Huang Liwei|Provide more high-quality films to adapt to the upgrading of viewing demand

This year is the tenth year that General Secretary Xi Jinping presided over a symposium on literary and artistic work and delivered an important speech. Ten years ago, General Secretary Xi Jinping profoundly expounded the important role and major mission of literary and artistic work, discussed the fundamental and directional major issues related to the prosperity and development of literature and art from five aspects, and pointed out the fundamental direction for the construction of a socialist cultural power. Over the past ten years, the vast number of film workers have adhered to the people-centered creative orientation, forged ahead, and created a number of excellent films with profound thoughts, exquisite art, and excellent production, and achieved a double harvest of social and economic benefits.

Looking at the development of China's film market over the past decade, we can see the strong driving force behind the rapid growth: the world's top three film production and the top two film market sizes, the largest number of cinemas and screens, and the highest annual moviegoers. At the same time, we also feel the strong resilience of Chinese films in the midst of uncertainty, taking the lead in leading the global film market out of the haze and achieving recovery. If the first 20 years of market-oriented reform were 20 years of "promoting development through opening-up", we activated a large number of movie-watching demand and promoted the rapid growth of the film market by introducing and learning from imported blockbusters and foreign advanced technologies, experience and concepts, then in the past decade, we have entered a new stage of self-growth and high-quality development. The quality of films has been significantly improved, the layout of theaters has been gradually improved, and box office records have repeatedly reached new highs, and domestic films have firmly grasped the initiative in competition in the Chinese film market.

Domestic films are soaring

and the decline of Hollywood blockbusters

In the past decade, the box office of domestic films has comprehensively surpassed that of account-sharing films, which are dominated by Hollywood blockbusters. In 2014, the market share of domestic films and imported films was almost equal, with 70 imported films and a total box office of 13.48 billion yuan, accounting for 45.5%. But in the following year, domestic films ushered in an explosion: "Monster Hunt" and "Dragon Hunt", which represent the production level of the domestic film industry, "Hong Kong Embarrassment" and "Chinatown Detective", the rise of domestic animation "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage", and the first work of new directors at that time, "Pancake Man", "Charlotte Troubles", "Wolf Warrior", "Left Ear", etc., these films have clear types and are well-made, not only won seven of the top ten places at the box office that year, but also broke the " Transformers 4: Rebirth of Extinction" set the highest box office record and became the box office champion in Chinese film history that year.

That year, the market share of domestic films exceeded 60% for the first time, and since then, it has been soaring, leaving Hollywood blockbusters behind. According to statistics, since 2020, the market share of domestic films has been stable at around 85% for four consecutive years. As of July this year, among the top 20 films in Chinese film history at the box office, only "Avengers 4: Endgame" is a foreign film, and it is also the only imported film with a box office of more than 3 billion yuan. Compared with the No. 1 domestic film "Changjin Lake", the box office difference between the two is more than 1.5 billion yuan. There is no doubt that after nearly a decade of growth and transformation, domestic films have become the absolute main force in the supply system of the Chinese film market, and have reached a high degree of consistency with the spiritual and cultural needs of the audience. However, behind the sluggish box office of imported films, there are many changes in the supply and demand level of the current mainland film market, which is worth thinking about.

Movie viewing demand upgrade:

From "watching movies" to "watching good movies"

Movies have always been a popular form of entertainment for the people. In 1994, the policy of introducing films gave the audience the opportunity to see "films that reflect the achievements of the world's outstanding civilization and express the artistic and technical achievements of contemporary film" for the first time. Hollywood series such as "Jurassic Park", "Harry · Potter", "Caribbean Thieves" and "Transformers" have successfully awakened the enthusiasm of Chinese audiences with their genre narratives and visual effects, and promoted the recovery of the Chinese film market at the beginning of the 21st century. However, the famous economist Marshall said of desire: "Human desires and hopes are infinite in number and variety in kind, but they are usually finite and able to be satisfied." This means that when the audience's demand for "watching movies" is satisfied, their viewing preferences and aesthetic tastes will continue to improve, so as to change to the higher demand of "watching movies".

