On January 20, the first day of the release of the theatrical movie "Flower Thousand Bone", as of 5 p.m., the film only won a cumulative box office result of 2.3 million yuan. The play once had the hit TV series "Flower Thousand Bone" of the same name, which has a very good reputation among young audiences.
However, the movie "Flower Thousand Bone" not only hit the street seriously on the first day of box office, but also the overall box office prediction given by Maoyan Professional Edition also hit the street. Maoyan Professional Edition predicts that the final box office of this "Flower Thousand Bone" is only 13.418 million yuan. This result is a huge gap with the box office pre-sale results of many theater movies. It must be known that during the 2024 New Year's Eve schedule, there were movies that sold more than 200 million yuan in pre-sales alone. That's the gap.
Why did the movie "Flower Thousand Bone" hit the street at the box office?
The most superficial reason is that the quality of this film is poor and the reputation is low. This situation has been presented in the audience short comments of "Flower Thousand Bone". Fans who have already spent money to buy tickets for admission have no good reviews for the film. Some criticize the actor for not looking good, some criticize the story of the film for being too pediatric, and criticize the shoddy special effects of "Flower Thousand Bone" and so on. It can be said that the current bad reviews of "Flower Thousand Bone" can be described as all aspects.
However, why do I say that the box office of this movie hit the streets, and the above is just a superficial reason? It is really because these fans who have paid to watch it are die-hard fans of "Flower Thousand Bone". A movie, the first to mobilize, is this group of fans. If even they are not optimistic, there will be no drama in this film.
The deeper reason is that this movie has long dissuaded many fans in terms of trailers and other aspects, making everyone aware that this movie cannot be ticketed, otherwise, it will delay time, affect their mood and so on. A lot of bad movies, in the marketing stage, will be wrapped into good films. As a result, their box office pre-sale results will be very high. For example, films like "Twinkle Twinkle Twinkle Star".
The problem with the movie "Flower Thousand Bone" is that even during the pre-sale marketing, it can't be packaged as a good film. Even if there is a gimmick of the TV drama version, it can still make fans see at a glance that the quality is very low through trailers, posters and other content. Cinema fans have a higher aesthetic starting point, after all, they need to spend money to enter, so everyone has established a relatively professional aesthetic ability in ticket purchase.
In addition to the above reasons, there is another reason, which is also very noteworthy! When a film and television drama work has a TV series version first, and then a movie version, the movie version tries to use the popularity of the TV series version to achieve a high box office, which basically does not work. The TV series version can only disintegrate the box office of the movie version.
A typical example is "Love is Delicious". The TV series version of "Love is Delicious" once became a small hit, not only with good broadcast results, but also with a high reputation among the audience. The TV series has a positive score of 8.1 from the audience. Later, a movie version was released. The film also has a score of 7.2 points for fan praise, and its own quality is not low. But how did it do at the box office?
The total box office of 14.551 million yuan.
The example of "Love is Delicious" is actually a very noteworthy phenomenon of film and television dramas: after there is a TV series version first, trying to use the TV series to bring the movie box office is categorically impossible, and the risk of hitting the street at the box office is huge. Why not, because whether it's a movie or a TV series, it's just a form of video entertainment that tells a story. When the TV series version has told the story, the movie version is faced with the problem of not having a story.
This problem will not only appear in "Flower Thousand Bone", but may also appear in "Flowers". The TV series "Flowers" directed by Wong Kar-wai has been launched on many platforms, and the broadcast data is good. However, this is also a hidden mine for the movie version. Since the TV series version has told the story so comprehensively, will the next movie version tell a repetitive story? If so, it will definitely alert fans.
Therefore, I think that no matter how bad a movie is, as long as the marketing is in place, it can be very high at the box office, but those movies that "leak" the story in advance and let fans know that there is no story, no matter how tossed, the final box office will not be too high. Another example is Feng Xiaogang's "If You Are Honest Do Not Disturb 3", also because you can see at a glance that there is no story, so everyone has no motivation to buy tickets to enter.
Storytelling is an important attribute of the movie. (Text/Ma Qingyun)