The staff of Lanyu also told Sù Kangkang that Kang Ge, as a new director, if he only understands the above basic operation methods, he still can't fight the veterans in the distribution industry.

"Now there is almost no more blatant money and ticket sales with one hand," said a staff member who used to be a resident distributor. Large-scale box office buying has shifted from offline to online, and small-scale chartered venues can actually be regarded as buying box office in disguise. ”

In the specific operation, the way to buy the box office is becoming more and more complex, and it seems to be more and more rational and formalized. The rebate also led to another kind of chaos in the distribution industry in the specific operation process - stealing the box office. If you don't understand the rules of the game, you will not only be at a disadvantage in the competition, but also more likely to become a direct victim of the stolen box office.

"Partners, filmmakers, distributors, and theaters will all charter the venue, and part of our usual work is to find partners and let them charter the venue. For example, if there is a certain brand of car implanted in this movie, we will go to the customer and ask them to come out of the market, and we will help him get the price of the theater. The former publisher introduced.

According to an industry insider, partners sometimes take the initiative to charter a large number of venues and give them to their customers, "For example, when "Fuchun Mountain Residence" was "Fuchun Mountain Residence", Audi chartered 300 games a day, and then 300,000 to 500,000 a day, and it was just 300 million yuan. ”

Strictly speaking, in the act of chartering a venue, the audience is not a consumer, but still a film-related interest party who spends money to buy the venue, and then gives it away through guò activities to build momentum for their own films.

After the rise of e-commerce, a new form of e-commerce chartering has emerged, which is more convenient to operate, more influential and larger. For blockbusters with good market prospects, e-commerce companies hope to talk about exclusive cooperation. often spend tens of millions of dollars to charter the venue in advance to ensure the number of films, such as the exclusive cooperation between "Heart Flower Road" and Maoer Films, Maoer Films are based on tens of millions of investments, and the resident personnel negotiate with each theater, and there are corresponding requirements for the number of screenings in each theater. For example, asking for extra games or asking for more prime games.

A staff member of the producer revealed a case of his company's cooperation with T Bao Films last year: "When the movie was about to be released, we went to talk to three theaters including Jin Yi about cooperation. At that time, we and T Bao each contributed 1 million to the movie tickets, and we asked the three theaters to guarantee us two afternoon screenings and two prime screenings every day for the first three days of the film's release. The theater requires us to buy at least 40% of the seats so that we can open. In this case, the 2 million investment was used to buy 40 percent of the seats for the four shows per day for the first three days of the release.

Traditionally, tickets are given away. Today's e-commerce is equivalent to buying tickets back at a member price first, and then distributing them at a lower price. Although the model of complete gift has been changed, most of the movie tickets have entered the market circulation; But the difference brought about by the low price model. It will be paid by the filmmaker and e-commerce.

Whether it is a charter or an e-commerce subsidy, it needs to be supported by considerable investment. In more extreme cases, filmmakers and distributors can produce high box office numbers for very little money, with a minimum of 8.3% to generate 100% of the box office.

The specific method is to do fake scenes, "we refer to them as passes", a distribution industry insider revealed, "Generally, theaters will choose the morning and evening shows with the least audience to operate, and this show can be seen on the theater scheduling and ticketing system." But it was treated as a sold-out, and there was actually no audience at all. Then the distributor, of course, can't get a penny at the box office. The theater also only takes some benefit fees. For example, a 100 yuan ticket may give a 10 yuan benefit fee. But the number of shows is scheduled, and the box office is out. ”

In this kind of operation, the cinema receives less than 100 yuan for tickets, and the filmmaker does not receive 43%, but the box office has already come out. It is equivalent to the filmmaker and distributor buying a high box office with a small amount of benefit fees. Industry insiders introduced. "It's also easy to see this kind of tricky film, for example, a film that has not been scheduled in the whole country, and you suddenly find that it still sells millions a day, and then it can't go offline. For example, a star-studded blockbuster about a shipwreck was sold for 4 million a day in the last week. ”

