Cartoon saves the “coldest” summer file, 26 films win 1.5 billion box office
Author: Wu Dan
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The absence of international blockbusters and the withdrawal of domestically produced headlines, animated films have become the only highlight of this summer archive.
On September 1, the “2021 Summer Animation Movie Data Insight Report” released by the Maoyan Research Institute showed that 26 animated films were released in this summer, with a total of 1.53 billion yuan in box office, 13 of which exceeded 10 million in box office.
“White Snake 2: The Green Snake Rise” and “Bid Rabbit 2: Escape Plan” ranked third and eighth in the summer box office with 562 million yuan and 197 million yuan, respectively, following 2012 and 2019. After that, animated films once again occupied two of the top ten box offices in the summer. Throughout the summer, animated films accounted for one-fifth of all types of films, and 1.53 billion yuan at the box office also contributed an important force.
In the past few years, several animated films known as the “Light of the Mansion” have come out of the circle one after another. “The Devil Boy of Zha”, “White Snake: The Origin”, and this year’s “White Snake 2: The Green Snake”, almost every one is a win-win at the box office.
Maoyan Research Institute analyst Liu Zhenfei used “stable” to describe the performance of this year’s summer animation films. He told China Business News that comparing the data of 2017 and 2018, the number of animated films with a box office of more than 10 million in the past two years were 10 and 12, reaching 13 in 2021, basically the same as in previous years.He found that in July and August when the students are on holiday, one or two animated films are released every week. “This shows that animated films have become the currentChinese filmOne of the most stable genres in the market, and parent-child animation, like romance movies and thrillers, has become a rigidly-needed genre in the movie market. “
The creation of national comics is becoming more and more mature. For animation film creators, the market is undergoing significant changes, which is enough to bear the expectation of a greater animation film industry.
The behind-the-scenes team of “White Snake 2: The Tribulation of the Green Snake” is as many as 250 people, and it has been difficult to create for three years. Director Huang Jiakang once said that after the film is released, he and the creative team will collect comments and discussions from the audience from various online platforms. They will summarize, digest and organize from various feedbacks and insights, although they are not direct references. The audience’s thoughts can indirectly affect the future thinking of the creative team.
As a film data researcher, Liu Zhenfei’s expectation is to rely on big data to analyze the future direction and trend of animation film creation, lead creators to get close to the audience’s taste, and create explosive animations that are more in line with the market.
The niche “Hello World”, with an unexpected box office of over 100 million
When I first learned that “Hello World” was going to be released in China, Japanese animation fans were excited and surprised. This animated film was released in Japan as early as 2019. The director Tomohiko Ito is not an out-of-circle-level god, nor is the animation itself. What big IP. Mayfair guessed that this niche movie is likely to attract Japanese comic fans like her.
As a result, “Hello World” exceeded 100 million at the box office, becoming the 19th Japanese animated film with a box office exceeding 100 million. Compared with Japan, the box office of “Hello World” in Mainland China has exceeded three times. Like another niche Japanese animated film “Promia” that was released at the same time, Mayfair found in the theater that most of the audience was women.
She believes that “Hello World” can get a box office of more than 100 million, which may have something to do with the poster design of the film. The poster of the film is the same as the previous animated film “Your Name” by director Xin Haicheng in the mainland of China. It has the same urban background under the blue sky and white clouds, and the same boys and girls in youth school uniforms, and the film was released just after the college entrance examination. On the 11th, it caught up with the lively graduation season.
According to Liu Zhenfei’s analysis of China Business News, it is quite difficult for a Japanese animated film to break the 100 million box office in the Chinese film market.
“Japanese animation films that can break billions can be roughly divided into ‘2+6’. ‘2’ refers to the directors of Hayao Miyazaki and Makoto Shinkai, and ‘6’ refers to “Doraemon” and “Detective Conan”. The six IPs of “Naruto”, “One Piece”, “Natsume’s Book of Friends” and “Digimon”. Therefore, the box office of “Hello World” can exceed 100 million yuan. It is certainly not easy.”
When he studied the market, he found that “Hello World” was in the Dragon Boat Festival when it was released, and there would be obvious bonuses for female audiences and young audiences. The movies of this type of audience most wanted to watch were romance films. However, at the Dragon Boat Festival, there is only one romance film “When a Man is in Love”, which is a remake of the Korean film of the same name. The film won 200 million box office in 20 days, but it still failed to meet the demand of female audiences for romance films. “So this At that time, some space will be set aside for “Hello World”.”
