Normally, summer is the preferred schedule for commercial productions.

At that time, the holidays of universities, primary and secondary schools, the air conditioning of the theater attracted many cool people, and mainstream commercial films for the public, especially teenagers, usually achieved a good box office during this period.

In contrast, although Valentine's Day, Christmas and New Year, and public holidays are also good, they are not as long as summer vacations, and the box office potential is not as good as the latter. Of course, it is not that he did not take the initiative to avoid the summer file, so as not to fall into a situation of heavy surroundment.

As far as the domestic film market is concerned, due to the long-term absence of imported blockbusters, the schedule in July and August has almost become the self-reserved place for domestic films, and there are forty or fifty domestic commercial films targeting this schedule every year, and the competition is becoming more and more fierce. There are not only "record-breaking films" that are box office hits, but also works that hit the streets with a box office of millions or even hundreds of thousands.

The poor sales of literary films can also be attributed to the fact that there is too little exposure to Qu Gao and oligo, but there is only one reason why commercial films cannot sell, that is, there is a "major misunderstanding": the screenwriter thinks that he has written a good story, the director thinks he has made a good work, the actor thinks he has received a good book, the investor thinks he has invested in a good project, and the distributor thinks that someone has watched this film...... However, it turns out that everyone thinks too much, and they make a film that the audience doesn't like, which usually means that the film is not of good quality.

In fact, even those record-breaking box office hits are mostly unqualified in the eyes of veteran fans who are used to watching Hollywood blockbusters, and those films that are staged on a week-trip or day-trip during the "Protection Month" do not even have a chance to get bad reviews and low scores.

In the long run, the "Domestic Film Protection Month" has become a "bad movie shelter", from senior fans to ordinary fans, they all have complaints about the summer files that are full of rotten movies, and then resist entering the cinema during the summer vacation.

This sentiment had a general outburst in last year's summer season.

The summer file from June to September, which has maintained rapid growth for five consecutive years, experienced a sharp decline last year, with more than 80 domestic films and more than a dozen imported films concentrated on the battle, but in the end it only received 12.4 billion box office, which was much worse than last year's 15.6 billion results, and cast a heavy shadow on the slogan of "impacting the total box office of 60 billion" shouted at the beginning of the year - in the end, the annual revenue was 45.7 billion, only more than one billion more than the previous year, and it failed to continue the good state of catching up with the North American film market in great strides.

You must know that due to a large number of new theaters being put into the market one after another, the number of screenings nationwide increased by more than 20 million last year compared with the year before, while the extra box office was only about one billion, which means that the average attendance rate has declined significantly. Obviously, the era of high box office growth brought about by relying on large-scale theater construction, reuse of stars, and huge ticket compensation has come to an end, and it has begun to enter the era of refined operation with deep cultivation.

In the summer file "heat stroke", various companies naturally reacted, and Bee Pictures' approach was to speed up the pace and bring forward the trump card "The Wandering Earth" to May 23. It is hoped that through the way of the June blockbuster, he will establish an "extraordinary" high style for his own movies, so as to avoid being burdened by pig opponents.

As a sci-fi action film that emphasizes big scenes, the theme and content of "The Wandering Earth" are very suitable for the taste of summer audiences, so it was said early on that the film would be released in the summer of 17. Later, the "Uncle Jianjun" officially established the project and set the August schedule as a matter of course, and the outside world speculated that Bee Ying would have plans to adjust the schedule to avoid concessions, but when the rumors really landed, everyone was still shocked by their sudden jump to May.

Due to the college entrance examination, the summer season in the mainland usually starts on June 10 after the end of the examination. As soon as the college entrance examination is over, the campus love that girls love to watch and the action blockbusters that boys want will begin to be released in turn, enriching the spiritual and cultural life of the majority of high school graduates, while emptying their pocket money by the way. As a typical boys' film, the original book has many college students, so it stands to reason that it shouldn't be released so early.

What's more, there are also "Transformers 5" and the CG cartoon "Despicable Me 3" in the June schedule, which are also live-action CG movies. Because of this, this year's schedule in July and August is particularly lively, in order to avoid the tin man and the Minion hanging beating, a large number of domestic films have announced the adjustment of the schedule, all of which are moving to July and August.

