After three years of ups and downs, the Chinese film market has finally ushered in a comprehensive recovery. Compared with 2019, which set a record of 64.1 billion yuan for the annual total box office in the mainland, the annual box office in 2023 will exceed 53.6 billion yuan (as of the 29th) There is still room for improvement. In terms of film performance, there are 70 films with more than 100 million yuan, an increase of 35 from 45 in 2022. Among them, domestic films performed very well, covering the top 10 at the box office, while imported films are gradually declining, and although the release of many imported blockbusters was pinned on high hopes, the final box office did not meet expectations.
The first producer reviewed the changes in the domestic film market in the past year, and took stock of the similarities and differences in the performance of various films, and found these five changes.
Looking back on the overall performance of the film market in the past year, it is not difficult to feel the vitality brought by the market recovery. Domestic films performed strongly, and the top ten films at the box office were all domestic films, namely "Man Jianghong", "The Wandering Earth 2", "All or Nothing", "She Who Disappeared", "Fengshen Part 1", "Thirty Thousand Miles of Chang'an" and "Bear Infested". Stay with me bear core", "Solid as a rock", "Unfamiliar with the road of life". Among them, the two films "Man Jianghong" and "The Wandering Earth 2" have a single box office of more than 4 billion. The top 10 films at the annual box office cover a variety of genres such as suspense, science fiction, crime, mythology, animation, comedy, etc., forming a market situation in which a hundred flowers compete for beauty.
Popular schedules such as the Spring Festival and summer holidays performed well, and the box office of the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year's Eve - the sixth day of the first lunar month) was 676.5 billion yuan, ranking second in the box office list of the Spring Festival stalls in Chinese film history;The box office of the summer file (June 1-August 31) exceeded 206 for the first time200 million yuan;The box office of the National Day file (September 29-October 6) reached 273.5 billion yuan. The outstanding performance of the three major schedules has contributed to accelerating the recovery of the film market. At the same time, it is also necessary to realize that relying too much on the schedule is not conducive to long-term development, and how to increase the box office level of the usual weekend stalls and form a stable normal is a problem that the industry needs to solve urgently.
As of the 29th, among the 70 films that will exceed 100 million at the box office in 2023, 58 films have more female audiences than male audiences. The female audience of the top ten films at the box office all exceeded the male audience, of which the female audience of "Disappearing Her" accounted for 762%, and the female audience of "Unfamiliar with Life" accounted for 727%, "Bear Infested." "Bear Core with Me" female audience accounted for 708%, and the female audience of "Man Jianghong" accounted for 684%。It can be seen that female audiences have become the mainstream of the market. The truth of "those who win women win the world", which is respected by domestic TV drama producers and investors, is being verified in the film industry.
However, in terms of film content supply, there are not many works that revolve around women or women's topics, which is obviously contrary to the size of the market. This year, the box office results of the female-themed films "Barbie", "Disappearing Her" and "I Passed Through the Storm", which focus more attention on women, were 22.5 billion, 352.3 billion, 1800 million. In addition to "Disappearing Her", the other two films performed mediocre in the market and did not achieve surprising results.
To sum up, there is no doubt that female-themed films will have a lot of room for growth in the future, but creators need to explore in many ways to find the best way to express women's films and achieve a win-win situation at the box office and word of mouth.
In the past year, many movies based on reality have achieved a win-win situation in terms of word-of-mouth and box office. The film "In the Octagon Cage" is based on the real incident of "Fighting Orphans" that caused a sensation in 2017, Wang Baoqiang plays the prototype of the protagonist Enbo, the founder of Sichuan Enbo Fighting Club, and Su Mu's prototype is the captain of the club in 2017, martial arts athlete Su Mu Dalji. The movie tells the story of Xiang Tenghui, a frustrated middle-aged man, leading a group of children to highlight the encirclement of fate and explore the way out of life. The film is a rare marginal theme among realistic films, and as of the 29th, the box office of the film exceeded 2.2 billion.
All or Nothing" is adapted from tens of thousands of real cases, focusing on transnational criminal activities such as online fraud, online gambling traps, recruitment and abduction, which are repeatedly prohibited. Through the experiences of three ordinary people who were involved in the Internet fraud case, it is of great practical significance to reveal the inside story of the entire industry chain of overseas Internet fraud, with a cumulative box office of 384.8 billion.
The Eighth Suspect is based on the real events of the armed robbery case in 1995, which tells the story of a criminal gang led by "Master" Chen Xinwen, after the armed robbery of a cash transport vehicle and the shocking crime, the main culprit disappeared into the vast sea of people, and the story of perseverance to start a 21-year pursuit of the suspect has exceeded 43.9 billion.
"Solid as a Rock" locks its eyes on the theme of "anti-corruption", the subject matter is more sensitive and even sharp, and it is finally launched after many rounds of review, which is another breakthrough in Zhang Yimou's creative career, and the cumulative box office has exceeded 135.1 billion.
