There are many types of summer films, fierce competition, and the era of market differentiation is coming

Due to intensified competition, the "box office theory" of previous years has become a thing of the past, whether for individual films or for film production and distribution companies. How to better survive in a mature film market and how to restore films to the essence of cultural content production are the problems that filmmakers need to face today.

Original title: Summer period is difficult, rapid growth, era of film market differentiation, competition

intensifies. The summer period that started in June is halfway through. At present, it seems that the box office trend is stable, but it is almost impossible to repeat last year's popularity. The total box office revenue in the summer of 2015 was 15.6 billion yuan. Some people predict that this year's best results will only be the same as this figure. There are many reasons for the slowdown in box office growth, including strict market supervision, difficulty in using distribution methods such as ticket replacement, exhaustion of hardware dividends, and a bottleneck period in content creation.

However, if we put aside our expectations for the box office and only look at this summer season from the perspective of film industry development, we can find that it actually has a number of exciting excitement.

Fierce competition or signs of maturity

It is reported that more than 90 films will be released this summer. Within this week alone, more than a dozen new films will be released, which is in sharp contrast to the previous pattern of several new films every week. These films are overseas and local, animated films and horror films. They are large-scale productions and small-cost films.

This phenomenon can easily give people the feeling that new films are piled up and they don't know who is good and who is bad. However, fierce competition also means that distribution companies and theaters do not have to place all their hopes on individual films. Dispersing distribution and arrangement can form a long-term business model for distribution companies and theaters, and at the same time promote the entire market is maturing.

Domestic protection month is not all "domestic" movie market openness is

generally believed that July and August during the summer period are "domestic protection months", which means that the introduction of overseas accounts for the same period is not encouraged. For example, last year's "Mission Impossible 5" was released in North America on July 31, but the release time in the mainland was pushed to September 8;"Little Yellow Man with Big Eyes" was pushed from June 28 to September 23. This year's Hollywood blockbuster "The Return of Mount Tai: The Jungle","Ice Age 5" and "Bourne 5" are still in the summer season, although they have been delayed from their release in North America.

However, Zhou Baolin, deputy general manager of China Film Company Limited, recently said that there is no such thing as a "domestic protection month", but that Hollywood films need to avoid competition in the choice of schedules.

In any case, judging from the actual situation this year, it marks that the openness of China's film market is strengthening, and the confidence of the local film market has also been improving.

The era of market differentiation

is approaching after nearly a decade of development in China films, and the era of preliminary industrialization has obviously arrived. A sign of industrialization is the maturity of genre films. China genre films may still be some way from maturity, but the main genres are basically complete and have been reflected in this summer season.

Action films include "Escape from the Jedi","Dangerous City","Shocking Sky", etc.; comedy films include "Clockwork City" and "Quick Hand Gunner Quick Hand Gunner"; romance films include "Lu Yao Know Ma Li" and "To Youth 2"; Animated films include "Big Fish Begonia","Rock Tibetan Mastiff", etc.; serious drama films include "Three's Company" and "Chills"; others include tomb robbing films, horror films, ancient legendary films, etc. What is even more surprising is that art films such as "Roadside Picnic" and "Before Dawn" are also released during this summer holiday. These movies not only enrich the summer period, but also give fans greater choice.

The quality of these films may not be very excellent, but most of the behind-the-scenes producers are no longer novices. At present, the box office performance of each genre has outstanding parts. Compared with previous years, when only comedy films were the dominant company, it is undoubtedly gratifying.

The lack of topic works Hong Kong production makes a comeback.

Compared with the situation in previous years, when there were always one or two films with particularly outstanding performances driving the film market, so far this summer, there is still a lack of powerful topic works. By far, perhaps the most topical one is the Hong Kong film "Chills 2". The first part of the "Chills" series came out in 2012. At that time, due to its exploration of serious genres, it triggered a hot topic. In the second part, although the popularity of the second part has dropped compared with the previous part, compared with the same period, it has been regarded as a leader.

In fact, this summer season, in addition to "Chills 2", there are also heavyweight productions such as "Three's Company","Dangerous City", and "Shocking Sky". Although the saying that "Hong Kong films are dead" has always been mentioned in recent years, if we look at some important schedules, Hong Kong films have never lacked their presence. Maybe these Hong Kong films have investment from mainland capital, but we can still see that from production to concept, they are still a continuation of Hong Kong films in the golden era. This is actually good news for us. The Hong Kong film is not dead. It just changed venue and made a comeback.

To sum up, due to intensified competition, the "box office theory" of previous years has become a thing of the past, whether for individual films or for film production and distribution companies. How to better survive in a mature film market and how to restore films to the essence of cultural content production are the problems that filmmakers need to face today.

Editor: Nancy