Since 2023, the box office of online movies has suffered a downturn, which is quite worrying. Only 25 online movies have successfully broken through the box office of 10 million points, and in the second half of the year, there is no one that can break through the 20 million accounts. However, at the same time, in the summer file of the film market, account-sharing online movies seem to have gradually lost their former brilliance, especially the performance of some "hot" themes such as "Fengshen: Disaster Merchant" and "Fengshen: Annihilation" even showed a trend of stagnation or even regression.
However, in the relatively dull National Day schedule of the film market, a new online movie has sprung up. Directed by Haitao and starring Xiao Shenyang, Pan Binlong, Shen Chunyang, etc., "Poor Brother and Rich Brother" landed on the three major ** platforms on October 4, and has continuously ranked first in the single-day box office sharing list since its launch, with a box office exceeding 10 million in five days, and as of October 15, the box office has accumulated more than 19 million, becoming the fifth place in the 2023 online movie account sharing list.
With the consideration of the upside of the box office in the future, "Poor Brother and Rich Brother" is expected to exceed the box office of 20 million points, and may even surpass "Three-line Reincarnation" and rank among the top three in the 2023 account sharing list. Although 20 million is not too eye-catching compared with the box office records of online movies in the past three years, in the current downturn in the online movie market, such a "dynamic" performance is really eye-catching. The outstanding performance of "Poor Brother and Rich Brother" in the online movie market has become a hot topic in the industry.
First of all, it is worth noting the emotion of the story shown in "Poor Brother and Rich Brother". Although the label is associated with the comedy style of Xiao Shenyang and Pan Binlong, the film pays more attention to presenting a life emotional story of "laughter with tears". Compared with some high-level online movies, this kind of emotional expression is more simple, and even seems a little rustic and direct. The film revolves around the acquaintance of poor driver Wang Youcai and rich second-generation Li Zhiyuan due to a rear-end accident, which triggers a series of elements about organ donation, the gap between the rich and the poor, social ethics, and good and evil. Despite the abundance of story elements, the film may be cautious in its approach and lacks some refreshing elements.
However, it is in this relatively rustic expression that "Poor Brothers" shows a kind of sincerity and effort that is unlike any other. Although the film may fail to dig out more highlights in the comedy elements and sensational parts, the audience's "no spray" attitude towards the film may be precisely because of the sincerity and efforts of the film in expression. Xiao Shenyang gave up the pure funny comedy role ten years ago in the film, and showed a side that the audience had never seen before through the portrayal of the rich second-generation Li Zhiyuan. The performances of actors such as Pan Binlong and Shen Chunyang are also hard and outstanding, adding a lot of highlights to the film.
However, the film is not without its problems. There is a lack of tension in the story design, and the film language seems relatively thin, some of which are too flat and straightforward, and seem a little simplistic. Director Haitao was mainly engaged in the shooting of TV and movies, which may have affected his use of film language to a certain extent. However, this did not prevent the film from achieving a strong performance in the market.
Regarding the reasons for the high box office of "Poor Brother and Rich Brother", it can be analyzed from three aspects. First of all, Xiao Shenyang, as the "king of sketch comedy", has a strong market appeal in the field of comedy. The audience's attention to him has gradually diminished over time, but "Poor Brother and Rich Brother" has become a "wayfinding" for him, and for the audience, this change is undoubtedly a major attraction of the film.
Secondly, the film chose to be released on October 4, cleverly avoiding the competition of early publicity and entertainment time, and also taking advantage of the traffic dividend of the National Day holiday. The centralized release of online movies during the holiday period has become a norm, and "Poor Brother and Rich Brother" just seized this opportunity.
Finally, the film's relatively high marketing investment is also one of the important reasons for its box office growth. Compared with the low-key promotion of other online movies, the popularity of the film on short-** platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou is good. Xiao Shenyang's live broadcast cooperation with Crazy Brother Yang, as well as active short ** marketing, provided strong support for the successful release of the film.
On the whole, the success of "Poor Brother and Rich Brother" is not only because it has reached the top level in terms of content, but also because it has successfully broken the downturn of online movies in the market with sincerity, hard work and clever marketing strategies. This also makes people look forward to whether online movies can find a new development direction in this "projection alliance" model in the future and present more wonderful works to the audience.