2024/08/01 17:20
Animated film, lost in the summer file
2024/08/01 17:20
©️ Deep Sound Original · Author|Zu Yang
The second half of the summer vacation has arrived, and the box office of animated films has finally improved.
On July 30, "White Snake: Floating Life" opened the IMAX hall screening, and 60 performances contributed 648,000 yuan to the box office, with an average of 211 people per game, which is equivalent to a full state in every hall, and the big IP "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf's Guardian" has a cumulative box office of 65.07 million, ranking second in the mainland box office list of domestic animated films in 2024. Driven by word-of-mouth and tap water, the box office of the original Chinese comic "Falling Dust" finally came to 34.9 million, and Maoyan predicted that the total box office in the mainland would be 36.8 million. The classic Japanese comic "Your Name. Although it is only a re-screening, it still can't stop the enthusiasm of fans, and the box office has reached 123 million in five days of re-screening.
But that's not enough.
The summer file, as the longest period of the year and the highest desire for content consumption, has always been the birthplace of the annual box office crown of animated films - whether it is 5.5 billion "Nezha's Demon Boy Descends to the World", 1.8 billion "Thirty Thousand Miles of Chang'an", and nearly 400 million low-cost dark horse "Tea Ah Erzhong", the high box office is indispensable behind the main promotion of the summer file effect.
This year, more than half of the summer season, the highest-grossing animated movie (excluding re-releases) is the Hollywood animation "Mind Agent 2", with a cumulative box office of 334 million. The "heads" with a box office of over 100 million in the summer are all from overseas: "Despicable Me 4" has a box office of 305 million, "Garfield's Family" has a box office of 184 million, and the Japanese comic "Volleyball Boy!! "The Battle of the Garbage Dump" has a box office of 128 million, and the only domestic animated film with a box office of more than 50 million is "The Guardian of the Pleasant Goat and the Big Big Wolf". What's more, the Paris Olympics that are currently being held are also grabbing the attention of the audience, and the box office of the table tennis mixed doubles final broadcast live in cinemas on the evening of July 30 exceeded one million, ranking among the top ten in the single-day box office of the day, surpassing the Japanese comics "Blue Forbidden Zone: Nagi" and "White Snake: Floating Life".
Under all kinds of pressure, can there be a "miracle" in the summer animated films?
"White Snake · Floating Life"
If you don't look at the box office performance, this year's summer animated films are exceptionally balanced in terms of genre and geographical distribution. Among the 21 animated films released (including re-screenings), there are four in Hollywood, five in Japan, 11 in China, and one in Spain/France, with obvious differences in style.
Most of the animated films imported overseas are sequels of classic IPs, such as "Despicable Me 4", "Mind Squad 2" and "Garfield's Family", all of which have an obvious Hollywood animation style, conveying emotional values such as family, friendship, and growth in cartoons, and have accumulated a group of audience bases both overseas and domestic.
Most of the domestic animated films are based on "national style", based on traditional mythological stories, produced in the style of oriental aesthetics, and used localized cultural expressions to attract audiences. For example, "Falling Dust" is based on the Cowherd and Weaver Girl, telling the story of their children; The "White Snake Series" animated film is based on "The Legend of the White Snake", and the third "White Snake · Floating Life" is the final chapter of the story, which tells the well-known experience of the little white Xu Xian after they met; In "The Umbrella Girl", the importance of protecting cultural relics is conveyed through the protection of objects in the Pavilion of Objects (similar to an ancient museum).
"Umbrella Girl"
In addition to the genre, there are also a number of re-screened animated films to join the summer battle this year, including three Chinese comics and two classic Japanese comic IPs.
There have also been re-screens of films before, such as "Harry· Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" and "Interstellar" have all been re-screened. The significance of a film re-release is reflected in the market to supplement the market, to incentivize the box office with classic re-releases, or to re-make the film and re-release it to attract a new wave of audiences.
There are multiple "goals" behind the re-screening of animated films this summer. The re-screening of "White Snake · Origin" on June 29 is the beginning of the light-chasing animation "White Snake" series, and the re-screening at this time is more to warm up for the final "White Snake · Floating Life" to be released, evoking the audience's memories of the plot.
"Your Name" will be re-screened on July 19. When it premiered eight years ago, it won more than 500 million at the box office, maintaining the box office champion of Japan animated films in Chinese film history for seven years, and was only surpassed by "Journey of Suzuya" in April last year, both films directed by Makoto Shinkai. Now that "Your Name" has been re-screened after eight years, Makoto Shinkai has also become the main publicity point, such as handwriting the Chinese title and recording a video for Chinese fans to stimulate the enthusiasm of the audience.
Another classic Japanese comic "Slam Dunk" chose to be re-screened, on the one hand, the style of the film is in line with the summer audience; On the other hand, the date of the re-screening is set for August 3, which is the day when Xiangbei vs. the King of Mountains in the movie, and the re-screening with a sense of ritual will also make the feelings of some senior fans explode and drive the box office up.
"Your Name" "Slam Dunk"
If you look deeper, the production companies behind the summer animation have also formed a new pattern in sticking to and increasing the weight. According to the incomplete statistics of "Deep Sound", this summer, there are 80 overseas + domestic animation film production companies (not deduplicated), among which there are both well-known heads and old friends who "turn".
Among the overseas imported animations, most of them are well-known head companies, such as Disney and Warner in Hollywood, Toho and Toei Animation in Japan. The domestic pattern changes relatively frequently, and its new trends can also be glimpsed from the animation layout of the summer file.
