With the approach of the Spring Festival, the pre-sale of movie tickets for the Spring Festival has also entered the later stage, and all major films have entered the stage of intense publicity and marketing, especially "Mr. Red Carpet" and "Let's Shake the Sun Together" with less than ideal pre-sale box office. The former's main creative team travels in the live broadcast rooms of major platforms to promote videos and sell movie tickets. The latter held a viewing party in 62 cities across the country on February 4.
In order to retain the suspense of the film and the audience's expectations, most Spring Festival movies often do not hold an early viewing event before the festival. "Let's Shake the Sun Together", as a live-action movie with the lowest pre-sale box office during the Spring Festival this year, in order to prove itself, it also did its best to take the lead in breaking the tradition of holding screenings, hoping to be recognized by industry insiders and achieve word-of-mouth fermentation. Some industry insiders still agree with the quality of this film after watching the film, and according to the experience of many "non-mainstream" Spring Festival films in the past, it is judged that "Let's Shake the Sun Together" may be able to usher in a counterattack opportunity in the later part of the schedule.
Let's Shake the Sun Together" poster.
Traditional Spring Festival stall audience
I like "hilarious plays".
For the first time during the Spring Festival, a number of key films were collectively scheduled, forming a large-scale centralized schedule, just in 2015, when the Chinese film box office exploded. On February 19 of that year (the first day of the Lunar New Year), a total of 7 films, including "The Heavenly General" starring Jackie Chan and "Macau Fengyun 2" directed by Wang Jing, were collectively released, and more than 10 films were screened in the schedule. This year's Spring Festival stalls cut a total of 18100 million yuan, so that many filmmakers saw the business opportunities of the Spring Festival file.
After that, the Spring Festival file has become a big cake for major directors and key films. Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Ning Hao, Xu Zheng, Chen Sicheng, Wen Muye, Han Han, Guo Fan, Cheng Er, Stephen Chow, Wang Jing, Tsui Hark, Lin Chaoxian and other famous directors have made great achievements in the Spring Festival. It has also given birth to many successful film series IPs such as "Bear Infested", "Monster Hunt", "Macau Vice", "Journey to the West", "Detective Chinatown", "The Wandering Earth", "Flying Life" and so on. After nearly 10 years of development, the Spring Festival has become one of the most mature, stable and lively large-scale schedules in China's cinema film market, with several characteristics such as large traffic, family carnival, and competitive products.
The comedy and suspense film "Detective Chinatown" series is one of the most successful IPs in the Spring Festival.
However, the Spring Festival file is also the most special one among all the large-scale movie schedules throughout the year. Different from other schedules such as summer files, National Day files, and Chinese New Year files, the Spring Festival files coincide with the Lunar New Year, and every household is immersed in a happy and peaceful atmosphere. In addition, the weather is relatively cold, and most of the movie theaters are located in large supermarkets and other complexes. After tea and dinner, it is a more convenient, warm and fast choice to invite relatives and friends to the warm cinema and watch a movie happily, and it is also the first choice for many people to entertain during the Spring Festival holiday.
Different from the summer and National Day files, it is precisely because of the special schedule atmosphere of the Spring Festival file that the schedule actually has higher and stricter requirements for the type of film. Jia Mu in the four famous novels "Dream of Red Mansions", whenever she sings during the New Year, her favorite point is "lively play". This shows that in traditional folk culture, most audiences are still accustomed to watching literary and artistic works that suit the occasion when the family is happy and the lights are colorful. Jia's mother's hobbies can basically summarize the preferences and tastes of the audience during the Spring Festival: some comedies that meet the atmosphere of family carnival often become the audience's first choice; And some films that counteract the festive atmosphere are often not very popular with most audiences, and may become cannon fodder for the schedule.
In mid-2023, the box office of the 7-day Spring Festival stalls is second only to the 92-day summer stalls.
"Shake the Sun" breaks with tradition
Hold screenings to prove yourself
However, this year's Spring Festival file, there are two "non-mainstream" Spring Festival films "Let's Shake the Sun Together" and "Mr. Red Carpet". Not surprisingly, at present, these two films are also the two works at the bottom of the pre-sale box office among all live-action movies in the 2024 Spring Festival file.
Among them, the penultimate pre-sale is "Mr. Red Carpet" directed by Ning Hao and starring Andy Lau. tells the story of Hong Kong superstar Lau Weichi (played by Andy Lau), who has never won the "actor" in 40 years, and after he decided to cooperate with director Lin Hao (played by Ning Hao) to shoot a rural film, it triggered a series of absurd farces that make people laugh and cry, and also show the various states of life in the entertainment industry. This film is completely different from Ning Hao's past "crazy" series, and it is a critical film that is anti-idol culture and even anti-entertainment industry culture. As of 17:00 on February 5, the pre-sale box office of "Mr. Red Carpet" has just reached 17 million yuan, which is only a quarter of the first pre-sale box office of "Flying Life 2" (64.54 million yuan).
At 22:00 on February 5, the pre-sale of "Mr. Red Carpet" and "Let's Shake the Sun Together" was only more than 1,700 yuan.
Let's Shake the Sun Together is the lowest pre-sale box office among all live-action movies in the 2024 Spring Festival. As of 17:00 on February 5, the pre-sale box office of "Let's Shake the Sun Together" was only 16.5 million yuan. This film is also the most unfestive in this year's Spring Festival file. The film is directed by Han Yan, starring Peng Yuchang and Li Gengxi, and in terms of film genre, this film is registered as "Drama Love Family", which tells the love story of two patients who are ** each other.
