The fan base is weak and the publicity stamina is insufficient."Beauty and the Beast" box office in China fell short of expectations

"Beauty and the Beast" does not have a deep enough fan base in China-Disney's animations lack stable export channels, which has always been a sore spot for the company in the China market.

Original title: "Beauty and the Beast" still hasn't become a hit, why?

If we don't consider the added elements of emotion, and if we look at the film itself,"Beauty and the Beast" released this week is a standard Disney production line movie. Like previous "Cinderella","Fantasy Forest", and "Alice in Wonderland", what these films have in common is that the powerful special effects technology makes the film look extremely gorgeous, and the plot, art, costumes, and makeup are also above the passing line, but there are not many highlights other than that.

The same is true for the box office performance of "Beauty and the Beast". The box office for three days on the first weekend was 290 million yuan after removing service fees, which did not exceed this year's "Agents of Extreme 3","Resident Evil 6" and "Wolverine 3". It is also not as good as "Fantasy Forest", which was released a year ago and was also a live-action fairy tale movie.

This is completely different from the situation in North America, where "Beauty and the Beast" grossed US$63.8 million, or approximately 440 million yuan, on Friday alone, nearly half of the box office in China over the weekend. The reason is naturally that "Beauty and the Beast" is an enduring childhood story in Europe and the United States. In 1991, Disney's animated film of the same name grossed US$218 million, equivalent to today's US$390 million. In China,"Beauty and the Beast" does not have a deep enough fan base-Disney's animations lack of stable export channels has always been a sore spot for the company in the Chinese market.

"Beauty and the Beast" is not a genre of movie that China audiences like. It can be seen from the two movies "Agents of Extreme" and "Resident Evil" released at the beginning of the year that most China audiences still like action scenes. As a romantic movie,"Beauty and the Beast" obviously has no advantages as an action movie.

This movie also has its own advantages. As a previous Disney live-action fairy tale movie,"Fantasy Forest" is a gimmick with excellent special effects. In addition to the little boy, other jungles, grasslands, panthers, and pythons in the film are all made by computers. With this movie in front of it, the movie-watching audience has an understanding of the special effects scenes used in a live-action fairy tale movie. This has also become a factor in "Beauty and the Beast" attracting China audiences.

Moreover, in the week before "Beauty and the Beast" was released, no blockbusters entered the market. When "Beauty and the Beast" was released as a blockbuster, the previously released "Wolverine 3" was already in its third weekend, and the audience who deserved it had already watched it. Fans who will enter the movie theater will naturally make "Beauty and the Beast" their choice.

However, overall,"Beauty and the Beast"'s 290 million yuan first weekend box office can only be regarded as fair. Compared with other Hollywood blockbusters, this figure can only be ranked among the mid-stream and cannot be counted as a hit.

In terms of future trends, the situation facing "Beauty and the Beast" is not optimistic either. Previously, the box office of "Fantasy Forest" was almost 300 million yuan on the first weekend, but it ended up earning a total of nearly 1 billion yuan.

Such good results are unlikely to be replicated in "Beauty and the Beast"-"Fantasy Forest" did not have a blockbuster of the same size released in its second week, which allowed the film to earn around 320 million yuan in the second week. But "Beauty and the Beast" is closely followed by Warner Bros.'s blockbuster "King Kong: Skull Island", which is likely to compress the filming of "Beauty and the Beast", thus affecting the film's subsequent performance.

At present, the audience's discussion points still focus on the male and female protagonists, which makes the entire post-promotion selling point seem thin. What's more, Emma Watson's performance caused controversy. Some people saw rigidity, some people saw Hermione, and some people saw beauty itself. The controversy in itself was not enough to draw onlookers into the cinema, as the audience curious about Emma Watson had already gone there immediately.

In addition, the well-behaved "Beauty and the Beast" may also imply the fate of several subsequent Disney live-action fairy tale films in China. "Dumbo","Aladdin","Winnie the Pooh","The Adventures of the Flying Peach"... When Disney launched these projects, it naturally took a fancy to their status in the hearts of Americans. However, in China, the things they can rely on, whether special effects or stars, are far less reliable than childhood memories.

Editor: Nancy