The popular "Three Teams" is based on real events, originally published in "NetEase Human Studio", the original title is "Please Tell the Director, the Three Teams' Tasks Are Completed", which tells the story of the three teams led by Cheng Bing (played by Zhang Yi), the captain of the Criminal Investigation Brigade, who caused the accidental death of one of the suspects in the process of handling a vicious case and was sentenced to prison. After being released from prison, he still insisted on tracking the story of the fugitive suspect as an ordinary person. At present, the Douban score of the film is 78, the box office has exceeded 500 million.
In 2023, the film market will generally be a pattern of "out of the circle" and "explosive" for realistic themes. The reason for this is that the realist theme has reached a higher level of artistic level after its own development in recent years, and at the same time, it integrates suspense, crime and other genre characteristics, making it more watchable.
Looking at 2023, it is not difficult to find that at a time when the audience's aesthetic demand is constantly improving, the routine model of imported films has gradually lost its competitiveness, and domestic films have become more solid under continuous tempering, especially "Man Jianghong", "Fengshen Part 1" and "Thirty Thousand Miles of Chang'an", which are three films with Chinese culture as the background, have achieved high box office, which is gratifying.
"Man Jianghong" is based on the history of Qin Hui's peace talks with Jin Guo four years after Yue Fei's death, telling the heroic story of a group of little people who go forward and use their lives to play games with traitors.
"Thirty Thousand Miles of Chang'an" focuses on the Tang Dynasty before and after the Anshi Rebellion, and tells the life of meeting and knowing Li Bai from the perspective of the Tang Dynasty poet Gao Shi, and writes the epic of the rise and fall of the Tang Dynasty. Whether it is the visual style of digital film technology that integrates Chinese style ink painting, or the theme narrative that sees the big from the small, it presents the traditional Chinese aesthetic conception of "painting in poetry and poetry in painting". In the film, the popularization of 48 Tang poems and the appearance of dozens of historical celebrities undoubtedly made a surprising cultural popularization of traditional culture. In the cinema, the audience collectively recited Tang poems, which has become a rare cultural landscape in 2023.
Fengshen Part 1 takes the modern film industry as the carrier, and through the resilience of "ten years of grinding a sword", it has built a mythological epic belonging to the Chinese. From the perspective of the industry, "Fengshen Part 1" takes off its coat, which is a breakthrough for domestic mythological epic films from 0 to 1, and it is also the highest level of Chinese film industrialization for Chinese filmmakers to explore the modernization and cinematic narrative path of China's traditional history and culture. Looking back at the uncertain future of the market nine years ago, the producer Beijing Culture entered the game as a pioneer, which is admirable.
In 2023, the role of marketing will be highlighted again, and the communication effect on Douyin and other short ** will become a key factor in the film's breakthrough. For example, the summer box office champion "Disappearing Her" is highly related to social hot events such as the Chinese pregnant woman falling off the cliff in Thailand and the murder of an Indonesian couple, and even deliberately obtained the authorization of the parties to the "Chinese pregnant woman falling off the cliff in Thailand" before the filming of the film, and buried the hot spots and stalks in the script as early as possible.
After the release of the film, according to the user portrait of the film, the filmmaker used the female issue as a marketing breakthrough to release and diverge hot topics such as "scumbag", "love brain", "Southeast Asian tourism", "freak show", "girls help girls" and other hot topics that can ignite public emotions, covering the vast sinking market to the greatest extent and achieving a high box office conversion rate.
After "All or Nothing" was finalized, the popularity was not high, until the short ** release of the "Fraud Group Morning Meeting" instantly ignited the popularity of the film, and the single-day Taopiao ticket skyrocketed by 523% month-on-month. In terms of marketing strategy, "All or Nothing" fully caters to the current audience's attention and curiosity about telecom fraud in northern Myanmar, presents the whole process of telecom fraud in Southeast Asia in an all-round way, and uncovers the truth of transnational crimes such as online gambling traps and recruitment abduction in real life. In the marketing process, the film focuses on pushing the real overseas fraud plot in the film, allowing the audience to click on the materials driven by curiosity, and while admiring the "not like acting", it acts as the tap water of the movie. "All or Nothing" opened on August 5, and the box office was as high as 53.8 billion yuan, breaking the box office record in Chinese film history.
Both films are aware of the importance of marketing, and are deeply cultivated in the sinking market, which greatly drives the audience's sense of participation and expression with topicality. It is not difficult to find that as long as the audience's emotional explosion is triggered, it can be quickly disseminated on the short ** platform, and then promote the conversion of the box office.
It is worth noting that among the 70 films with a box office of over 100 million in 2023, there are obvious regionalization characteristics. For example, the Northeast region prefers comedies such as "Exchanging Lives", "Tea Ah Middle 2" and "Super Family", "Anti-Drug 3: People in the World" and "The Bad Tongue Lawyer" are more popular in Guangdong, and imported films such as "Mission Impossible 7" and "The Flash" have performed well at the box office in Shanghai. From this point of view, "differentiated marketing" in the future will be a new increment in the box office of films in the future.
2023 is coming to an end, and the hopeful year 2024 has begun. With the continuous revitalization of industry confidence, Chinese films will move forward bravely, promote the main theme and diversification in parallel, and let more audiences enter the theater.