The "good" here can be understood from at least two dimensions: one is for the ontological level of the film. With the increase of experience, the audience will have higher requirements for the quality of films with creation as the core, and will also form more "immunity" to the market operation with publicity and distribution as the core. This shows that in the mature film market system, the audience's movie-watching decision-making will change from impulsive to cautious, word-of-mouth will become an important basis for decision-making, and routine marketing will lose its effect. The second is for the selection of movies. Just as "there are a thousand Hamlets for a thousand readers", because there are differences in individual aspects, different audiences have different evaluation criteria for movies. Therefore, satisfying the demand for "good-looking" also means more diverse viewing options, such as the continuous innovation of genres, the flourishing of creative styles, or diversified screening channels, differentiated ticket prices, etc., the core is to allow different audiences to choose suitable theaters to watch their favorite movies according to their own preferences.

Although the industrial production model and conservative development strategy of Hollywood blockbusters can ensure the quality of the film to a large extent and reduce the uncertainty of the market, it is at the expense of content innovation. In the long run, those simple themes, formulaic plots, stereotyped characters, and heavy visual effects will inevitably cause aesthetic fatigue and cannot match the trend of escalating movie-watching demand. At the same time, with the listing of many cinema companies such as Wanda, Happy Blue Ocean, Jinyi, Hengdian, etc., the construction and development of cinemas has entered the fast lane. In 2015, the mainland achieved full coverage of digital cinemas in county-level cities, and the following year surpassed North America to become the country with the largest number of movie screens in the world. The improvement of the layout of cinemas has made the main moviegoers sink to small and medium-sized cities, and the proportion of box office in third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities has increased year by year, which has also forced the adjustment of publicity and marketing styles. Hollywood blockbusters, on the other hand, are further distancing themselves from the needs of their core audience at this stage.

Content Supply Reform:

Significantly improve the satisfaction of domestic films

On the other side of the decline of imported blockbusters, domestic films are striving to continuously improve their overall quality through content supply reform. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out in his important speech at the Symposium on Literary and Artistic Work: "Taking the people as the center is to take meeting the spiritual and cultural needs of the people as the starting point and end point of literary and artistic work, regard the people as the main body of literary and artistic expression, regard the people as connoisseurs and judges of literary and artistic aesthetics, and regard serving the people as the duty of literary and artistic workers." "We compare the word-of-mouth scores of domestic films with a box office of more than 1 million yuan in 2023 and 2014, and the results show that whether it is the Douban score, which is more representative of the preference of art audiences, or the Maoyan score, which is more representative of the preference of ordinary audiences, the overall evaluation of domestic films has shown a significant increase, with an increase of 17.8% and 22.8%. It can be seen that the improvement of the quality of domestic films in the past decade has achieved a dynamic balance with the upgrading of audience demand.

Specifically, compared with the "dream making" that Hollywood movies are good at, Chinese creators always step on solid ground while flying the wings of imagination. They took root in the people, observed reality, experienced life, and created a number of realistic masterpieces with morality, ideals, muscles, and warmth: "I Am Not the God of Medicine" shows the difficult choices of ordinary people in the face of the contradiction between medical treatment, human nature, ethics and legal dignity; "Home at One Point" combines the realistic background of the rise of e-commerce to tell the inspirational story of aspiring young people in the new era who return to their hometowns to start businesses and help rural revitalization; "Life Events" uses the fireworks and human feelings of the world to dispel the public's fear of death, and explores the fundamental issues of life and death ethics in society; "Hello, Li Huanying" affectionately interprets a touching and heartfelt simple family relationship with the help of the special form of time and space travel.