In the face of this situation, Atletico Madrid said lightly, "I don't want to join in that excitement", which really made everyone angry. You can't get along with money, do you know?

Before Vice Governor Huang could ask the next question, someone on the side interjected, "It's too risky, isn't it?"

The former's face remained unchanged, and he said with a smile: "Pony, I'm also curious about this question, what are you going to do?"

Atletico nodded, "These two films will indeed have an impact, but they are still within acceptable limits." Despicable Me 3 is a CG cartoon, this cheap and cute style is more loved by female audiences and young audiences, and our film is not the same way. Changing five is an important threat, and we chose this time to target it. We expect that the reputation of Transformers V will be terrible, so that although it will be diluted at the domestic box office, it will help us open up overseas markets and eventually make money. ”

As soon as you say that, everyone understands. It is common for series of movies to become less and less fresh, and word of mouth to decline accordingly. In this case, the bee arranges the "earth" to collide with the "Autobots", which can indeed produce the effect of concept bundling and porcelain marketing, and attract a group of foreign science fiction fans who are not interested in Chinese science fiction.

"The Wandering Earth" has started its test screening, and many of you have already seen or heard of it, and know that the quality is no worse than that of imported blockbusters, and it is completely capable of fighting. The only question is how low the reputation of "Changing Five" will be, after all, the current momentum is still quite big.

In fact, Atletico already had the answer in mind, but they couldn't say it casually because there was a confidentiality agreement. As the most powerful and outstanding VR film production team on the planet, the VR version of the trailer of Variable Five was also handed over to Bee Mirage to do, which made some employees see Variable Five, which was still in a state of secrecy. When they returned to China after completion, their evaluation of the film also spread in a small area.

Putting down this question, someone asked: "Change five in the end of June, wandering in late May, are you planning to apply for a key extension?"

"Well," Atletico nodded, "we are going to execute a long-term screening strategy at home and abroad this time in order to provide time for word-of-mouth fermentation." ”

Today, more cost-effective and convenient digital technology has infiltrated every aspect of film production, and even iMax, a strange man who uses large 70mm film, and Christopher Nolan, a despised adherent of digital photography, have bowed their heads to the market and turned to digital production and projection systems. Not to mention other directors, digital shooting, digital production, and digital projection, without the need for an inch of film.

As a result, the final copy of the film has been transformed from a traditional film disc into a digital multimedia file mounted on a hard disk. The cost of making copies has dropped from tens of thousands in the film era to hundreds of dollars today, and large-scale painting is no longer the preserve of large companies, and small and medium-sized labels can afford to play it.

The cinema only needs to download the digital copy to the projection server through the network or mobile hard disk, import the downloaded unlock key file at the specified time, and verify that it can start the screening.

This key is the certificate of the film's playback, through which it can specify the screening range and screening time of the film, so as to effectively avoid the problem of illegal copying caused by the leakage of copies in the theater, and it is also an important reference for the final settlement of the box office.

Normally, the key is valid for 30 days, and after it expires, it cannot be shown. If the copyright owner feels that the box office is good and the attendance is high, he can apply to the key production company for an extension to get an additional release date.

In the North American film market, it is entirely up to the distributor to decide whether the film is postponed, and the films that focus on the Oscars are usually from December to March or even April of the following year after the Oscars end, while the key time of ordinary films is much shorter, with a decline in attendance and a large-scale reduction in theaters.

Due to the problems involved in multi-party agreements, imported films usually do not choose to postpone, unless it is a popular film with huge interests such as "Avatar" and "Titanic 3D Remake", otherwise it will always be this month and next month. The postponement of domestic films is much more arbitrary, and you only need to apply a few days in advance to achieve your wishes.

As in the North American market, the key extension is only for movie theaters to broadcast the qualifications, and whether people accept it depends on the specific attendance rate. There was a film that felt that the reputation was good, so it applied for a one-month extension, but it only won 100,000 yuan at the box office, which made people laugh and cry.

