1905 Movie Network Special Article July is coming, and the summer file of 2024 is finally going to be "hot". Recently, a number of new films have been officially announced to join the summer file, including 17 new films in July, including "Silent Kill", "Welcome to Me", "Legend", "Catch the Doll", "Under the Inhuman", "Wild Child", "Deadpool and Wolverine", "Despicable Me 4" and so on.
It is worth noting that a total of three domestic fantasy films appeared in July this year, namely "Welcome to Me" starring Yu Shi and Wang Yinglu (released on 7.5), "Legend" starring Jackie Chan (released on 7.12), and "Under the Stranger" directed by Wu Ershan (released on 7.26). According to statistics, at present, the number of people who want to watch "Welcome to Me" exceeds 70,000, accounting for more than 50% of the first-day films, and the number of people who want to watch "Legend" is close to 120,000, and the first-day schedule accounts for more than 90%. Although "Under the Inhuman" is still some time away from its official release, with the success of "Fengshen Part 1" last year and the adaptation of the comic IP, topics such as director Wu Ershan, Inhuman training camp, and national style ability setting have also caused widespread discussion on social media.
Summer file: a must for domestic fantasy films
In 2015, "Monster Hunt" and "Dragon Quest" became another milestone in the creation of domestic fantasy films after "Wuji" and "Painted Skin 1 and 2". Since then, the annual output of domestic fantasy films has increased from 3 to about 10, of which the summer file has maintained a supply of almost 2-3 films per year.
In May this year, Wu Ershan said that "Fengshen Part II", which was originally scheduled to be released in the summer, could not come as scheduled. This is undoubtedly a big regret for this year's summer file, but it also provides an opportunity for the addition of new films in the future.
At present, the three domestic fantasy films "Welcome to Me", "Legend" and "Under the Alien" have presented different appearances.
In terms of subject matter, "Welcome to Me" is different from the other two, and the style combination of "love + light comedy + fantasy" makes the film tend to a lightweight narrative. The visual hallucinations caused by an accident make a quacking yellow duck appear in front of the male owner as long as he sees a yellow thing.,And this disease can only be cured by the female owner.,The two also have feelings for it.。 Fantasy romance films are rare in the film market in recent years, and comparable films such as "Living Together in Time and Space" and "Freaks" also tell a love story that belongs to you, and also use the appearance and disappearance of illness to build the fantasy atmosphere of the film.
"Legend" and "Under the Inhuman" are more heavy in terms of subject matter, the former continues the treasure hunting adventure and time-traveling setting of "Myth", and the latter focuses on the inhuman abilities of contemporary cities, and each of them carries out innovative exploration of domestic fantasy films. "Legend" presents a beautiful holy place and ancient battlefield far from the world on a time scale spanning thousands of years, judging from the materials released so far, the turnover of the crew of thousands of people and the large-scale scheduling of 10,000 real horses will lay the epic temperament of the film. And "Under the Alien" must not only overcome the difficulties of adapting comics to live-action films, but also distinguish it from the previous online drama version, only in this way can the film's youthful texture, urban space and abnormal ability settings be perfectly integrated.
In terms of the main creative team, the directors of the three films have all had experience in shooting fantasy movies. Song Haolin, director of "Welcome to Me", previously participated in the creation of "Red Fox Scholar"; "Legend" director Tang Jili is not only a senior action film director, but also the director of the film's predecessor "Myth", and he has partnered with Jackie Chan for many years and has directed several Jackie Chan classic movies, such as the "Police Story" series, "Red Fan Zone", "Zodiac", etc.; As for Wu Ershan, the director of "Under the Alien", in addition to the "Fengshen" series, "Painted Skin 2" and "Looking for the Dragon" directed by him have set off a wave of domestic fantasy film creation. In addition, Wuershan brought together three generations of actors of different ages, continued the training mode of the "Fengshen" series, opened the "Inhuman Training Camp", and carried out targeted training around actors.
In short, the three films have their own merits. However, in the case of competition in the same class, can domestic fantasy films continue the success of "Fengshen Part 1"?
A decade of ups and downs: a "fantasy journey" for the summer
Since "Ambush on All Sides" won 150 million box office in one fell swoop in 2004, the summer file has gradually attracted attention. However, at that time, the schedule was mainly dominated by Hollywood blockbusters, Hong Kong films and domestic comedies. Until the appearance of "Monster Hunt", it opened up a track exclusive to domestic fantasy films for the summer file.
