The online movie industry, which has been silent for a whole year, finally briefly returned to the public eye during the Spring Festival. Various platforms have come up with Spring Festival film lists, and many surprises have emerged.
The word-of-mouth work "No One in My Eyes" in 2022 launched a sequel "No One in My Eyes 2", with a box office of about 13 million in the first two weeks of broadcasting, and a Douban score of 72 successfully surpassed the previous work, and it is also the highest-scoring online movie work in the past year. originally met to "see you on the big screen", but in the end, it was based on the risk of considering the transfer of the network, which also brought a rare rising narrative to the online movie.
No one in my eyes 2 (source: Douban) On the other hand, Youku's exclusive "Black and White Sneaking" Hong Kong film has a strong flavor and won more than 28 million box office; Tencent**'s "Painting the Rivers and Lakes: Tiangang" has IP blessings, although it is not a traditional online movie, but the box office of 60 million also excites the industry.
After the comprehensive decline in data in all dimensions in 2023, the online movie industry relies on holiday consumption to revive itself, but the industry is far from being optimistic. The process of "quality improvement" is blocked, the "reduction" is plummeting, industry practitioners and audiences are being attracted by emerging categories, and online movies have reached the moment when they urgently need to reorganize their own value.
From the theater to the web
Originally, "No One in My Eyes 2" went to the theater. However, on January 19, "No One in My Eyes 2" issued an announcement on the official Weibo, saying that it still decided to return to iQiyi Cloud Cinema, the core reason is that "martial arts movies have shown a withering creation and a rare scene in the market".
Wei Junzi, the producer of "No One in My Eyes 2", told Poison Eye that the decision to transfer the theater to the network was made only a month before the announcement was issued, and the entire production cycle of "No One in Sight 2" was produced in accordance with the standards of cinema films.
In the theater market, the ceiling of martial arts movies is visible to the naked eye, and the highest-grossing martial arts film in domestic film history is "Dragon Gate Flying Armor", only 6800 million. And this is already a 2011 movie, and there are very few creators who are still choosing this genre in recent years, which inevitably makes people worry about the box office prospects of new martial arts films.
However, with Tsui Hark's new work "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" to be screened, and Yuan Heping's "Dart Man: The Wind Rises in the Desert", which is gradually released, driven by big productions, Wei Junzi is optimistic about the future popularity of martial arts movies in theaters, and has not given up the possibility of the follow-up works of "No One in My Eyes" landing in theaters again.
Another reason for the transfer of the theater to the network comes from actor Xie Miao, as the "face" of the new generation in the online film industry, he has also received many invitations to shoot cinema film projects, and his agency contract was also signed with the producer and producer of the "No One in My Eyes" and "Northeast Police Story" series. In Wei Junzi's view, the planning of Xie Miao needs to be considered from a long-term perspective, and there is no need to take unnecessary risks at this stage.
Poison Eye once conducted a detailed case review of the first part of "No One in My Eyes" the year before last (click here to read: "How a 7-point online movie was born|Dialogue with the main creator"), using low cost to create a high reputation, so as to achieve a demonstration effect, is the most valuable experience of "No One in Sight" to the industry.
And in the second part, although the benchmark is the standard of cinema production, its advantages in cost control have not been discarded. Wei Junzi revealed that the cost of "No One in My Eyes 2" is controlled at the minimum standard of theater-level martial arts films, so even if it is finally transferred to the network, the cost pressure on the main creative team is not high.
At present, "No One in My Eyes 2" has reached about 13 million box office in the first two weeks of broadcasting, while the first part of "No One in My Eyes" has received more than 9 million box office during the 35-day on-demand period, and "Northeast Police Story 2" is more than 15 million. In the case of the downturn of the industry, the light knife fast horse has maintained a gradual increase in performance.
"No One in My Eyes" and "Northeast Police Story 2" (Source: Douban) For the light knife fast horse, the whole team has also gone from the first stage to the second stage in the early stage of entrepreneurship. "In the first stage, we were barefoot, not afraid to wear shoes, and we fought for everything. So at this stage, we have a certain amount of capital and can have a certain ability to avoid risks, so why not? Wei Junzi said.
At the creative level, a prominent feature is that "No One in My Eyes 2" has added more emotional and delicate literary and drama parts than its predecessor. The question of the ratio of literary drama to martial arts drama has been a long-standing creative problem in the martial arts genre or action genre, and there is no absolute standard answer, depending on the pros and cons of the creator. In Douban's evaluation, both users said that the second part was pleasantly surprised by the changes in character creation, and some users said that the play was "relatively deflated".
