About to exceed 2.5 billion yuan, "Mermaid" has become the new box office champion of Chinese movies. "Mediocre" is how it did it

In fact, when it comes to the path to the championship in "Mermaid", it is still a little strange. When it comes to the content, fans of Mr. Xingchi believe that the jokes in "The Mermaid" are just sitting on the cake and resting on their laurels; when it comes to marketing, the sentimental plot of "everyone owes Stephen Chow a movie ticket" is too old; when it comes to actors, the protagonist is not a comedy like Uncle Ge. The box office is guaranteed, but it is Deng Chao who gave us two terrible works in succession, "Bad Angel" and "The Breakup Master", but such a movie that seems to be full of "loopholes" has just become the number one box office in your country.

So here comes the question. How did a "mediocre" movie with a Douban score of 7.3 and overwhelming reviews become the champion? #Note, this is not a praise article, this phenomenon is a bit strange, let’s try to find out the reason#

1. The content is not enough, Stephen Chow makes it up

Stephen Chow’s movies are born to attract attention , the strong personal nonsensical style makes Stephen Chow's movies a genre of their own, their own IP, and have box office appeal. Backed by the quality of Stephen Chow's previous films, "Mermaid" was already considered a success before it was released. Just like every rich second generation, success is what it should be and is easier, and failure is strange. Therefore, before the release of "Mermaid", Hehe Pictures, Enlight Media and Longteng Yidu (Beijing) Film and Television Media jointly signed a box office guarantee agreement with Stephen Chow of 1.6 billion to 1.8 billion. Stephen Chow played a key role in the success of "Mermaid". Rather than "Mermaid" winning the championship, it is better to say that Stephen Chow won the championship.

Many people who criticized Stephen Chow's new film said that "The Mermaid" is "eating on old tricks", but don't successful artists repeat their own artistic expressions to varying degrees? Regarding the criticism of "Mermaid", more people are motivated by the feeling of hating that iron cannot be transformed into steel, which is different from simply hating a bad movie. Therefore, the badness of "Mermaid" is compared to Stephen Chow's peak level. A Stephen Chow with a passing score will be better than a bad film director with a perfect score, and will also receive heartfelt laughter from the audience in the cinema.

In terms of the choice of starring roles, even though Deng Chao has used two movies to maximize the audience's favorability of his movies, it is Deng Chao's status as a director who bears most of these negatives. From "The Young Emperor" when he debuted to last year's "Scorching Sun", Deng Chao's acting skills have been recognized, and he is an acting actor with a certain box office appeal. Starting from Deng Chao's early "Cuihua, Pickled Cabbage", Deng Chao began to actively show his comedic side. It was not until the combination of "Run, Brother" and Deng Chao's Weibo account that he successfully gained a reputation in the hearts of the audience. The label of "comedian" is consistent with the requirements of "Mermaid" for the starring role.

In addition, the movie length of "Mermaid" was played with caution. "The Mermaid" lasts 93 minutes, which is nearly half an hour shorter than the 130-minute "Macau 3" and the 120-minute "Journey to the West: The Monkey King Three Fights the Bone Demon". The half-hour short of "Mermaid" has bought more space for film arrangement. In the limited 24 hours, "Mermaid" has more play times.

2. The immature Spring Festival schedule is conducive to "getting bigger"

As for the schedule, "Mermaid" has two advantages. One is two consecutive box office peaks; It's because competitors at the same time were too weak.

Stephen Chow learned to take advantage of the Spring Festival schedule as early as "Journey to the West: Conquer the Demons". "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" was released on New Year's Day on February 10, 2013, with a box office of 530 million, beating "The 101 Proposals" and "Cloud Atlas" in the same period. The performance of the film that year was very similar to this year's Spring Festival release: There are also three movies that mainly bear the box office pressure, and one of them dominates. In addition, "Mermaid" also experienced a second box office peak like "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons". The Valentine's Day schedule was also embedded in the Spring Festival schedule. "Mermaid"'s performance on Valentine's Day even exceeded its own opening day box office.

Not only during the Spring Festival and Valentine's Day, but up to now, there is still no movie in theaters that can compete with "Mermaid". Even the old IP "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is no match.

According to theater staff, due to the lack of competition during the same period, the film schedule of "Mermaid" has remained high. However, as "Ip Man 3" will be released on March 4, theaters will naturally gradually reduce the film schedule of "Mermaid" until it is next released. , it is expected that the box office of "Mermaid" will reach 3 billion before the next release.

The Lunar New Year festival starts around November 20 every year and has always been regarded as a battleground by ambitious filmmakers, so the phenomenon of blockbuster movies getting together has become more and more intense. On the contrary, there is not much attention paid to the Spring Festival stalls at the end of the Lunar New Year stalls. Looking back at last year's Spring Festival, films such as "The Lion", "Macau 2", "Zhong Kui Conquers the Demon: Snow Demon", "Where Are We Going, Dad 2", "Up to the Sky" and other films were released. From the perspective of a normal audience Speaking of which, these are not top-notch movies, or even bad ones. But even a movie like this can earn hundreds of millions at the box office, which can be said to be the best destination for bad movies.

