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Original title: Domestic films are collectively withdrawn from the Qingming archives. Can imported films hold up the box office in April?
March has always been a low season for the film market, but this year is particularly deserted.
From March 21 to March 24, for 4 consecutive days, the single-day box office in mainland China fell below 15 million yuan. As of 14:00 on March 27, the box office in March was only 840 million yuan, while the box office on the first day of the new year this year reached 1.45 billion yuan.
The cinema line seems to have returned to two years ago, which is related to the recent drastic fluctuations in the epidemic situation across the country, including the suspension of business in first-tier cities such as Shanghai and Tianjin. According to the statistics of Lighthouse Professional Edition, on March 25, the total number of operating theaters nationwide was 5,963, with an operating rate of 49.6%. However, the prevention and control policies in various places have been tightened, the theater attendance rate has dropped, and the audience’s willingness to watch movies has decreased. The film market may not see a significant recovery in the short term.
All new films released since mid-March failed to get the expected box office, and more than half of the new films failed to exceed one million at the box office. The two highly anticipated Hollywood blockbusters also performed flatly. “The New Batman” finally broke 100 million after its ninth day of release, while “Uncharted” still did not break 100 million after two weeks of release, as of 14:30 on March 27. The box office was 83.85 million yuan. Domestic film producers also lost confidence in the upcoming Qingming Festival, and many domestic films originally scheduled to be released during this period were collectively withdrawn, including “Life Events” starring Zhu Yilong, “The Detective War” directed by Wei Jiahui and starring Liu Qingyun, starring Huang Xiaoming Seven films, including “The Last Truth”, were announced to be withdrawn.
Two imported films “Hotel Inn 4” and “Escape Room 2” are tentatively scheduled to be released on Qingming Festival, in addition to “Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Mystery” and “Noah’s Ark Drift 2” and many other imported films are scheduled for release next month. In April, the introduction of intensive airborne films will lead to the recovery of the film market? This is closely related to the trend of the epidemic and the quality of the film.
“The New Batman” is weak to save the market
After a long absence from the introduction of films, Chinese mainland theaters finally welcomed two Hollywood blockbusters – “The New Batman” and “Uncharted”.
The new Batman, starring Robert Pattinson, has high hopes. The film has an IMDB rating of 8.6, and the global box office performance is eye-catching, reaching 617 million US dollars, and the North American box office is 316 million US dollars. As one of the most popular superheroes in DC Comics, Batman is also quite popular in China. Previously, “Batman: The Dark Knight Rises” directed by Christopher Nolan was released in the summer of 2012 and earned 338 million yuan at the box office. In 2016, the spin-off “Batman vs. Superman” scored 618 million yuan.
After ten years, the Batman IP was restarted, and the starring changed from Christian Bale to the popular actor Robert Pattinson, who has been seeking to broaden his acting career after becoming famous in “Twilight”. Following Tim Burton and Nolan, another famous director took over this super IP. Matt Reeves, the director of “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”, injected a new style into this IP. Different from the previous superhero movies that focused on visual spectacles or special effects, the style of “The New Batman” is close to that of black detective movies. Starting from a murder case, it creates an atmosphere of horror and horror, and reveals that Gotham City is full of corruption and lies. Contrary to the crime city network, Batman is more like a lonely and melancholy ordinary person in the face of sin. However, different from the aesthetic style of traditional commercial blockbusters, “The New Batman” has a large number of night scenes, and the three-hour film length also challenges the viewing habits of ordinary audiences. To make matters worse, the weak box office trend in the Chinese market, coupled with the closure of more than half of the theaters due to the epidemic, has lost the box office of several important ticketing cities, and these audiences were originally the main consumers of the film.
“Uncharted”, which was released 4 days earlier than “The New Batman”, almost ran into the tide of theater closures – the box office exceeded 10 million on the first day of release, and then continued to decline. Currently, there are still more than 1,000 away from the 100 million yuan mark. million-dollar difference. The action-adventure film starring Tom Holland, adapted from the game of the same name, was among the top-grossing films with a global box office of 341 million yuan, but it fell short in mainland China. Some viewers commented that the film’s action scenes were lackluster, and there was no spark between the characters. It continued the narrative routine of the last century’s treasure-hunting films, and the creativity of traditional Hollywood commercial films was exhausted.