For some filmmakers with cinema resources. It's easier to do this, and you can even save on the benefit fee. "For example, a company like XX that has its own theater, I only screen in my own theater, I am both the filmmaker and the terminal, I take 43% of the filmmaker at the same time, and I also take 57% of the terminal, which means that I only need to pay 5% of the special funds and 3.3% of the business tax for this part, I can report this 100% box office, and I can quote 100 for 8 yuan 3. A certain martial arts film that has won numerous awards is just to save face for the director, and it is a fake of 33 million" - an industry insider revealed such a case - "This evidence is also easy to find, you go to check the weekly box office list of theaters, at that time, 15 of these theaters of XX Company entered the top 20 of the list, this phenomenon is very abnormal." Some theaters usually can't even enter the top 100 in the country, and you suddenly run to the top few, don't you say it's a problem? ”

Driven by the interest of rebates, some theaters are likely to use the improper means of stealing the box office to move the box office of a film without rebates to a film with rebates. Distributors may also become the leaders of this behavior, instructing theaters to steal the box office.

An industry insider revealed, "In 2013, when XX Company released an inspirational film and a youth film at the same time, it moved the box office of the inspirational film to the youth film. Because XX is the leading distributor of youth films, he is only the executive distributor of inspirational films, that is, he does things below, and he can't get the maximum profit from inspirational films, so he joined theaters to do this thing to move the box office. ”

Stealing the box office in the form of handwritten tickets is already a low-level means, and the common method used in theaters today is a dual system. The specific operation method is to buy two sets of ticketing systems for a theater, one is responsible for issuing tickets, and the other is responsible for reporting the box office to the country, and the movie tickets of movie A are played in the ticketing system, but the box office of movie B is included in the reporting system.

Who is profiting from buying the box office?

For money, fame, and customers, filmmakers, distributors, e-commerce, and theaters take what they need.

In the distribution of films, filmmakers, distributors, cinemas/theaters, and e-commerce are the most important four links in the chain of interests. From the point of view of the operation method of buying box office and rebates, all parties have different profits in this process, which may be a major reason why the phenomenon of buying box office and rebates has always existed and gradually become clear in the process of continuous alienation.

"Buying box office and rebates can drive the box office share and scheduling rate of the movie in the first week," revealed a staff member who participated in buying the box office. To put it simply, buying box office and rebates ensures the corresponding number of films. At the same time, it also builds momentum for the film and creates a blockbuster atmosphere, which can indeed attract a large number of traffic guests with a weak purpose; At the same time, it also stimulates the film schedule on a certain Cheng dù, which in turn stimulates the real box office of the film. At that time, a summer thriller starring Yang Function once bought the box office of the first three days, causing the illusion of an inflated first weekend, and the theater chain gave a large number of film schedules, but fortunately, the film did attract a large number of student audiences in the later stage and successfully achieved high box office results.

"Although the money to buy the box office is wool from the sheep, but for the company's performance to look good. Or in order to protect the reputation of the cooperating director, the filmmaker will do so", industry insiders admit frankly, "Even if you don't actually make much money in the end, the surface of the box office may bring stock opportunities to the film companies that have been listed." ”

"Sometimes, the box office of 99.99 million and 100 million is not the difference between fame, and the country has introduced a policy a long time ago, and 3D films with high box office have additional rewards." November 2012. The new policy issued by the state announced that it will reward 3D films that have achieved different box office results, such as box office revenue between 50 million yuan and 100 million yuan. 1,000,000 yuan; If the box office income is more than 500 million yuan, 10 million yuan will be rewarded; In short, the higher the box office, the higher the reward, among them, 100 million, 300 million, and 500 million are the dividing points for getting higher rewards. The final box office exceeded these cut-off lines, not only to get rewards, but also to win good fortunes.