Therefore, the excellent "Mermaid" is more likely to stand out in a schedule filled with bad movies, not to mention that this year's "cluster" has not even been achieved. Although "Macau 3" with a score of 4.3 and "Journey to the West: The Monkey King Three Fights the White Bone Demon" with a score of 5.7 in the same period are not as good as "The Mermaid", they are not bad at the box office. Why do bad movies choose the Spring Festival slot and win gracefully?

I think this is probably because the movie competition atmosphere during the Spring Festival has not yet become a reality. A large number of excellent movies have been rushed to release in the Lunar New Year period, and have consumed all their box office potential. Therefore, the result is that there are a lot of good movies in the Lunar New Year period, and there is an insufficient supply of movies in the New Year period. This result is mainly due to the fact that film development has not kept up with the changes in the audience's viewing behavior.

According to the "China Film News" report, the popularity of Chinese films during the Spring Festival began around 2013. This is due to the development of theater chains and the transformation of Chinese New Year customs from "playing mahjong" to modern entertainment. Consumption transition. From 2013 to the present, among the movies released during the Spring Festival, there are very few movies that have achieved both word-of-mouth and box office success, and "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" is considered one of the best.

Under such a premise, "Mermaid"'s "Stephen Chow" and "Douban score 7.3" are very valuable in the Spring Festival movie, and it is also outstanding compared with the movies of the same period. The two successes of "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" and "The Mermaid" during the Spring Festival are very likely to make Stephen Chow the star of the Spring Festival, just like Feng Xiaogang, who also made comedies in the past, and made a name for himself in the Lunar New Year.

3. No matter how weak the marketing is, it is better than none

The most famous of the few marketing events of "Mermaid" is "Everyone owes Star a movie ticket", but this This kind of marketing method can easily make the public fall into the memories of Mr. Xing's past classics, which has little connection with the new movie, and lacks the interaction between the audience and the new movie itself.

Other marketing points such as "love can break through all boundaries" and "environmental protection" are even more difficult for people to participate. After all, no one has experienced cross-species "mermaid love", and the relationship between humans and mermaids It is difficult to apply love and environmental protection entanglements to real cross-gender and cross-age love or environmental protection behaviors, and it is difficult to make people excited.

But a weak impact is better than no impact at all. Although "Mermaid" does not make people strongly feel the success of marketing, it at least has traces of marketing. And "Macau Storm 3" and "Journey to the West: The Monkey King Three Fights the White Bone Demon" that can be competed at the same time are not even marketing. Although "Journey to the West: The Monkey King Three Fights the White Bone Demon" years ago was suspected of creating "six-year-old children" "Spring Festival Gala" was a popular incident, but the beneficiaries of this incident were children under the age of six or netizens who collectively fell into memory. The "Three Strikes" besides suffering infamy could not even talk about boosting the box office.

4. Choosing the right partner is half the battle

After the film is filmed, publicity and distribution are also key. According to Sina Entertainment, the distributor of "Mermaid" this time is established In 2013, Tianjin Lianrui Pictures Co., Ltd. became famous with the successful release of "Monster Hunt", "Back to 20", and "My Girlhood"; the marketing team has successfully produced "The Thirteen Girls", Beijing Matt Culture Development Co., Ltd. has done marketing for films such as "To Our Perishable Youth", "Tiny Times" series, "Heart Blossoms on the Road", "The Taoist Comes Down the Mountain" and other films. Hehe Pictures, as the film's producer and guarantor, provides resource management and docking services for promotional activities.

According to Yang Wei, chairman of Hehe Pictures: "Mr. Stephen Chow and his Xinghui Overseas Co., Ltd. are the general commander and decision-maker of this announcement. Matt Culture, as the party responsible for marketing, formulates the overall After the marketing strategy is approved by Xinghui, it will coordinate the entire process and ensure the implementation of the plan; all distribution work of the film will be planned and implemented by Lianrui Pictures, and Hehe Films will be responsible for the support and management of the publicity and distribution costs and the service docking of various resource channels. , Hehe’s joint-stock company Black Ant Pictures is responsible for the cooperation and docking of business channel resources and the development of derivative products.”

In terms of distribution work, Lianrui Pictures is responsible for the overall strategy, planning, and plan formulation of all distribution work. , adjustment and execution. As joint publishers, China Film, Enlight, Star America and Sihai Alliance will work together as resource parties on the overall distribution of the project to carry out related distribution work.

The success of "Mermaid" is of great significance to every element that makes it possible.

Last year was of great significance to the film industry. The total box office for the year was 44 billion. Chinese-language films began to enter the era of professional production. The box office in 2016 is expected to be 60 billion. The success of any work will have a certain guiding effect on subsequent filmmakers. As far as "Mermaid" is concerned, even if it is not completely correct, in some details, it serves as an example.