The box office of “Moonfall” released on March 25 came to 47.8 million yuan. The film was directed by Roland Emmerich. Emmerich’s imagination and control of doomsday scenes in films such as “Independence Day”, “The Day After Tomorrow” and “2012” left a deep impression on Chinese audiences. “Moonfall” is a sci-fi disaster film. It tells the story of the moon suddenly deviating from its orbit and about to hit the earth. In order to avoid catastrophe, human beings sent a team to space to try to find out why the moon was out of control. The film was released in North America on February 4, with a global box office of $41.25 million and an IMDB rating of 5.3. On Douban, Chinese audiences also gave it a failing rating. Many viewers believe that the scene of the film is grand and the play is a failure. According to the forecast of Maoyan Professional Edition, the total box office of the above three Hollywood blockbusters in mainland China is about 100 million yuan.
Collective withdrawal of domestic films for Qingming
In the past few years, the 3-day short holiday of Qingming Festival has contributed to a small climax of movie viewing between the Spring Festival and May 1st. More and more small and medium-cost domestic films will choose this schedule, and they do not have to compete with the top blockbusters in the popular schedule. . “My Sister”, which was released on Qingming last year, won 860 million yuan at the box office, and drove the overall box office of this period to a record high. “Anti-Corruption Storm 4”, which was released on the Qingming Festival in 2019, also received nearly 800 million yuan at the box office.
This year’s Qingming Festival was originally a battlefield for several domestic films to compete fiercely, with a wide range of categories covering moviegoers of all ages. The theme of “Major Events in Life” with a funeral director as the protagonist is rare, and it was originally a champion candidate for this season; the police and gangster film “Detective War”, the partnership between Wei Jiahui and Liu Qingyun makes Hong Kong movie fans look forward to it; “The Last Truth” starring Huang Xiaoming also has many people who want to see it. Ranked in the forefront, this is also the posthumous work of the “Golden Horse Actors” Tu Men; the youth campus theme “A Week of Friends” starring Zhao Jinmai, and the crime suspense film “Victim” starring Feng Shaofeng and Tao Hong are also expected by the audience. In addition, “You Are My Spring” starred by more than 20 stars including Zhou Dongyu, Huang Xiaoming, and Zhao Jinmai, tells the story of ordinary people watching and helping each other to usher in spring during the anti-epidemic period. The film was released on New Year’s Eve last year and received 936 million yuan at the box office.
However, under the pressure of the closure of more than half of the theaters, on March 25, the above-mentioned domestic films announced to withdraw their files and release them on a scheduled date. At present, there are two new films remaining in the Qingming archives, “Hotel Elf 4: Transformation Adventure” and “Escape Room 2”. In China, “Hotel Elf” has always been a tepid animation IP. The box office of the first three films was 74.39 million yuan, 119 million yuan and 223 million yuan respectively. But in the case of new episodes, this film will be the choice for family viewing. The first part of the thriller and suspense film “Escape Room” was released in January 2019, with a box office of 230 million yuan, an eye-catching performance among similar films. However, “Hotel Elf 4: Transformation Adventure” was launched for streaming in January this year, and “Escape Room 2” will be released in North America in July 2021. Due to resource leakage and other reasons, the box office results may also be affected.
A few days ago, several introduction films, including “Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Mystery”, were announced to be finalized. The film market in April will be the world of imported films. “Fantastic Beasts”, as a Harry Potter derivative series, enjoys a high appeal among movie fans. The first two films received 590 million yuan and 398 million yuan at the box office in China, respectively. “Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Mystery” and the adventure animation “Noah’s Ark Drift 2” are both scheduled for April 8. The French romantic comedy “To My Strange Lover” is set for April 14, which is a fantasy romantic comedy that explores intimacy. The Indian movie “Manslaughter from the Sky” is set to be released on April 15. In fact, the 2019 box office dark horse “Manslaughter” was adapted from this film, and it has been 7 years since the release of “Manslaughter from the Sky” in India. . “Transformers” director Michael Bay’s new work, the crime action film “Desperate Ambulance” is scheduled for April 22, and the adventure animation “Bad League” produced by DreamWorks is scheduled for April 29. In addition, “Superstar Marrying” starring Jennifer Lopez has also been confirmed to be introduced, and the schedule is to be determined.
With the sufficient supply of domestic films, the imported films once failed at the box office, and the lack of innovative stories and undesigned special effects scenes made mainland audiences feel fatigued. Judging from the box office trends of “The New Batman”, “Uncharted” and “Moonfall”, it is impossible to become a hit. Whether a series of imported films that have not yet been released can produce dark horses at the box office, in addition to whether it is related to the stability of the epidemic, also tests the quality of the films themselves. The types of films that have been set recently are diverse and can meet the needs of audiences from different circles. However, more than half of the imported films The films are all sequels, and whether the blockbusters that continue the “IP dependence” can bring refreshing audio-visual enjoyment is still a suspense.
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