May 28, 2023 | Total Issue 3248
Every year from June to August, it is the summer file of Chinese movies in the broad sense. This is the longest span of the year, and the strength of the summer performance is directly related to the trend of the total box office of the year. Take 2019, for example, the summer box office revenue was 17.778 billion yuan, accounting for 27% of the total box office share of the year. If the summer is strong, it is strong all year round.
After three years of the epidemic, the mainland summer season has always been in an unstable state. In January 2020, the epidemic suddenly hit, resulting in a cumulative shutdown of 178 days of theaters. After resuming work on July 20, the summer file started halfway, with a final income of 3.616 billion yuan. Although the box office in the summer of 2021 and 2022 has rebounded, it is still far from the same box office results in 2019.
This year is the first year after the epidemic, can the 92-day summer file produce results comparable to the same level in 2019?
Hollywood films have repeatedly missed in the mainland market in the first half of the year, can new films be boosted by taking advantage of the east wind of the summer season? Domestic films occupy the right time and place in the summer, will they create new box office records?
Imported films: to justify the name
This year's summer file can be called a battle for Hollywood imported films.
The mainland film market has resumed normal operation this year, but Hollywood imports have not been able to repeat the market performance of the past. "Fast and Furious 10" received 720 million yuan at the box office in 11 days of release, and "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" earned 540 million yuan in 23 days of release.
Both films had high hopes before their release, but the box office performance was not surprising. The sequel films "Thunder Shazam 2" (41.2 million yuan), "Black Panther 2" (106 million yuan), and "Ant-Man 3" (272 million yuan) are also far less than their predecessors. Imagine "Fast 8" released in 2018, the film grossed 2.67 billion yuan at the mainland and it is difficult to reproduce its glory.
Since New Year's Day 2023, imported films have not yet exceeded 1 billion yuan in the mainland market. Hollywood movies hit Wang Fried three times in the summer: "Spider-Man: Across the Universe" on June 2, "Transformers 7" on June 9, and "The Flash" on June 16.
"Spider-Man: Across the Universe" is an animated film, the previous work grossed 280 million yuan at the mainland and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film. The sequel is coming, there will be more than a hundred Spider-Men in the story, and the images are very different, and Marvel fans are obviously difficult to ignore this work.
"Transformers: Rise of the Power Warriors" is the seed contestant for this year's annual champion of imported films. In the summer of 2014, "Transformers 4" briefly topped the box office champion in mainland film history with a box office result of 1.976 billion yuan.
As a well-known IP in the mainland market, "Transformers" used to be a good memory of the post-80s and post-90s, and it is not difficult to have a stable box office basic market in the mainland market, and it is not difficult to match or surpass "Furious 10" in terms of revenue. However, there is a lot of resistance for the film to reach the height of "Change 4".
The mainland market is in a recovery stage, and the mainstream audience of the market is also different. The post-95s and post-00s have become the main force of movie watching. The post-80s generation is entering the ranks of middle age, they are limited by work and family affairs, and the frequency of going to the theater is decreasing.
Post-00s audiences have not experienced the edification of the "Transformers" cartoon, and their love for this IP is limited. Therefore, the market momentum for "Transformers: The Rise of the Power Rangers" to create a new box office high is insufficient.
"The Flash" has previously held several rounds of internal preview screenings at home and abroad, and has received excellent responses. The audience at the pilot screening said that this is a rare masterpiece of DC movies in recent years.
Since the opening of the DC Cinematic Universe, the quality of works has fluctuated greatly, and there have indeed been excellent works such as "Superman: Man of Steel" and "Aquaman", but most of the works have the shortcomings of disordered story lines and imperfect heroic character shaping. "The Flash" seems to make up for the shortcomings of many previous works, and this time it is expected to establish a new screen image for the DC brand in the mainland.
Hollywood imported films are currently concentrated in June, and films such as "Indiana Jones 5", "Mission Impossible 7" and "Oppenheimer" have not yet been finalized. If they appear in the mainland summer file, the box office market will usher in a new round of growth.
Imported films are not Hollywood's alone. The performance of Japanese animated films in the mainland market this year is obvious to all, and the box office of "Journey to the Ringbud" has exceeded 800 million yuan. In the summer, there will be Miyazaki's classic "Sky City" and "Doraemon: Nobita and the Ideal Town of the Sky" released.
Domestic film: The champion seed is not set
In the second half of June, domestic films appeared. Ou Hao starring in "Jedi Pursuit", Zhou Yunfa starring in "Don't Call Me "God of Gamblers", Zhu Yilong starring in "Disappearing Her" and other films have been released one after another. These films can be regarded as pioneers, starting the sentinel battle of summer domestic films.