From this point of view, the most unsuitable for the atmosphere of the Spring Festival stalls is "Let's Shake the Sun Together". Because in comparison, the popularity of "Mr. Red Carpet" is a little worse, but after all, the film has Ning Hao and Andy Lau double insurance, coupled with its satirical comedy characteristics, it is still attractive to many audiences in nature. But "Let's Shake the Sun Together" is obviously a small-budget romance film, as the final chapter of director Han Yan's "Life Trilogy", it inevitably involves scenes of life and death.
Perhaps out of dissatisfaction with the pre-sale results, "Let's Shake the Sun Together" broke the tradition of "secret release" before the Spring Festival films, and held business viewing meetings in 62 cities across the country such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Jinan on February 4, so that this film has the opportunity to be understood by everyone first.
Let's Shake the Sun Together held a national 62-city business viewing meeting on February 4.
An industry insider engaged in film market research said, "According to the feedback from terminal practitioners who have watched the film so far, "Let's Shake the Sun Together" is not a tragedy, but a ** love film with laughter and tears. The fifth day of the Lunar New Year this year coincides with Valentine's Day, and as the only holiday film in the schedule, the bonus that can be obtained at that time is also considerable. "Shaking the Sun", as a non-mainstream film for the Spring Festival, does not have an advantage in pre-sale at present, but as long as it can make a good reputation a few days before the Spring Festival, the market space and trend in the second half of the year will not be bad."
In addition, after watching the sample film, some practitioners in Beijing also think that although the film is an anti-traditional Spring Festival film and a non-mainstream Spring Festival film, there are many comedy genre elements in the film, and it is definitely possible to become a dark horse for this year's Spring Festival.
Some practitioners have spoken highly of the film after watching it.
"Non-mainstream" films
It can also achieve counterattack
Based on past experience, these industry insiders judge that "Let's Shake the Sun Together", which is not optimistic at present, may exert force in the second half of the Spring Festival schedule. Their judgment is indeed possible, because in the past, there have been many "non-mainstream" Spring Festival films that have achieved results that exceed expectations.
By analyzing the relevant data of Spring Festival films from 2015 to 2023, it can be seen that before 2018, the mainland Spring Festival files were still dominated by Hong Kong movies, magic blockbusters and action comedies. However, there have also been "non-mainstream" Spring Festival films such as Han Han's "Riding the Wind and Waves", which also proves from another perspective that the Spring Festival files can accommodate more other genres.
"Operation Red Sea" began to decline on the third day of the Lunar New Year, and finally became the box office champion of domestic films in 2018.
With the fire of "Wolf Warrior 2" in the summer of 2017, it led to the outbreak of mainland military action films and the rise of mainland heavy industry films. In the 2018 Spring Festival, the "non-mainstream" Spring Festival film "Operation Red Sea" was born, and a bloody road was created, from the initial lack of interest to 36The total box office of 5.2 billion yuan beat the two mainstream films "Detective Chinatown 2" (33.) during the Spring Festival at that time9.7 billion yuan), "Monster Hunt 2" (223.7 billion yuan). Bloody and violent battle scenes inevitably appear in military action films, so at that time, "Operation Red Sea" was a relatively "non-mainstream" Spring Festival film, and in the end, this anti-traditional dark horse not only counterattacked other powerful opponents in the schedule, but also led to the development of more commercial films with the main theme later.
The same situation also appeared in 2019, during the pre-sale period before the Spring Festival, most of the audience's attention was on Ning Hao's "Crazy Alien", Stephen Chow's "The King of New Comedy", and Han Han's "Flying Life", and few people would have expected the outbreak of "The Wandering Earth" directed by Guo Fan. But it is such a "non-mainstream" Spring Festival film "The Wandering Earth" that finally won the box office, and also led the concentrated output of domestic sci-fi films in the next few years.
The Wandering Earth has been declining at the box office since the second day of the Lunar New Year.
In recent years, the types of Spring Festival files have become more abundant, and the overall variables have become more numerous, and there are always some small and medium-cost films that do not meet the atmosphere of the Spring Festival files to enter the schedule, some films have achieved counterattacks, and some films are slightly disappointed: For example, the 2021 crime film "Crowded" directed by Rao Xiaozhi, the film tells the story of a suicidal actor who changes his life after meeting a rich man; The romance film "Four Seas" directed by Han Han in 2022 tells the story of how two young people in a small town face the great changes in their lives after falling in love with each other through twists and turns; In 2023, the suspense film "No Name" directed by Cheng Er tells the story of Shanghai in the 40s of the 20th century, when Shanghai was in an isolated period, and all forces were intertwined, and how they influenced history from different positions to ......The production cost of these films is lower, and they have not achieved a counterattack with a greater impact like "Operation Red Sea" and "The Wandering Earth", but at least the emergence of these "non-mainstream" Spring Festival films has enriched the theme, type and style of Spring Festival films, and given Spring Festival audiences more room to choose.
The screening of "Let's Shake the Sun Together" has proved itself to many people in the industry. However, the attitude of some industry insiders does not represent the attitude of most Spring Festival audiences. As for the final performance of the film, whether it can get a part of the big cake of the Spring Festival stalls still depends on the actual word-of-mouth after the release of the film.
*: Jinan Times.