The change in the production lineup of young animation is particularly obvious. Aofei Animation, the holder of the Pleasant Goat IP, unexpectedly withdrew from the Spring Festival file and chose the summer file this year, partly because of the long summer vacation and more room for the box office, and partly because he also wanted to avoid the "old rival" bear infested. And because of the pig man's IP to open up the market recognition of Yongsheng Animation,This summer released a GuomanIP"Falling Dust,This is also the first all-age work officially promoted by Yongsheng to invest in development,For this reason, an iron fan studio has also been established internally,Special production、Accumulate experience,Lay a good foundation for transformation。
In addition to companies that are deeply involved in animated films, we find that Internet film companies appear frequently - "Umbrella Girl" is controlled by Maoyan behind it, and Youku is not only co-produced by "Falling Dust", but also the main producer of the Pleasant Goat series; After the drama "Falling Dust" was broadcast on station B, it gained tens of millions of voices, so in the film production process, station B became the main producer.
Falling Dust
Everyone stepped up to enter the game, but they didn't expect the animated movie "dumb fire" in the first half of the summer file.
There are very few domestic animated films with a box office of more than 50 million.
This has something to do with the box office trend throughout the summer. Maoyan Professional Edition shows that June, which is the beginning of the summer season, has set the lowest box office results in the past ten years except for the special periods of 2020, 2021, and 2022. The Dragon Boat Festival, where 11 films are piled up, has a total box office of only 383 million, far lower than the 900 million in the same period last year, and it is also the worst performance in the year when the theater is in normal business.
When the overall market trend is colder, the space for animated films is shrinking again and again. On the first day of the release of "Umbrella Girl", the proportion of scheduled films was still 11.6%, and on the seventh day after the release, the proportion of scheduled films fell directly to 1.3%, and the proportion of scheduled films as of press time was less than 0.1%. Some netizens left a message on social platforms:I originally wanted to support Guoman,As a result, there are nine cinemas in the urban area,Only one arranges one every day,The time is not very friendly。 The lower the box office, the lower the film schedule, which in turn makes the box office lower, and the film schedule and the box office fall into a "dead loop".
And in the past two years, the window period for movies that have not performed well in theaters has become shorter and shorter. "Stop-and-Go" premiered on June 8, and was launched on the video platform media in early July, and even the theater has a film schedule. The number of animated movies in the summer file is as many as 21, and in the case of limited energy and interest, the audience will choose the best of the best, and even wait for the movie to be launched and watch it on mobile phones and computers.
Of course, in addition to external influences, domestic animated films themselves are also in a stage of problems and challenges.
At present, the audience's acceptance and recognition of original domestic animation IP are naturally weaker.
The movie "Falling Dust" is based on the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, but the main line of focus is the story of their children who are relatively blank in the market. Although in the past, the short film had more than 10 million views on station B and was also called "the most awesome", but when it was converted into a more popular movie, the weakness of the original IP was directly amplified.
Chief producer Huang Long also admitted in an interview that the market awareness is too low, the natural weakness of the original IP is not understood by so many people, and the animation itself has no star actors, which is a difficult road from the beginning. "Because it is not directly from the public IP, the world view and the names of the characters are not familiar to the audience, and even the emotional context of the characters we want to talk about is relatively few choices in the previous works. And in terms of emotional context, there are actually very few family affections, and it is also a relatively new thing in the market. ”
However, if you give up innovation and directly choose IP stories and characters that are well-known to the audience, it is easy for the audience to fall into aesthetic fatigue, and it is difficult to grasp the degree between original and classic.
There is an almost forgotten movie "Erlang God's Deep Sea Dragon" in the summer file, which has a box office of less than 4 million so far. The background of the story is Jiang Ziya and Erlang God who are so familiar to the public that they can no longer be familiar with them, the old-fashioned narrative plot and the protracted narrative rhythm also make the whole movie lengthy, and some netizens wrote in the Douban hot comments: "The monkey finished filming Nezha, then Bajie, and now Yang Jian, the story plot is the protagonist first depreciates and then awakens and then sublimates."
When domestic films are publicized and distributed, and materials are swiped, and all kinds of emotional marketing are done in short videos, the "grip" of domestic animated film publicity and distribution seems to be a consistent routine, promoting traditional culture and oriental aesthetics in the early stage, and the poor box office in the later stage turns to "selling miserably", and the box office feedback brought by publicity and distribution is minimal, almost all of which rely on tap water fermentation. Therefore, for domestic animated films, learning to pay attention to the effect of publicity and distribution, really starting from the core story of the film, and doing adaptation and publicity is the next focus.
"Erlang God: Deep Sea Dragon"
However, as the summer vacation enters the second half, the summer box office is gradually getting better.
Observing the films released in August, all kinds of marketing and hot searches for "Evacuation from the 21st Century" are in full swing; Chen Sicheng's "Decryption" opened for screening, and the pre-screening media predicted that the box office would be between 600 million and 1 billion. Looking at the animated movie again, "White Snake · Floating Life" is currently well received for its special effects and pictures; The re-screening of "Slam Dunk" will also set off a wave of sentiment; The once phenomenal national IP "Ahri" will also appear on the big screen for the first time, reliving the love and touching of childhood.
The content is still rich, but whether there are dark horses and surprises depends on whether these films can take over the baton.
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