The distributor and the filmmaker are generally a community of interests, but if the distributor uses the method of guaranteed distribution, it is actually forming a VAM relationship with the filmmaker. In order to lose less or earn more, the issuer will also take the initiative to play some tricks. A person familiar with the matter revealed, "XX Company made a guarantee of 600 million yuan for the shipwreck blockbuster last year, but the film was tragic, and XX Company found a familiar theater chain, and insisted on making a fake scene to survive for a while."

From the perspective of their own long-term interests, the distributor will also make a high box office in order to become a first-line distribution company. "Several of XX Company's guaranteed movies are made by themselves, and they are also saving face. You see that other companies have some particularly good films, what does he have? It's not nice to say," the insider added.

"The most important thing in the low-price strategy is to win more customers, there is no upper limit to customers, of course we hope that the more the better, the most valuable thing in this era is customer resources", an e-commerce person in charge said frankly.

It is understood that in terms of the general market in the industry, the cost of adding an active user to the e-commerce app is close to 12 yuan; In addition, the user's consumption habits and numbers are the huge potential value of e-commerce. With a low price similar to 9.9, e-commerce has gained a customer and understood the user's consumption habits, so it is nothing to post a box office of more than ten or twenty yuan.

In addition to low-price competition, e-commerce companies will also start more and more exclusive cooperation in order to win more customers. For example, Maoer and "Heart Flower Road" have exclusive cooperation, if the audience wants to buy tickets for "Heart Flower Road" online, they must become Maoer customers. In this process, e-commerce is expanding its channels, influence and market share.

In addition to acquiring customer resources, e-commerce is also gradually participating in the box office sharing, which is generally carried out in the form of VAM. "Our "Single Men and Women" once bet with Maoer", a staff member of Uniasia revealed, "Maoer invested 30 million for Huanya, and Maoer bet against Huanya at that time, if the box office of the movie exceeds 200 million, maybe the part above 200 million will be half and half." The 200 million was negotiated by the two parties, and it may be a return to the main line, and Media Asia is considering that 200 million can recover the cost, so it will bet 200 million. But the film of Media Asia is less than 198 million. "In this case, the Maoer bet failed, but the e-commerce company dared to make a big investment to bet, generally full of confidence in the movie, in order to be able to get a share at the box office, the e-commerce company will also integrate its own online and offline resources to fully cooperate with the promotion of the movie.

E-commerce pays money, with the intention of issuance. When the huge number of users is accumulated in the background, low-priced tickets will become online distribution, which will fully affect the theater schedule, and the existing terrestrial distribution team and theaters will gradually weaken the impact on the box office. The cake of film distribution will be owned by e-commerce.

To put it simply, the purpose of the filmmaker is to obtain better box office results and higher box office share, the distributor of guaranteed distribution wants to reduce losses or obtain box office share, and the e-commerce company hopes to get more customers and become a co-producer to participate in box office sharing. In this sense, cinemas and theaters seem to have become the biggest winners, but in fact, theaters have also been "kidnapped" by real estate developers outside the chain of interests. Taking a second-tier provincial capital city as an example, the rent of a cinema in the center of its city is tens of millions of dollars a year, coupled with the cost of water, electricity, property and labor, the seemingly strong cinema party also has unspeakable difficulties.

Of course, there are exceptions, compared with other cinemas, the biggest advantage of Wanda Cinema Line is that all theaters are directly managed, do not adopt the franchise system, and all assets also belong to the group, not hijacked by rent. It is worth mentioning that in addition to the cinema chain, there is also a kind of cinema management company, for example, UME is not a cinema chain, but a film professional group management company, and the assets belong to the group, and the theater does not need to worry about rent. These theaters choose to join different theater chains, and only need to pay a certain amount of theater management fees.

Listening to the staff of Blue Entertainment, not only Kang Kang has been taught a lot, but even Du Xinghe has a more in-depth understanding of the distribution link of the domestic film market. (To be continued......)