Rhino Entertainment Original
Text|Xiaofu Editor|Park Fang
The 520 gear came and didn't seem to come.
While the audience's attention was drawn to "Fast and Furious 10", the 520 file that was about to arrive this Saturday has been silent.
once brought a super high market increment to "Time and Space Cohabitation", and was held by "I Want Us Together" on the artificial schedule "altar", in the blink of an eye, the 520 file has been silent for two consecutive years.
520 gears are muted again
This year's 520 location is on Saturday, and the schedule is friendly to new films. However, considering the large volume of the Hollywood blockbuster "Fast and Furious 10" released on May 17, there are also several small-scale films released on May 19, the traditional release date of the new film, and it is difficult for 520 to have too strong a sense of existence under the squeeze of many new films.
Perhaps for this reason, there are only two new romance films selected for release in 520 this year.
Among them, "Please Don't Trust Her", which is relatively popular before the screening, is a stock domestic romance film.
"Please Don't Believe Her" is adapted from the South Korean film of the same name released in 2004, which was officially completed as early as 21 years. The film was originally scheduled for the Mid-Autumn Festival on September 9 last year, but it was urgently withdrawn in the early stage of release. After being rescheduled for release on May 20 this year, due to the change of the previous most competitive rival light youth film "So Many Years" to May 1st, this film naturally became the most popular project in the same period.
However, compared with other domestic romance films, "Please Don't Believe Her" lacks an IP foundation, the film director's resume is mediocre, and the market appeal of the two starring Zhang Ruonan and Wu Yuhan in terms of actors is relatively limited, so even if there is a romance film market that just needs to be added, the market prospect is still relatively limited, reaching 75 million at most.
Another romance film is the introduction of the Japanese film "The Rest of My Life".
This kind of Japanese pure love film is also a project with high frequency of introduction in the mainland market, and it can be regarded as the most popular genre among Chinese audiences besides animated films. However, considering that the overall performance of Japanese live-action films in the mainland market is not outstanding enough, the box office ceiling of pure love films is still relatively low.
At present, the best market performance of similar projects is "Bouquet of Love" introduced in 22 years, with a cumulative box office of 96.062 million, the runner-up is Shunji Iwai's classic "Love Letter", with a cumulative box office of 65.206 million, and the third place "Love Roundabout" has dropped sharply to 18.536 million yuan.
More than a year has passed since the release of "The Rest of My Life" in Japan, and network resources have long flowed out, which is not conducive to the theater market. In terms of word of mouth, it reached 6.6 points on Douban, which is decent in Japanese movies. Therefore, from a market point of view, the box office potential of this film is relatively limited, and it may be difficult to break through the 30 million mark in the end.
It can be seen that these two new love films do not have too strong market appeal in terms of audience and size. Such a 520 file, it is difficult to talk about what festive atmosphere, let alone the increase in the schedule.
The artificial love schedule has become a false proposition
In a previous article, Rhino Jun also said that incremental schedules such as 520, Women's Day, Mother's Day, and Father's Day are always in a state between a schedule and a non-schedule. If you look at them as ordinary dates, such festivals can indeed bring a certain increase for specific theme projects. However, if these pseudo-schedules are treated as serious schedules, the increase that can actually be brought to the film is very limited.
Just like 520 files, throughout the market in recent years, the only 520 films worthy of praise are only "Living Together in Time and Space" and "I Want Us to Be Together".
"Time and Space Cohabitation" was released on May 18, 2018, as a medium-sized romance film, Lei Jiayin and Tong Liya's protagonist combination did not cause much market repercussions at first. However, with excellent film quality and the incremental dividend of 520 files that year, the film finally reversed the decline on 520 and created a new daily box office high of 114 million. Boosted by the popularity, the film also successfully became the dark horse of the box office of the year, with a cumulative box office of more than 900 million yuan.
The arrival of this film made the industry realize the considerable market increment of 520 files. However, due to the fact that the 520 files in the next 19 years were located on weekdays and Mondays, and the epidemic force majeure was encountered in 20 years, it was not until 21 years that the 520 files returned to the audience's attention.
This year, the romance film "I Want Us Together", which was selected for release in 520 files, once again captured the schedule dividend. Relying on precise strategies such as title and publicity and good content quality, it stood out under the squeeze of "Fast and Furious 9" and achieved a box office performance of 381 million yuan.
However, after that, it was another two consecutive years of 520 dumb fire.
The reason behind this is not difficult to understand, although it is similar to Valentine's Day and Qixi in terms of positioning, the date of 520 itself does not have a strong festive atmosphere, and the sense of ceremony only stays at the level of date homophony. Therefore, it does not have too strong adsorption capacity whether it is in the entire consumer market or only for the target audience of love movies.
And in the current market environment, even the incremental schedule that is widely recognized by the public and has strong market explosiveness such as Valentine's Day is far from returning to the previous level of ticket sales.
For example, this year's Valentine's Day stall, obviously the interval between the Spring Festival stall and the Spring Festival stall reached more than two weeks. Theoretically, it can not only better continue the market popularity of the Spring Festival file, but also help accommodate more new films during this time difference, which can more fully amplify the advantages of the Valentine's Day file.
But the market did not develop as we thought, and the market closed only 213 million yuan on Valentine's Day this year. Among them, the two romance films "Sadness That Can't Shed Tears" and "Can You Don't Leave Me" released on the same day are not as good as the daily box office champion "Manjiang Hong". The final box office of these two films only got 55.356 million and 20.258 million respectively, which can be said to be a standard one-day project.
In the face of the 520 gears that are difficult to independently support the concept of schedule, the increase in the schedule itself is insufficient, and the basic plate of the two new films is not large enough, and it is reasonable that the trend is flat.
To some extent, in fact, it is the high-quality project that has achieved 520 files, not 520 has made romance films.
Whether it is "Living Together in Time and Space" or "I Want Us to Be Together", the commonality of these two films is that they are in a mediocre schedule, but they both have a good reputation recognized by most audiences. For this kind of artificial schedule with only one day, the schedule itself has a strong dependence on high-quality projects, and the increase in the schedule can be said to depend entirely on the level of the project.
On the contrary, a lineup like this year's 520 file does not have market potential in terms of film lineup or sales, and the 520 schedule naturally no longer exists.
From another point of view, these romance films that are most deeply tied to the artificial schedule, if they have a certain content quality, even if they are separated from the incremental schedule, they can win in the traditional schedule.
Take light youth films as an example, "Your Wedding" in 21 and "I Really Hate Long-distance Relationships" in 22 years have won the schedule championship in May 1st in two consecutive works. After coming to this year, the new light film "So Many Years", which was originally scheduled to be released in 520 files, chose to file into the May 1st melee, and also got a good box office result of more than 300 million.
What's more, you can even rely on the temperament of the project to create a new schedule.
The small-cost romance film "Accompany You for a Long Time", released on September 9, 21, relied on this unique method to package "long and long" into an incremental schedule, relying on the foundation of the main creator, IP, and actor "three nothings", and won nearly 100 million yuan at the box office in one fell swoop. It was regarded by the industry as a fixed routine of gold rules for several years, and it was completely overturned by the wild path of this small project.
So looking back now, what is the point of 520 gear?
At least for 2023, this once highly anticipated love incremental schedule has been completely reduced to synonymous with pseudo-schedule.