Structural changes have taken place in the layout of entertainment capital supply: Are blockbusters the market's booster?

When "The Legend of the Gods", which had all the blockbuster sales and was placed on high hopes to "save the market," suffered a collapse in reputation, many filmmakers were thinking: If we attribute the rapid progress in 2015 to the fact that young people in small towns and China-style blockbusters are competing in tandem, then this year's box office growth has slowed down. Who is it?

Original title: Where will the slowing growth film market go

? The roar of the film market in China in the summer of last year was still in my ears, but the summer of 2016 was sighing. In July, which has just begun, the total box office in the mainland was 4.34 billion yuan, a decrease of 21.2% from the 5.49 billion yuan in the same period in 2015. However, the total number of films released in July this year was 5 more than the same period last year. In fact, since the craze for the Spring Festival subsided, the movie market has fallen into a downturn and is still shivering.

According to Yin Hong, a professor at Tsinghua University, the core issue in the development of the film industry today is "the contradiction between the people's growing spiritual and cultural needs and the insufficient effective supply of cultural products." The "insufficient effective supply" he emphasized may be the fundamental crux of the current cold wave of growth.

Small and medium-sized comedies are no longer popular. It has been about two years since "getting young urban audiences in the third, fourth and fifth tier cities" can "win the world

." Young urban audiences in the third, fourth and fifth tier cities seem to speak for fans in China. Especially last summer, when "Pancake Man" and "Charlotte Worry" successively won box office miracles of 1 billion yuan and 1.4 billion yuan with investment of 10 million yuan,"Young audiences in third, fourth and fifth tier cities love small and medium-cost comedies" and "Grassroots counterattack" have become important evidence of this group's influence on the film market in China. But this year, those rules seem to have lapsed.

Last year, Dapeng and others created many myths that were small and broad, but today, many attempts to do the same are gone. In July this year,"Fast Hand Shooter" starred by Lin Xinxin and Zhang Jingchu came almost quietly and walked away silently. As of August 2, the film was released for 19 days, with a box office of 53.5 million yuan, and it was unable to make back its original capital. "Lu Yao Zhi Ma Li" released at the same time is not good. Although the main creative team includes Wen Zhou, Xiao Songjia, and Bao Beier, the film's box office so far has only reached 190 million yuan, far below expectations. Is this year's comedy not as good as last year? Not necessarily. At least in terms of content, the stories about the rise of small characters in these two new films are not far different from "Pancake Man" or "Charlotte Worries".

In fact, not only were the two comedies not popular enough this summer, but after the Spring Festival, movies labeled as romantic comedies such as "Mr. High-Heels","The Formula of True Love for a Man" and "Spicy Love Determined for Life" all lost in Maicheng. What went wrong? Nie Wei, a professor at Shanghai University, believes that although the tide of ticket subsidies and financial departure are related, what is really ignored is the failure of the once-amplified 'third, fourth and fifth tier city youth audience theory'." Nie Wei noticed that in the past two years, many industry survey reports released by research companies have focused on this audience group and provided reference for the market based on big data analysis of this group. For a time, the creative orientation of "those who win the third, fourth and fifth tier urban young audiences win the world" has always been unfavorable in domestic theaters. In other words, the market "thinks" that most movie fans, i.e. young viewers in third, fourth and fifth tier cities, like small and medium-cost comedies, so they swarm to cook similar events. As everyone knows, similar formulas have been released again and again, but the fans are no longer there.

Perhaps it is time to reflect on the rationality of the theory of young audiences in third, fourth and fifth tier cities. As Nie Wei said,"In fact, the increase in box office contributed by this group cannot be simply attributed to their active movie-watching needs, but is only the combined force of the extensive growth of cinemas and the demographic dividend." More importantly,"The homologous connection between the box office of China's movies and young audiences in third-and fourth-tier cities just shows that our film industry is still only focused on quantitative improvement in demand."

The supply layout of China's entertainment capital has undergone structural changes. Large films are the booster for the market

. It is not only market judgment that has changed, but also the supply layout of China's entertainment capital. Because LeEco participated in the investment,"Tomb Robber Notes" has a special channel on its website; similarly, the premiere conference of "There is a Qiao Mu in Summer and Elegant Hope to Paradise" was broadcast live on iQiyi; Youku Tudou put the trailer of "A Smile Is Beautiful" on the front page... If in the past, film researchers could analyze the ugly characters based on just a box office data sheet, now they must also add online video information.

As an entertainment behavior of cultural consumption, going to the cinema to watch movies has become more and more substitutes and competitors. TV, online dramas, online variety shows, and online movies, too many entertainment methods divert theater audiences. Data shows that the market share of online dramas exceeded 50 billion yuan in 2015, which means that movies are no longer the big brother of content consumption. Just as theaters entered the summer season in full swing, video websites also advertised the name of "Summer Fantasy Season", and each family competed for the same target users in July. Moreover, relying on its channel and capital advantages, the Internet is still shortening the "window period" from theaters to videos. In the "Old Calendar", the film will be shown in theaters for one month, and it will take about half a year to have authentic website resources after going offline. But the new rule is that movies may be available on video sites less than a month after they are released from theaters. "Roadside Picnic" is the latest case. Although this movie, which has been praised by film critics as a "masterpiece of gods", it has only been in theaters for 10 days, but it has been online on the website since the 11th day, almost seamless. docking. Experts have analyzed that this trend will become more and more prevalent, and all movies without special effects will find a larger audience on video sites.

When the tide of ticket supplement ebb tide, online drama, net comprehensive, net big occupy client end, cinema film with what requirements audience deep love? Nie Wei said: "From the new supply structure, new home-made blockbusters are the real market stimulant source." The implication is that if you want to give the audience a reason not to enter the cinema, large-scale production, high special effects, grand narrative of domestic blockbusters is the correct solution. This is a good explanation, why summer file so far can not get out of the quagmire_-because there has not been a must-see domestic blockbuster, public praise controversy "big fish begonia" is not, the bad evaluation of the "legend of gods" is not.

Editor: yvette