We take 1 billion yuan as the standard for high box office of movies. After the Spring Festival, only one domestic film "Life is Unfamiliar" broke 1 billion yuan at the box office. It can be seen that domestic films performed relatively dull in spring. The summer season will usher in an active student movie-watching group, which is an excellent time for domestic films to create box office results.
Throughout the domestic films set for the summer, the high-box office seed players can be divided into two echelons, the first echelon "Super Family", this film has the strength to earn 1 billion yuan at the box office from the lineup to the genre. The second echelon "Megalodon 2" and "Drug Sweep 3: Man in the End of the World", these two films have the potential to exceed 1 billion yuan at the box office.
The fantasy comedy "Super Family" produced by Happy Twist is starring Shen Teng and Allen. The film's front-of-the-scenes lineup is a guarantee of the box office. Happy twist movies have become synonymous with blockbuster films, and last year's "Alone on the Moon" was the summer champion.
"Super Family" was originally scheduled to be released in the Spring Festival in 2022, but it was postponed because post-production was not completed. In the end, the film chose to debut this summer. The film obviously came straight to the champion of the schedule, and the producer not only ensured that the "content" of the film was very high, but also used superpowers as the highlight of the film. A commercial blockbuster that brings together funny and special effects, with a box office of 1 billion yuan as its baseline.
"Megalodon 2" is a Sino-American co-production, starring Jason Statham and Wu Jing. There is no trace of imported films in August, and "Megalodon 2" can be set early, obviously with the advantage of co-production.
"Megalodon" received a box office of 1.053 billion yuan in the mainland summer in 2018. The film belongs to the sci-fi monster genre, focusing on the visual effects spectacle of humans vs. monsters. The second part increases the number of monsters, and the scene will be more intense. Wu Jing's joining added another piece of selling insurance to the film.
"Drug Sweep 3" is led by three male stars, Guo Tianle, Guo Fucheng and Liu Qingyun. "Anti-Drug 2" earned 1.312 billion yuan at the mainland box office, and as a series of films that formed a brand effect, "Anti-Drug 3" is also a high-selling "potential stock".
However, the film also has two hidden concerns. First, Andy Lau, the star of the previous film, failed to continue to join, weakening the box office appeal. Second, can the film surpass the story of "Drug Sweep 2"? These two hidden worries have become obstacles for the film to hit the box office of 1 billion yuan.
Among the scheduled films, there are also "In the Octagonal Cage" starring Wang Baoqiang, "Love" starring Huang Bo and Wang Yibo, and the animated film "Chang'an 30,000 Li" and other films with considerable strength. In addition, there is a movie that has attracted attention from inside and outside the industry has not yet been finalized. That is the first part of "Fengshen " directed by Wuershan, a set of mythological films that cost a lot of money to create and will present a grand battle between gods and demons in the form of a trilogy.
"Feng Shen"
Recently, "Fengsheng" put out a patch trailer in theaters, and the promotional slogan said "National myth comes true in July". "Fengsheng" is a film with the strength to hit the high box office, and if it appears, it will form a market twin engine with "Super Family" and drive the market to steadily improve.
If the quality of "Fengshen " is superb, the content resonates emotionally with the audience, and there is a chance to challenge the overall champion of the year.
epilogue
Recently, the Ministry of Finance and the National Film Administration issued the "Announcement on the Policy of Phased Exemption from Special Funds for the Development of the National Film Industry". The announcement pointed out that in order to support the development of the film industry, the national special fund for the development of the film industry will be exempted from May 1, 2023 to October 31, 2023.
After the release of a theatrical film, the theater needs to pay 5% of the box office as a special fund, and 3.3% of the business tax, and the rest is the box office revenue shared between the film producer and the theater. Suppose a movie has a box office of 100 million yuan, and 5 million yuan is levied exclusively. The special capital is temporarily exempted, and 5 million yuan is attributed to the box office, which brings substantial income to the film and the theater.
In the summer of 2019, 500 million moviegoers were seen, which is the vitality of the Chinese film market. Three years into the epidemic, the summer season with the best performance in 2022 only attracted 233 million viewers. Nowadays, super blockbusters gather, just waiting for the official opening of the summer season.
The competent authorities promulgated favorable measures, and filmmakers launched excellent works. The film industry is working tirelessly, and every practitioner wants more audiences to return to the theater.
Finally, the film and television monologue presents an "Easter egg" film list. This is a domestic film to be released this year, and some films are likely to meet the audience in the autumn and winter, we wait and see.
【Text/Cui Ting】