Liu Jia, a film industry research expert: Audience experience is the decisive factor, and movies rely on content to speak

During this summer's summer period, the box office of domestic movies dropped significantly compared with last year, and blockbuster movies similar to last year's reputation did not appear. Behind the chill of the summer period is the overall "fall" of the film industry. There were 100 films with a box office of 10.5 billion yuan. 40% of domestic films were voted by netizens with their feet, and Douban scores were less than 5 points. What lies behind these phenomena and data? Have China's films become silent after many years of glory?

Original title: China film industry research expert Liu Jia's audience experience is the decisive factor. Movies still rely on content

. This summer's box office of domestic movies dropped significantly compared with last year. Popular movies similar to last year's word-of-mouth have not appeared. Behind the chill of the summer period is the overall "fall" of the film industry. There were 100 films with a box office of 10.5 billion yuan. 40% of domestic films were voted by netizens with their feet, and Douban scores were less than 5 points. What lies behind these phenomena and data? Have China's films become silent after many years of glory?

This week, we invited Liu Jia, a research expert on the China film industry and a visiting professor at the Beijing Film Academy. If she has been in the film industry for many years, she will not be unfamiliar with Liu Jia. She has more than 30 years of working experience in film distribution companies, cinema companies and other major business positions. She has studied box office data for more than ten years. The earliest box office data released in mainland China is compiled and counted by Liu Jia. She has a very high status in the film industry and is highly recognized by industry insiders.

In this interview with Liu Jia, she mentioned: "Many people now love to say big data, I am not superstitious about big data." The box office data I have may be relatively complete, dating back to 1995. There are stories behind the data, but the data itself cannot fully represent success or failure. We must understand everything behind it before we can understand the laws of industrial development, or what experiences and lessons there are. Through studying these, I gradually realized the real situation of some movies."

Why are super-blockbusters not "big"?

Reporter: Many experts believe that this summer season will be relatively deserted. What do you think?

Liu Jia: June to August has always been a period when movies sell well, especially overseas. However, the China market has changed in recent years. The hottest period is the New Year's Eve in December. In this regard, China people themselves have not studied enough. In addition, the National Day and Spring Festival are also relatively important periods.

Judging from this year's summer season, June is still basically stable compared with last year, but super blockbusters are not "big" anymore. The best example is "Warcraft". The film with a volume of at least 2 billion yuan ended up with 1.5 billion yuan. It's not even as high as last year's "Monster Hunt". The box office in July this year dropped by 18% compared with the same period last year, and there were no films in August that could specifically make up for this gap, so the overall look is not strong.

Reporter: What are the important reasons why summer holidays are not effective?

Liu Jia: Many films have basically no audience by the third week. Regularly speaking, the box office of a movie in the first week is 35% of the total box office, but this is not the case now. For example,"Tomb Robber Notes" took in 480 million yuan in the first week. Normally, the total box office should be 1 billion yuan or 1.5 billion yuan, but it just did not exceed 1 billion yuan. Its box office was barely stable in the second week, but it was almost gone in the third week. This is caused by the homogenization of the entire distribution, with box office diverting and offsetting each other.

Reporter: So the flaws in film distribution have largely contributed to the dismal summer season this year?

Liu Jia: During this summer's summer holiday, except for invoices and purchase rooms, the data we got is absolutely true. Behind the real data, it also shows that the endogenous power of our industry itself is still not enough. The biggest shortcoming is distribution. China's film market has undergone tremendous changes, but the reforms of our distribution companies themselves have not been very big, and they are all passively following.

For example, in the past, film was copied, and it was possible to accurately know where the film went and how much it was distributed. But now all digital screenings are being screened, and the distribution company is blind. I don't know where the film went and how much it covered, but this cannot be accurately released, which leads to more serious homogenization in our market. More serious homogenization leads to hedging for all products.

For example, all films want to be scheduled in every theater, but it is impossible for a theater to schedule seven or eight films a week. Why? More than 50% of cinemas with less than seven halls in my country, while large cinemas with more than eight halls account for only about 20%. With so many films coming in every week, how can cinemas have so many halls for them? Therefore, many films have become cannon fodder. This does not mean that all cannon fodder films are of poor quality. Some films have not been given a chance by theaters, which means that the distribution company has not accurately positioned them.