Wei Junzi explained, ""No One in My Eyes 2" began to prepare after the final cut of "No One in My Eyes", that is, in June 2021, and "No One in My Eyes" was actually officially launched in June 2022. In other words, the creation of "No One in My Eyes 2" was actually not carried out after receiving feedback from the audience of "No One in My Eyes", but from the understanding of theatrical films. If the follow-up work decides to be released in theaters, it will still make more fuss about literary drama and character relationships, but if it is aimed at the online movie market, it is more suitable to strengthen action scenes. ”
It can be seen that for online movies and their fixed audiences, action scenes or other stimulating elements are more obvious comfort zones, and the addition of delicate literary dramas this time is an unexpected breakthrough. However, it can also be seen from today's word-of-mouth and box office performance that there is no way out for doing a good job in literary dramas, and stepping out of the comfort zone is not necessarily a bad thing for online film practitioners.
Make a brand in online movies
Open "No One in My Eyes 2", you can see many barrages arguing whether this is a prequel or a sequel to the first part, and after the final battle, the blind man fell to the ground with exhaustion, does it mean that there is no third part.
In the imagination of the main creative team, the "No One in Sight" series will not be a continuation of the upper and lower episodes, but a series of character movies. Wei Junzi mentioned, "Just like the 'Huang Feihong series' and '007 series', every episode is this character, but every episode is a new journey and you will meet new characters." ”
The light knife and fast horse have the consciousness of making the two IPs of "No One in My Eyes" and "Northeast Police Story" into some kind of "universe". Wei Junzi revealed that this year's works to be screened are a spin-off movie "Riot Control" based on "Northeast Police Story", and a spin-off movie "Knife Catcher" based on "No One in Sight". Both of them are branch lines that extend outward in the worldview of their respective IPs.
In the film industry, there are few IPs born from original scripts, and it is even more difficult to have the opportunity to make an "IP universe". In the cinema market, there is no other IP that is still active than "Bear Infested", and the unattainable attendance rate every year is demonstrating the strong appeal of the IP itself. And such appeal is based on the superposition of stable word-of-mouth output every year.
In the online movie market, there are also some original IP series of movie cases, such as the "Big Snake" series, the "Raging God of Wealth" series, the "Erlong Lake" series and so on. However, due to word-of-mouth factors, these series failed to break the circle, and the box office performance continued to weaken with the ** performance, and the brand effect failed. Taking the "Big Snake" series as an example, 4 films have been updated from 2018 to the present, and the box office is 507840,000, 325670,000, 374220,000, 207740,000, and the Douban score is stable below 5 points.
The "Big Snake" series of movies (Source: Douban) This shows that the series of movies with insufficient word-of-mouth has not actually established real barriers, and it is difficult to continue the audience base of the previous one to the next. The basis for "No One in Sight" and "Northeast Police Story" to do IP serialization is the stability of word-of-mouth, and the next step, whether it is in theaters or continuing to go online, can reap the help of the fan effect accumulated in the previous work.
And the cinema line will always be a key step in the IP construction of "No One in My Eyes", because it means a breakthrough in the original audience circle. When the audience base of IP expands, more cross-media products derived from IP, such as drama and film linkage, film and game linkage, or commercialization paths such as brand licensing, will become possible.
There is no schedule for online movies
In the comments of many users, "hanging other Spring Festival movies" is also a high-frequency evaluation of "No One in My Eyes 2". It's just that as an online movie, in fact, the concept of schedule is not as strong as that of theaters. is not as good as the product temperament of the theater "specially designed for the Spring Festival", and many times online movies "just happen to be released during the Spring Festival".
Yang Haitao, senior vice president of iQIYI, once mentioned, "We are a stream**, and we are not particularly strong in the concept of schedule." But because we launched the 'Action Master Season' is a label, after the launch of this label, we chose the Spring Festival, but we felt that the number of people watching the movie during the Spring Festival was more, and we wanted to make this label a hit, in fact, it was for these ** services. ”
In a word. Whether the first part of "No One in My Eyes" chose to be launched in the summer, or "No One in My Eyes 2" chose to be launched during the Spring Festival, in essence, it is because these two time periods are the peak period of the year for the number of moviegoers in the online film market, and the platform chooses to come up with the most playable works to be launched, without forming the so-called scheduled consumption habits among the audience.
Since the industry-wide "Online Movie Spring Festival File" was strongly promoted in 2021, except for the first year of "Fortune Diary" and "The Legend of Shaolin Temple", which briefly ignited the excitement of the industry because of its cinema-level production, the follow-up has been in an embarrassing state of "thunder and rain".
Fortune Diary" and "The Legend of Shaolin Temple's Debao" (Source: Douban) Until this year, each platform has made different focuses and formed differentiated development. iQIYI played the "Action Master Season" label, focusing on action movies; Tencent** launched the "Goose Family Movie Online Spring Festival File", highlighting the selection of a number of comedies that fit the atmosphere of the Spring Festival; Youku shouted the slogan of "blockbuster one-stop", which is divided into four categories: "hilarious", "super cool", "hurricane" and "heartwarming", with everything in the main features.
