actors in the play.
The most outrageous thing is this, take a Mac computer to watch a movie, and go to work next to the movie halfway.
Halfway through work, I returned to the viewing seat, laughed, and completed a seamless switch of emotions.
Some movies have reached the level of science fiction. The filmmaker of a movie specially organized a pet dog viewing field, and in their publicity**, you can see that after watching the movie, the dog's IQ instantly improved, and he was able to understand the plot of the movie, and he was moved to tears.
But friends who have had dogs know that although dogs will be sad, dogs will not cry when they are sad, and it is normal for dogs to have moist eyes.
As the famous saying goes, "A lie needs to be covered up with countless lies." ”
We are not saying that the content of the movie itself is bad, but that after these announcements exaggerate the excellent quality of the film, in order to prove how awesome the movie is, they have to use various forms to improve its credibility, and as a result, the audience doesn't know what the movie is for after watching a bunch of announcements, but only remembers these ridiculous reactions, and even treats the reaction as the movie itself to savor.
This kind of propaganda logic is like the original 10 yuan 3 hamburgers of high-quality and inexpensive Hua*, because a small number of restaurants have health problems, and as a result, office workers are treated as laxatives.
And the publicity of "Bright Star" is very clever, and even very retro, that is, it tells the audience superficially and directly that watching a movie has a sense of ritual.
Live a cost-effective sobriety
Some people will say that the essence of watching movies is not to be good?
What else can you talk about without talking about the content of the plot?Can the sense of ritual be eaten as a meal?
Yes, if we discuss movies about movies, the *** bad of "Bright Stars" is really full of doubts, and the probability of bad movies is not low.
In the comment section of an article by "Poisonous Eyes" "Twinkle Twinkle Twinkle Star" and "Twinkle Blind" Film Market", we can see more interesting views.
The feeling of "a hydropower beauty sewing seedling worker" from ShaanxiThe children in the first year of junior high school are clamoring to watch this movie, and this generation is wasted again!
Some people also said that they found that in the campus wall, they were trading information about the movie tickets for "Bright Stars".Basically, women love to watch, and men don't feel it.
Some people also found that even in the fourth- and fifth-tier cities, the snow field of this film has been sold for 99 yuan, and it is still full, pure circle money.
Further data analysis allows us to gradually piece together a demographic of the population.
Through the lighthouse app, you can see that "Bright Stars" wants to see 85 users6% are women.
Among them, the main audience age accounted for 389%, and 37% are under the age of 20.
In terms of geographical distribution, first-tier cities only account for 97% want to see the proportion, and more are from second-tier and below lower-tier cities, with a total of 913%。
It can be seen that the main contributors to the advance ticket office come from residents of third- and fourth-tier cities, especially young people under the age of 24, and women.
This reminds me of last month's hit game: ", I'm Surrounded by Beautiful Women".
From a gameplay point of view, "Beauty" is not very new, and there were a large number of products as early as 20 years ago.
If you compare "Beauty", which costs 42 yuan, in the game category, it is not the most excellent love game, and the cost performance is average.
But you must know that the biggest difference between "Beauty" and other love games is that it uses a real-life three-dimensional girl to play the role of the game, so she changed herself to a completely different track.
If you compare the 42 yuan "Beauty" with the social pressure and cost in reality, it is more stressful and costlyHeterosexual socializationMake a comparison. We'll see how the game captured the wallets and running water of a lot of players.
Beauty is a cyber emotional supplement for the player base.
Twinkle Star" is not the case?
A lot has happened in the past two years, all of which point to a critique of the traditional middle-class entertainment life.
Playing frisbee and flag football, it became popular for a while and then quickly went out.
The act of walking around the city became acceptable to the sophisticated working middle class after it became a citywalk after the Chinese translation became English.
The Japanese craftsman, omakase platter, who was once deified in 2022, is now criticized as inferior to Northeast barbecue, unhygienic, and only deceiving the rich. Some bloggers visited the store and found that the so-called barbecue master had not even cut the nail fungus.
While young people can't roll up afternoon tea, their disenchantment for afternoon tea is to directly pancake rolls with green onions and spicy soup noodles at 3 p.m.
Some people think that this is because the economy has slowed down, people have become realistic, and they want to return to a simple life.
But at the same time, we can also see that there are some other forms of cultural consumption entertainment that are beginning to become popular.
Since April, the "special forces tourism" initiated by college students and white-collar workers has chosen not to take a break in order to get enough rest on the few days off.
Relaxing on the train and visiting multiple attractions in a row during the day is a highly sought-after form of arduous leisure. During the Qingming Festival holiday alone, 62% of post-00s tourists choose to set off at night to go to their destinations, and three-thirds of post-00s tourists check in more than 4 scenic spots a day.
Subsequently, the way of escaping from first-tier cities and embracing third- and fourth-tier tourism continued to heat up.
Go to Qinhuangdao Aranya to enjoy the life of Yaqiu, go to Guizhou to see the village BA, go to the world rock center Shijiazhuang to listen to rock, go to Zibo to eat barbecue, and go to Guangdong to watch dragon boating.
Village ba
These are all repeated reminders of one thing.
Man is not an animal that can be thoroughly satisfied just by eating, drinking, and lazing.
When young people's survival needs are satisfied, they yearn for a bigger world, in the northeast they will want to go to the south to see the sea, in the south they will want to go to the north to see the snow, in school for a long time they will want to go to the ** festival crazy, after busy work they also crave a different meal of food and alcohol.
Culture and entertainment are also just needed.
When the original form of entertainment becomes too expensive due to rent, land prices, resource monopoly, capital speculation, etc., people will spontaneously seek cheap alternatives.
People began to raise dogs without babies, rode bicycles instead of driving, and began to flee from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and returned to small county towns.
Netizens no longer deified the 2,000 yuan omakase, they recalculated the equation, and then spent 500 yuan to buy a round-trip ticket from Beijing to Zibo, and then ate barbecue for 3 days in a row.
Office workers replaced Starbucks, which cost an average price of 30 yuan a cup, with 99 cups of Luckin, and even 5 yuan a cup of lucky coffee are also highly sought after.
If we regard "Bright Stars" as an ordinary movie, then it is naturally too expensive, but if we regard "Bright Stars" as a part of dating and New Year's Eve, it will undoubtedly redeem many people's wallets.
It's not a single person who can't afford to ski in Chongli, Hebei for two days, 1550 yuan.
It is "Bright Star" with a ticket price of 100, which is more cost-effective.
Adapting the lines of "I Am Not the God of Medicine", we may be able to better understand the true meaning:
Film critics, please, I just want to beg you, stop chasing "Twinkle Twinkle Twinkle Star", okay?I've lived in Beijing for 3 years, I've eaten 2000 yuan of omakase for 3 years, the down payment on the house is gone, Alipay is broken, and now I finally have a cheap place to date, you have to say it's a bad movie, can we not know if the film is rotten or not?That ticket is only 200 yuan a piece, can you promise not to date for the rest of your life?
I also want to have a loving ......”