Watching movies has become a ＂New Year custom＂ in the Spring Festival.
Original title: Looking at the "new atmosphere" of the film industry from the strongest Spring Festival file
In the recent Spring Festival, an upsurge of watching movies by the whole people seems to make the whole Spring Festival the home of the film industry.
According to preliminary statistics, during the seven-day Spring Festival holiday, the total box office of movies reached 5.723 billion yuan, up 66.94% from 3.428 billion yuan in 2017, and the total number of people watching movies was about 144 million, up 58.9% year-on-year. Among them, the total box office of domestic films was 5.704 billion yuan, accounting for 99.66%, which is the strongest Spring Festival file in history. What is more noteworthy is that the films during the Spring Festival not only have high box office, but also most of them have gained a good reputation, which has driven the domestic film industry to present a "new atmosphere" in the Spring Festival.
From outstanding to full of spring scenery
Compared with the 2017 summer file and the National Day file, the most noteworthy thing about this year’s Spring Festival file is that the box office of the three films has exceeded 1.5 billion yuan, welcoming the spring scenery.
In the Spring Festival of 2018, six domestic films, Detective Chinatown 2, Catch the Demon 2, Operation Red Sea’s Journey to the West to the Daughter Country, Bears Appear and Metamorphosis and Nineteen Generations of Ancestors, included fantasy, comedy, animation and war types. Among them, Operation Red Sea’s Detective Story of Chinatown 2, Catch the Demon 2, The Bear Appears and Metamorphoses still have a good reputation. Taking Operation Red Sea as an example, it is adapted from the real event of "Yemeni evacuation of overseas Chinese", and tells the thrilling process of China Navy’s Jiaolong Commando being ordered to go to the war-torn "Republic of Evia" to rescue China citizens. The producer went to Morocco for filming, and tried to be true to many details. The plot was gripping, which not only set the best reputation for the Spring Festival movies in the past five years, but also was called "the correct way to open the modern military theme in China" by fans. This movie Douban scored 8.5, relying on good reputation, Operation Red Sea also became the strongest dark horse in this year’s Spring Festival movie, and the box office was successful. Director Lin Chaoxian said, "This time, I can say that I put everything I want to shoot in the movie. I am both a director and an audience, and the audience needs some good quality movies. "
As a result, a number of film history records have been broken one after another. On the first day of the release of "Catch the Demon 2", nearly 10 records such as the single-day box office champion and the first-day box office champion were refreshed in one fell swoop. "Detective Chinatown 2" broke the record of "Shameful Iron Fist" and landed at the highest box office of Chinese 2D movies. "High reputation" won a high box office, which not only responded to people’s concerns about the lack of success in China’s film market, but also put forward new requirements for the domestic film industry.
In the past two years, the growth rate of the domestic film market suddenly slowed down, ending the ultra-high-speed growth stage of nearly 30% in the previous five years. In this regard, it has been suggested that the development of China’s film market has touched the "ceiling", and some even think that the market demand is basically saturated. But it turns out that the answer is not the case.
Relevant statistics show that the total domestic box office reached 55.911 billion yuan in 2017, an increase of 13.45% over the same period of last year; Among them, the domestic movie box office has exceeded 30 billion yuan, which has already occupied an advantage.
Watching movies has become a "New Year custom" in the Spring Festival.
Behind the 5.7 billion box office transcripts, there is a new historical record of 144 million people watching movies. Ten years ago, most cinemas would choose to close on New Year’s Eve for the first day holiday. Now, with the improvement of economic level, people’s demand for cultural products continues to heat up. Every Spring Festival, cinemas become one of the most popular public places, and the popularity of cinemas in this year’s Spring Festival can be described as "prosperous".
Since the first day of the New Year, the film market in various places has been extremely hot. Many good seats in prime time have been booked early, and many cinemas once had a hard-to-find ticket. Statistics show that on the first day of the New Year, the national box office was close to 1.3 billion, and in the three days before the Spring Festival, the total box office exceeded 3.7 billion, easily surpassing the sum of the same period last year.
It is worth mentioning that in addition to first-tier and second-tier cities, the demand for cultural entertainment in small towns including county towns is equally strong, so that cinemas are "hard to find one ticket" and there is a phenomenon of extra seats.