Some of the masterpieces are also worth analyzing: "Black and White Sneak", which has exceeded 28 million box office, is currently the box office champion in 2024, and the results have surpassed the second place in 2023, which is the product of Youku giving full play to its advantages in Hong Kong films; And Tencent** launched "Painting Jianghu: Tiangang", which was released on New Year's Day, and the box office exceeded 60 million after the Spring Festival, which is also a continuation of Tencent's dominant position in the animation industry.
Black and White Sneaking", "Painting the Tiangang of the Rivers and Lakes" (source: Douban) In addition, there is also "Rampant God of Wealth 5" that is simulcast on three platforms. The series has been broadcast for 5 consecutive years, and every year it is released on the fifth day of the Lunar New Year to welcome the God of Wealth, becoming a kind of "mascot movie" produced by the festival. There is no shame in emphasizing the practical value of film products, and many of the popular models in theaters last year also emphasized the practical value of films at the marketing level to attract audiences, as a mass entertainment consumer product, which is of course a reasonable direction for sales strategies. It's just that the box office of the film is too restricted by festivals, which makes the long tail limited, and the box office performance of the 5 works is not stable, none of them have yet exceeded 10 million, and the reputation is not satisfactory.
But no matter what, the current results of the Spring Festival stalls still give a little light to the haze that shrouded the industry throughout last year. According to the data of Lighthouse Professional Edition, there will only be 1 film with a box office of more than 30 million in 2023, compared with 4 in 2022 and 9 in 2021. In 2023, there will be only 31 films with a box office of more than 10 million, compared with 43 in 2022 and 70 in 2021. Whether it is the overall data or the top hit data, it has shown a comprehensive shrinkage.
Improving quality and reducing quantity cannot be an excuse for the industry, although the number and total box office are declining, but there is only one "Northeast Police Story 2" on Douban, which is also inferior to 2022 and 2021.
The loss of audiences is only one aspect, and the loss of practitioners is just as serious. With the sudden rise of short drama products in 2023, a large number of online movie practitioners in the past have flocked to short dramas, becoming one of the living forces of "turning horizontal stores into vertical stores". A senior executive of the platform said at the internal sharing meeting at the end of the year, "The original production talents have been lost, the construction of the talent echelon has been bottlenecked, and the industry seems to be less lively." ”
The more fatal problem is that the skit has completed the iteration of the business model. When the mini program drama appears, it means that the channel to C has been opened up first, and the myth of benefiting the daily flow of more than 100 million yuan has appeared, although the cost of buying is high. However, most practitioners of online movies are still stuck in the old model of relying on platform account sharing, and the number of films that can be paid separately each year is very limited, which means that its commercial ceiling is visible to the naked eye, especially in the general trend of platform cost reduction and efficiency increase.
The way to break the game
But online movies are not without a way to break the game, and a relatively clear path can be seen from the performance of Spring Festival films-differentiation.
Wei Junzi did not study the skit track, but after discussing it with the team, he decisively gave up. On the one hand, it is difficult for the short drama form of the vertical screen to be compatible with the martial arts action, which may be fine as an embellishment, but it is difficult to present it as the main genre; On the other hand, the action genre has always been relatively costly, and compared with other drama films, it has a great disadvantage in cost control.
On the other hand, the category that is difficult to be compatible with short drama products is precisely the category in which online movies can still hold the moat. Including horizontal comparison with theatrical films, the degree of routine of classic Hong Kong films is serious, and the box office appeal is gradually weakening. In 2022, "Detective Wars" can still harvest 7With a box office of 1.2 billion, films such as "Sneaking" and "Anti-Drug 3: The End of the World" will only be able to stop at 2-400 million by 2023.
Detective War", "Sneaking", "Anti-Drug 3: People at the End of the World" (Source: Douban) But in the field of online movies, action movies have always been a strong genre, and many fixed audiences who have feelings for ancient Hong Kong films have always been the inherent viewing group of online movies.
According to the data released by iQiyi, action films account for 40% of the top 20 film memberships** in the 30 days online on the platform, and the number of orders in cloud cinemas in 2023 accounts for 91% of all films. According to Lighthouse Professional Edition, among the 29 films with a share of more than 10 million in 2023, there are as many as 15 action movies.
Song Jia, vice president of iQIYI, once mentioned, "The decrease in the supply of cinema movies and action movies has caused a gap in the market, and we want to take over this knife to see if we can recreate something and reproduce the glory of Chinese action movies." ”
In addition to action movies, the aforementioned field of anime or live-action manga is also an emerging category that needs to be broken through. The user stickiness and willingness to pay of the two-dimensional crowd are strong, and this category is also not good at short dramas or cinema movie products, which may become a sharp knife for online movies to explore to c payment.
All in all, embracing change is the only choice to solve the problem, and online movies have reached the threshold where they must change. Grasping the only ascending narratives and stepping out of the comfort zone of the past will give you a chance to stop the singing and declining.