As the second film in Chinese film history to break 2 billion, "Monster Hunt" is based on the ancient book "Classic of Mountains and Seas" of the pre-Qin period, combined with the monster design of "Shrek", to create a fantasy world where a person and monsters coexist in harmony, and also made the theme of Xianxia Zhiwei the mainstream of summer fantasy films. Such as "The Legend of the Gods", "The Legend of Wukong", "The Legend of Shark Pearl", "Three Lives and Three Worlds and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms", etc., these films are either based on myths and legends, or adapted from fantasy online texts, and their natural traditional cultural genes and original fan base have also made them an important support for the summer box office.
However, when "gorgeous visual effects" became synonymous with the film industry, when "big IP + traffic stars" became the formula, and when "shemale binary opposition" became a routine, domestic fantasy films seemed to have returned to the aesthetic circle of "Wuji" and "Painted Skin" ten years ago. The excessive homogeneous supply has also caused the audience to fall into aesthetic fatigue.
Of course, under this wave of domestic fantasy blockbuster creation, there are also some new faces.
The lightweight narrative represented by youth, love, and comedy has entered the creative practice of domestic fantasy films. Since 2015's "20 Years Old Again", the soft setting of traveling through time and space and identity swapping has become another way for domestic fantasy films to connect with current reality. In the summer files of previous years, the appearance of "Take My Brother Away" in 2018 brought a clear stream. Compared with the previous "human, god and demon brawl" and "monsters", the dislocation design of "my brother becomes her brother" integrates youth and fantasy. In the end, the film withstood the impact of the fantasy blockbuster "Di Renjie's Four Heavenly Kings" with a box office of 375 million in the same schedule, and the Douban score was also comparable to "Monster Hunt".
However, the way of genre fusion seems to be able to solve the dilemma of domestic fantasy films, but the intervention of various lightweight elements has blurred the transcendent and imaginative side of fantasy films themselves.
At the same time, in terms of the market, although the gathering of young audiences is the advantage of the summer file, the immediate market feedback has also made domestic fantasy films continue to suffer.
In the summer domestic fantasy film market in the past ten years, only three films "Monster Hunt" in 2015, "Tomb Robbery Notes" in 2016 and "Fengshen Part 1" in 2023 have exceeded 1 billion box office, and most of the others hovered around 400 million. Moreover, in 2019, 2021, and 2022, almost no representative domestic fantasy films appeared. It is precisely because of the scarcity of domestic live-action fantasy films that animated films with fantasy elements have become a meal replacement. In the past three years, "Nezha's Demon Boy Descends to the World", "White Snake 2: The Rise of the Green Snake", "New God List: Yang Jian" and so on have joined the summer file. And even in the past three years, only "Assassination of the Novelist" has a box office of more than 1 billion, and the box office has reversed in three days after its release, showing the consumption potential of domestic fantasy films.
The progress of China's film industry has raised the public's expectations for fantasy movies, but the quality of some fantasy movies is not satisfactory to the audience, which is one of the reasons why "Fengshen Part 1" has been questioned since it was finalized.
However, upon its release, "Fengshen Part 1" reversed the mixed reception before the release and sparked heated discussions on social media. And the film not only contributed a modern myth to the new, but also provided a classic model for the industrial production of Chinese films, and finally achieved a box office of 2.634 billion and more than 50 million viewers, second only to "Wolf Warrior 2".
Now, with "Fengshen Part 1" paving the way, three good-selling domestic fantasy films gathered in the summer file this year, which has whetted the audience's appetite: Is the spring of domestic fantasy films really coming?
Released at the end of May, the fantasy film "Zhu Tong Lost His Superpowers in the Third Grade", although it has the potential to break the circle, it only achieved a box office of more than 14 million.
From the perspective of schedule layout, the three films are facing greater competitive pressure in the same period. The films released at the same time as "Welcome to Me" also include "Silent Killing" and the animated film "Umbrella Girl", the former is directed by "Manslaughter" director Ke Wenli, which is a popular crime genre film in recent years, and the latter is adapted from the original Chinese style comic "Umbrella Girl Dream Talk", and the current number of people who want to watch Maoyan is the same as "Welcome to Me". As for "Legend" and "Under the Inhuman", the films released at the same time as the two have Hollywood imported films, one is Universal Pictures' classic IP "Despicable Me 4", and the other is the Marvel superhero film "Deadpool and Wolverine". In addition, at the same time as "Legend", there is also a reality movie "Wild Child" starring Wang Junkai.
All of the above has added a lot of uncertainty to the domestic fantasy films in this summer's file.
War, science fiction, and fantasy are the three genres that can best reflect the level of industrialization of films, and there are corresponding masterpieces in China. Therefore, in the future, whether it is the industry or the market, what may be more needed is the "small and beautiful" boutique to continue the wave set off by the previous industrial giants. Although the three domestic fantasy films in this summer file are not masterpieces of the "Fengshen" series, they all have their own characteristics and have found their own positions on the summer fantasy track.
In any case, it's time for the spring of domestic fantasy films.