Box office decline is not a sudden stop. Our country's film industry is in a recovery period of "scraping bones and healing"

The decline in box office in the first quarter should not be regarded as a "sudden brake", but should be regarded as a recovery period for my country's film industry to "scrape the bones and heal the wounds". This is also a normal ups and downs that will occur in any market.

The latest data shows that in the first quarter of this year, the national movie box office fell 6.6% compared with the same period last year. Acused to the madness of the past few years, faced with the first decline in five years, and the reality that the box office rose only 3.5% last year, some people may ask, is the golden period of development of China films over?

Of course not. The decline in box office in the first quarter should not be regarded as a "sudden brake", but should be regarded as a recovery period for my country's film industry to "scrape the bones and heal the wounds". This is also a normal ups and downs that will occur in any market.

Why do you say that?

The first quarter of last year became the highest quarterly box office in my country's film history so far, mainly because "Mermaid" won 3.3 billion yuan in box office, becoming the box office champion of domestic films, setting a high benchmark. No such popular films appeared in the same period this year, causing a decline in the box office. This decline is completely understandable, because cultural products have never been "guaranteed". Of course, there is also the issue of selecting the film's schedule. According to convention, most popular films compete for the summer slot. In the past five years, the summer slot has produced the most box office champions."Mermaid" is just an accident. The accidental phenomenon caused by a film cannot be used as an inevitable basis for judging the direction of China films.

In fact, what is really worthy of alarm is another phenomenon-the quality of works has declined, and people have suffered from serious IP dependence, traffic star dependence, and shoddy workmanship. The TV industry has developed into stingy and emoticons, and the film industry is not much better.

Still speak with the film. A work by Stephen Chow was released during this year's Spring Festival. The Douban score of "Journey to the West to the Demon" starring several "little fresh meat" was only 5.8 points. Also in Stephen Chow's work, the 2013 box office champion "Journey to the West" starring Huang Bo and the article scored 7.1 points on Douban, while "Mermaid" starring Deng Chao, Lin Yun and Zhang Yuqi scored 6.8 points.

The above three films are all released during the Spring Festival, so you can simply make a comparison. Relevant data shows that nearly half of the box office of "Journey to the West" occurred in the two days of its release, and all were on weekends. The single-day box office on the first day of release also created the country's single-day movie box office champion, but the box office fell to 20th the next day. Since then, the box office failed to break into the list. This shows that the pre-heating and publicity work of the film was extremely effective, and the audience whose appetite was aroused walked into the cinema as soon as possible. However, the quality of the film itself was not enough to form a word-of-mouth effect, making it difficult to attract audiences other than the target audience to enter the cinema. To put it more bluntly, fans of the main creative team had all gone to watch it a few days ago, but no one has gone to watch it since then.

The disease of China films and even China film and television has caused heated discussions in the whole society. The pursuit of "small flowers" and "small students" in traffic is actually a kind of helplessness. The producers and theaters think that the audience only likes such films and no one dares to take risks; the audience can only watch such films and have no choice.

Fortunately, the failure of films such as "Jue Ji" and "Tiny Times 4" has caused some practitioners to reflect and adjust fan films; the success of "Operation Mekong" and "July and Ansheng" has given the film and television industry hope for change. Many films that have been approved since then have given up pursuing popular stars. Taking the 14 domestic films currently scheduled for release this summer as an example, none of them starred by the controversial "little fresh meat". Most of them are replaced by actors whose acting skills are recognized by the audience. It can be seen that good films are gradually regaining market.

China films are still undergoing "bone scraping and healing". Since it is a disease, it must be treated. The 6.6% in the first quarter of this year is a normal fluctuation in the film market, and it is also a treatment reminder that the film industry still needs to "take medicine." Let China films treat their stubborn diseases first, and then talk about how to accelerate.

Editor: Nancy