Most movie theaters are located in urban business districts where every inch of land is expensive, and the rent and labor costs are evenly spread over the seats, making them have a great aversion to the phenomenon of empty seats. Among them, there are many unlucky children who are well-made and have a slow reputation, which is also a pity.

In the face of this situation, Bee Star Cinemas, as a latecomer, chose to do the opposite, setting aside a large number of screens to screen movies with low attendance and not easy to see in other theaters, especially various postponed movies, but achieved a double harvest of word-of-mouth and box office.

Their way to ensure attendance is also very simple, that is, to introduce crowdfunding rules, the audience pre-purchases tickets through the Internet, and the number of shows will only take effect after reaching a certain amount, otherwise a full refund. In this way, the audience has seen unpopular niche films and even literary films that are rare to see elsewhere, the producers have received additional box office, and the Star Cinema has also ensured the maximum use of their own screens, which can be said to be a win-win situation.

The use of crowdfunding to solve the problem of content consumption is not their first creation, some people have long used the crowdfunding model to sell concert and drama tickets, and what Star has done is to take the lead in introducing it into the field of film screening. Relying on the advantages of taking the lead in opening crowdfunding and carrying out refined operations, the box office of Star Cinemas has grown rapidly, relying only on the small scale of its 80 cinemas and 390 screens, it has won an annual box office of more than one billion yuan, and directly jumped to the top of the 17th place in the national cinema rankings, attracting cinema peers and online ticket platforms to follow suit.

Because of the gradual popularity of crowdfunding movie-watching, more and more domestic films have applied for postponement, especially bee's own movie, which is the most typical, and there is not a single movie that is only shown for 30 days.

This time, Bee Yingxian wanted to make a big news, and he was ready to postpone it for three months early in the morning, and prepare to fight all the way to the National Day file, but it doesn't matter what time he chooses to release it. Backed by the two major refined advertising platforms of Bee Network (web ads, chat pop-ups) and Bee Software (launch ads), Bee Pictures is confident that it will maintain the popularity of the film for a long time, and it is also full of confidence in the attendance rate in the later stage.

In particular, the market performance in recent months has provided them with an additional confidence bonus. Because of the bursting of the ticket subsidy bubble, it has been a few months since the end of the Spring Festival, and a domestic film can break 100 million in a single day, and the overall performance is also lackluster. Of course, there are environmental factors such as the off-season of the market, but it also proves from the side that the dislike of movie audiences for ordinary domestic films has not been alleviated.

The so-called ticket subsidy refers to the online ticket purchase subsidy, which was initially the online ticket platform unilaterally subsidized the user, 30 yuan to buy tickets from the cinema, and then sold to consumers at a price of 9.9 and 19.9. This move is to win users and expand their own market share, but because this part of the subsidy is included in the total box office of the movie, the film producers and distributors soon see the loophole, and the ticket supplement is regarded as a new way to buy the box office and brush up on performance.

At the beginning of the film's release, tens of millions of dollars were used for large-scale ticket compensation, and then the outstanding opening results were swiped, so as to induce more ordinary audiences to enter the theater to consume their own films to make a high box office, and finally obtain income through box office sharing, stock market, VAM agreements and other channels.

The effect of ticket subsidy is obvious, and it soon became popular throughout the country, pushing up the national box office, but it also brought more and more serious doubts about water injection, and finally provoked the regulator to take action, and the legislation strictly prohibited the purchase of box office. In addition, the online ticket platform has temporarily come to an end in the money-burning war, and the theater chain has found that online ticketing will infringe on off-ticket income - online seat selection saves the audience's time, and naturally there is no time to buy popcorn and derivative toys - the ticket compensation model is temporarily over, and the scale and intensity are much smaller all of a sudden.

Bee Pictures has also made ticket supplements, but it has teamed up with theaters to directly reduce the price (the difference is not included in the box office) in order to attract popularity, increase attendance and increase total revenue. Because it may damage the interests of the theater chain, this move was collectively resisted by the latter, which was only carried out in its own star theaters in the past, and the scale of the latter has not been able to grow, and the few billion-dollar movies under Bee are also related to this "sincerity".

(End of chapter)