In addition to the diversified attempts in subject matter, the genre boundaries of domestic films have also been greatly expanded, and the creative expression has become more and more mature: under the superposition and integration of comedy and other genres or special themes, a number of pan-comedy genre films with local styles such as "Hong Kong Embarrassment", "Detective Chinatown", "Charlotte's Troubles", "Mermaid", "Flying Life" and "Lonely on the Moon" have appeared in the market; Suspense films have also sprung up in recent years, with films such as "The Devotion of Suspect X", "Manslaughter", "Becoming Famous", "Disappearing Her", "Saving the Suspect", "Silent Killing" and other films have repeatedly hit new highs, showing their market potential that cannot be underestimated; From "Wolf Warrior" to the "Mountains, Rivers and Seas Trilogy" ("Outwitting Tiger Mountain", "Operation Mekong", "Operation Red Sea") to "Changjin Lake", domestic action war movies have successively broken box office records in Chinese film history and become the audience's favorite film genre; Since "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage" "broke the circle", films such as "Big Fish and Begonia", "Nezha's Demon Boy Descends", "White Snake: Origin", "Male Lion Boy", "Deep Sea" and other films have also overwhelmed imported animated films, setting off a wave of national comic fever; "The Wandering Earth" single-handedly promotes the creation of domestic science fiction films to a new height, not only allowing the audience to see China's own science fiction masterpieces, but also writing delicate feelings of family and country in the grand narrative, fully demonstrating the cultural self-confidence of Chinese creation.

Not only that, the market operation ability of domestic films has also been generally improved in the "involution". Behind the fact that short videos have become the main position of film marketing is the deep insight of practitioners into the audience structure and consumption behavior of the mainland film market. Research institutions such as the Lighthouse Research Institute are deeply involved in the creation and promotion of films, and promote the market operation of film projects to develop in the direction of data-oriented, scientific and accurate. Marketing innovations based on this can further attract audiences to the cinema. "Twinkle Twinkle Twinkle Star" was not released due to its "snow field" design, and the ingenuity lies in the fact that the distributor recognized the importance of creating a unique movie-watching experience. Through marketing strategies, the film has transformed from a single-dimensional "product" that can be watched to a multi-dimensional "product + service" that can be both watched and experienced. In addition to appreciating the content of the film, the audience can also enjoy the "experiential" service derived from the content, so as to obtain a more three-dimensional emotional value catharsis.

Promoting Opening-up through Reform:

Create and introduce more high-quality film productions

The decline of Hollywood blockbusters has also brought many challenges to the supply of films in the Chinese film market. Due to the fact that domestic films are not enough to fully support the huge demand for movie-watching, the supply of high-quality films during non-holiday weekends and weekdays is insufficient, which affects the box office scale and theater revenue, and is not conducive to the cultivation of daily movie-watching habits. Then, based on the successful experience of "promoting reform through opening-up" in the past, the high-quality development of Chinese films needs to strive to achieve a higher level of opening up on the basis of deepening reform.

On the one hand, we must continue to adhere to the supply-side structural reform with improving the quality of films as the core, and at the same time promote the gradual improvement of the core mechanisms of the industry, such as distribution by line, schedule coordination, minimum ticket prices, and dynamic account sharing, establish a multi-level film market system, and fully release the supply and demand potential of domestic films; On the other hand, as General Secretary Xi Jinping said in his speech at the opening ceremony of the 5th China International Import Expo: "Openness is an important driving force for the progress of human civilization and the only way for the world to prosper and develop." "As an important window to show the customs and outstanding civilization achievements of countries around the world, imported films should not be measured from a single market dimension. If you don't reject the crowd, you will be the river and the sea. We should try to explore and introduce more countries' film art masterpieces, further enrich the cinema film supply system, and meet the increasingly diverse demand for movie-watching. At the same time, we must continue to hone our skills and methods of telling Chinese stories to audiences in other countries, and finally show more Chinese civilization to the world and contribute Chinese wisdom through the "going out" of Chinese films.

(The author, Huang Liwei, is a lecturer and doctor at the School of Management, Beijing Film Academy, and deputy editor-in-chief of Film and Television Industry Research)