“Hello World” includes the genres of science fiction, travel, youth and love. The early stage is positioned as a young male audience under the age of 25, and it is a fairly pure Japanese comic fan area. The data shows that due to the lack of romance films in the Dragon Boat Festival, the female audience of “Hello World” has gradually expanded. Eventually, the female audience of “Hello World” has gradually expanded from a niche youth animation film to the circle of women aged 25 and over, unexpectedly getting high. box office.
“The success of “Hello World” lies in that it not only adds love, but also adds strong emotions. Only emotions can empathize. The stronger the emotion, the bigger the circle.” Liu Zhenfei said, “Hello World” is in The content, publicity and schedule selection have all found a “breaking circle”. From the data point of view, this animated film is also the Japanese animation with the highest proportion of two-person ticket purchases in the past five years.
All ages, the secrets of success in animated films
Looking at the movie market in recent years, the volume of animated movies has become larger and larger, and the market has developed extremely fast. By 2021, 26 animated films will be screened in the summer, and new ones will be steadily released at a frequency of twice a week. The box office of animated movies often rises against the trend in a single day. The increase in the number of films is the direct cause. Behind it is the rigid demand for animated movies, especially parent-child animations, in the summer market.
From the 954 million box office “Journey to the West: The Great Sage Returns” (2015), the 573 million box office of “Big Fish and Begonia” (2016) to the 5.035 million box office of “Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes into the World” (2019) Years), animated films continue to produce good box office performance in the summer, and more and more film companies are also paying attention to animated films, which is not a small track.
Of the animation films released this year, as many as 15 are domestically produced. Among them are not only successful animation production companies such as Chasing Light Animation and Huaqiang Fangte, but alsoHuayi Brothers、Light MediaWaiting for the presence of established film and television companies.
Huayi Brothers began to lay out animated films as early as 2016. Vice Chairman and CEO Wang Zhonglei once said in an interview that Huayi’s layout of animated films is to focus on parent-child and family-friendly animated films. This year, the two animated films “Save the Donuts: Time and Space Rescue” and “Rock and Roll Tibetan Mastiff: Blue Ray” controlled by Huayi Brothers will be released one after another.
With the development of animated films, this genre has formed the characteristics of a wide range of subjects and significant differences in the structure of the audience.
Based on the two dimensions of gender and age of ticket users, Maoyan Research Institute divides animation films into five categories: severe youth animation, moderate youth animation, all-age animation, moderate parent-child animation, and severe parent-child animation.
Looking at the supply and box office performance of summer animation movies in the past four years, heavy parent-child animations such as “New Big Head Son and Little Head Dad 4” and “Beckon Bear 2” have stable market demand and relatively low production costs. Maintain a higher supply.
Liu Zhenfei believes that, judging from the box office over the years, the various types are basically distributed normally around all-age animations. That is to say, if moderate parent-child animations and moderate youth animations can be converted to all-age animations, they can win more audiences. . He took the Japanese super IP “Doraemon” as an example. “Doraemon: Walk with Me 1” sold 500 million in 2015. By the time of the sequel, it had a box office of 277 million yuan. The proportion of female audiences decreased and the proportion of young audiences increased. . This shows that the proportion of parent-child watching mainly by female audiences with children is declining, and “Doraemon”, which was once famous for all-age animations, has aged.
Among the seven “Doraemon” currently released, the three highest-grossing animated films are the ones that reconcile the ratio between younger audiences and older audiences the best. Only by adjusting the proportion of “youth” and “parent-child” attributes can we build a good appeal among the new generation of parent-child audiences.
“The biggest problem facing animation for all ages is that it is necessary to ensure the ratio of users at both ends of’adolescents’ and’parent-child’. If your audience’s IP attributes become older and younger audiences increase, you may lose out. To moderate youth audiences. If parent-child attributes are too strong and young people don’t watch, you may change from “Doraemon” to “Peter Rabbit.” To gain greater market capacity, you can try to broaden the crowd, develop into animation for all ages, or continue to polish the animation genre in the middle-aged youth positioning.
In today’s Chinese film market, the proportion of young audiences is increasing. For youth animation, this is an excellent opportunity. But for those post-90s audiences who are about to reach their 30s, they are a group that has experienced the “second peak” of the rapid development of the domestic film market. The animated film puts forward higher requirements.
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