One day during the Spring Festival holiday, the reporter saw in the cinema of a shopping mall in Shangcheng County, Xinyang City, Henan Province that although it was 9 pm, the audience was still in an endless stream. Before the opening of each movie, there was a long queue in front of the ticket gate. For many people, watching movies in the New Year has become a "New Year custom" for family gatherings.
"Bringing my family into the cinema in the New Year is mainly for fun." Mr. Li, who took the whole family to watch Detective Chinatown 2, told reporters that the improvement of the overall quality level of domestic films and the richness of creative themes in recent years are another main reason why their family is willing to go into the cinema to get together.
Watching movies in the New Year has become a "New Year custom", which seems to be more prominent in some third-and fourth-tier cities. Many young people who go out to work bring their consumption habits developed in big cities to their hometowns during the Spring Festival, or go with their families or call friends, which brings a market to local cinemas. In the past two years, the state has issued a series of policies to promote the construction of digital cinemas in county towns, giving strong support of "real money and silver", which has also accelerated the construction of cinemas in county towns, and the gap between the viewing experience of newly-built cinemas and first-tier cities is getting smaller and smaller. "Behind the fiery Spring Festival movie market, it reflects the continuous improvement of film quality in China and people’s higher pursuit of cultural consumption." Zhu Chunyang, director of the Media Management Institute of Fudan University, said.
New upgrade of film derivatives market
Although the box office of movies has blown out, the recovery of movie costs is not entirely dependent on the box office. Film derivatives have gradually become an important supplement to the film industry.
Compared with "Riding the Wind and Breaking the Waves", which stood out in the field of derivatives in last year’s Spring Festival, this year’s Spring Festival movies released their own special products early to attract the attention of the film, and the popularity of the box office directly led to a new upgrade of the film derivatives market. Whether it’s the adoration of Hu Ba in Catch the Demon 2, the custom-made huanghuali wooden detective umbrella in Tang Tan 2, or the wall-mounted speaker in Girl Country, it’s amazing.
Catch the Demon 2, which focuses on family fun, took the lead: After the warm-up of the theme activity of "Hu Ba takes you around Halloween" held in collaboration with Guangzhou Changlong Paradise, on January 24th, McDonald’s joined hands with Catch the Demon 2 to open the theme restaurant of McDonald’s Qingshui Town (the main scene of the movie) in China. After more than two years, this little demon, which looks like a white radish, reappeared and still sprouted up all over the country.
Both inside and outside McDonald’s stores are decorated with movie elements, and all offline stores will have elements of "Demon King" Hu Ba, such as the sign of Hu Ba taking photos, the picture of Hu Ba wishing everyone a happy New Year posted at the door of the store, and the image of Hu Ba also appears on the ordering table. At the same time, McDonald’s has also introduced a series of new products of "demon" in the Spring Festival, such as Xinghubao, Tuanyuanbao, Xiaofu Baoji Pai, and Lime Yaoge Drink, so that movie lovers among customers can enjoy the all-demon feast in the movie.
Sequel to the movie’s Chinatown Detective 2 also started with eating, and joined hands with Pizza Hut to choose the special concept of "family banquet" at the happy reunion moment of the whole family during the Spring Festival, and jointly launched the "family banquet that will win the Spring Festival".
Compared with the prosperity of family movies, Operation Red Sea was relatively restrained, and only introduced tonal derivatives such as hand-made by soldiers and knives.
In fact, domestic film derivatives have not appeared for a long time, and they officially entered the public eye in 2015. In addition to audio-visual products, stage plays, TV series, paper publications, electronic games and other related products based on film authorization, there are also related products such as movie posters, clothing, toys, food, daily necessities, theme parks and so on. Unlike domestic films, which mainly rely on box office and product placement, in Hollywood, the return on investment of films is much higher than that of box office.
Therefore, with the development of China film industry, the domestic film derivatives market is generally optimistic. It is worthy of recognition that the cooperation between this year’s Spring Festival movies and other well-known brands not only guarantees the quality and reputation of derivatives, but also transforms strong propaganda ability through resource replacement, which is full of new development vitality.