Reporter: I also feel that the film distribution in our country is now going astray, and the capital operation of high-guaranteed issuance has become the mainstream.

Liu Jia: Capital poured in, and we found that all the high guaranteed guarantees this summer have been ruined. Why do we have to guarantee a minimum of 1 billion for a movie that can only reach 400 million yuan? This is the chaos caused by the bubble. Many people think that buying a house can make a lot of money by spending small money. But this practice is no longer working. The final result of the movie is that the market has the final say.

The movie is not good. No matter how much fresh meat and investment are, the audience will not buy it.

Reporter: No matter how big the guarantee is, the movie is not good, the audience will not buy it.

Liu Jia: There are many examples of this. For example, before "One Step Away" was released, everyone was very optimistic, and all theaters gave it very high schedules. But after the night of the premiere, one thing theater managers across the country did was adjust the frequency. Many episodes of "One Step Away" were to be canceled the next day, because we found that at the premiere that night, some of the audience slept and some left early. Movies are always like this. No matter how good you say it before, it is useless. The audience's experience is the decisive factor. This must rely on the content of the movie.

Reporter: This year's genre films have almost been wiped out. Youth films used to be the main driver of the box office during the summer period, but they are almost not available this year.

Liu Jia: The proliferation of genre films is a manifestation of capital's profit-seeking performance. Once you think that a certain genre of films is selling well, you are particularly willing to follow the trend and invest. I didn't watch "To Youth 2" because it was not a sequel at all. This film was a hit early. If it had been screened later, it would not have reached the current box office. When capital crazily piles up one type of film, the result is chicken feathers all over the place.

Reporter: Domestic horror films are also particularly poor. According to our statistical data, almost all of the Douban scores of domestic horror films are ranked from the bottom.

Liu Jia: This is related to our creative philosophy. Everyone thinks that domestic horror films are small investments and big rewards, which leads everyone to make this, thinking that it is the easiest one. In fact, it is not easy to make small-investment films. Nowadays, the titles of all our domestic horror films basically focus on bizarre, ghost, and horror. That's all, the audience is very bored, and even the names are very similar. This shows that these people have not calmed down and made movies well.

Reporter: Yes, people might still go to the cinema to see it before, but after such a long time, the audience is very disgusted with these films.

Liu Jia: This is a manifestation of the fact that China films are particularly unindustrialized. Industrialization should be a gradual stage. Someone should be making current products and someone should be developing future products. But our film companies in China, whether large or small, have not reached this level. Big companies in the United States can say what I invested in 2017, 2018, and 2019, but we, we didn't. China films have a large market size, but there is no configuration for industrialization of a film power. This is a film industrialization system that is urgently needed at present. Whether it is film companies, theaters, or distribution companies, they should all develop in this direction. As long as our film industry system is not established for one day, the box office or reputation of our films may fluctuate between high and low. Our films are not strong, and they only have such a large market size.

Reporter: This year's summer performance should have poured cold water on overheated capital.

Liu Jia: Not having such high growth this year is actually not necessarily a bad thing. At the Shanghai International Film Festival in June this year, the forum title was "We are catching up with Hollywood, there are a few more things." Among them, Director Ang Lee's words sounded the alarm. He said that our China films are too impetuous and noisy, which is not what the film industry should have. He proposed "rapid growth and slow growth."

China films are still in the growth stage and the foundation is not solid enough. We should slow down and check what else we haven't done well. This is actually to move faster in the future. Capital is profit-seeking, while film is a creative industry that also inherits culture. It is impossible to do well to be eager for quick success and instant benefit.

In the past, the growth of my country's film industry was driven by investment. Investment is driven by the fact that on the one hand, there is a lot of investment in production, with 600 films produced every year, ranking third in the world; the second investment is cinemas. Our country's cinemas and screens are growing very rapidly. These two growth drives the growth of the entire industry., it is reasonable. But if we always rely on investment, it will not last long. We still rely on the self-production of the film. Therefore, we now need to make up for our shortcomings, strengthen our issuance, and adjust our cinemas and other aspects from our own perspective. We cannot rely too much on investment and need to increase production capacity from all aspects.

Editor: yvette