In the lost decade of Chinese films, the reason why the total box office was so low, in addition to the invasion of pirated VCDs and DVDs, another important reason is that the movie theaters cheated and caused a lot of Chinese films that should have made money lose money, and as a result, directors such as Lao Mouzi, Chen Kaige can only make movies to win awards and make money by selling overseas copyrights, and few people make films for the domestic box office.

So even if Hong Kong films entered the mainland market at that time, they couldn't make much money.

As for those Hollywood blockbusters entering the mainland market, in fact, they are just to test the waters and cultivate the recognition of Hollywood movies in the mainland market, and they don't think about making money at all.

When they couldn't enter the mainland market and the Southeast Asian market shrank, Hong Kong films suffered another fatal blow, that is, the emergence of VCD.

VCD was invented by Jiang Wanmeng in 93 and launched by Wanyan Company, which became popular in the mainland in 95 and rapidly developed to Southeast Asia.

Why is VCD a major blow to Hong Kong films? It's because of piracy.

Before the advent of VCDs, although there was piracy of videotapes, one thing to admit is that the piracy cost of videotapes is very high, because videotapes contain many things, such as cassettes, shells and other things.

Therefore, the estimated cost of a pirated videotape is more than ten yuan, and although such pirated videotapes are sold on the market, most of the buyers are people who open video halls.

Ordinary citizens don't buy much, although it has some impact on the movie, but it is not so big.

But VCD discs are different, the cost of this thing is too low, everything is counted, a disc costs only a few cents, and it costs two or three yuan to sell it to customers, at most five or six yuan, and ten yuan a day.

Because of the convenience of piracy, it can be said that just a few days after the release of a movie, pirated discs are flooding the market.

In addition, because of the improvement of living standards, many families in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia have 25 to 32-inch TVs. It can be said that watching these films at home is not much different from watching them in the cinema.

This is true in Hong Kong, let alone in Taiwan and Southeast Asia.

What's more important is that many Hong Kong films are first screened in Hong Kong, and then they are shown in other regions after discussing the introduction method according to the specific box office.

Now, a movie has just been released in Hong Kong for a few days, and there are pirated disks in Taiwan and Southeast Asia, and by the time Southeast Asian film companies get the film ready to be screened, many citizens who want to watch the movie have already seen the pirated version, and they don't need to go to the cinema to watch it again.

This has led to the film that the film company has worked so hard to get become a waste in their hands, and they spend so much money in vain. Of course, I didn't want to, and asked for a return.

It can be said that in the end, the filmmakers didn't make money, and the investors didn't make money, even if they wanted to issue VCDs, there were too many pirated copies on the market, and a few went to buy genuine ones.

In addition, at this time, because of the popularity of Hong Kong movies, the salaries of stars soared, and in 82 years, the Hong Kong box office reached more than 20 million, and at that time, a female star's salary was only 100,000, and the male star's salary was only hundreds of thousands, and the actor's remuneration accounted for about one-tenth of the total investment in the film.

In 1994, a first-line female star was paid millions of Hong Kong dollars, and big stars like Fa Ge and Xing Ye needed tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars, and the salaries of other stars were not low.

As a result, the salary of celebrities is too high, and some small productions account for more than half of the total investment, resulting in many films being shoddy, which seriously affects the reputation of Hong Kong films.

Taiwan has always been an important box office base for Hong Kong films, and many small film companies can only make money because of the company's strength because they cannot enter the Japanese and Southeast Asian markets, but because the cost of Hong Kong films is getting higher and higher, the salaries of stars are increasing, and there are also many Hong Kong films invested by Taiwan that cannot be delivered on time, and the quality of delivery is also terrible.

Taiwanese businessmen are increasingly dissatisfied with Hong Kong producers, such as "Jigong" starring Chow Xingchi was sold to Taiwanese filmmakers at a high price of tens of millions, and failed miserably at the box office, resulting in Taiwanese filmmakers losing all their money.

This incident triggered Taiwan's eight major film companies to start negotiations with the Hong Kong Film Practitioners Association on "how to curb the cost of Hong Kong films and reduce the remuneration of Hong Kong films", and the negotiations finally broke down.

It is said that in 1994 alone, Taiwanese investors alone lost nearly one billion Hong Kong dollars in Hong Kong films.

Such a big loss made many investors immediately lose interest in Hong Kong films.

As a result, Taiwanese film companies reduced their investment in Hong Kong films and joined forces to boycott Hong Kong films that exceeded a certain budget, and instead demanded that the Taiwan authorities relax restrictions on Hollywood films.

In 1995, the Taiwan authorities lifted restrictions on Hollywood films at the request of film manufacturers, and Hong Kong films gradually lost the Taiwan market.

Several reasons broke out together, causing Hong Kong films to decline immediately.

Therefore, the decline of Hong Kong films is almost doomed, even if Lei Weidong is a time-traveler, it cannot be stopped.

After all, piracy is not something that Lei Weidong can stop like stopping, in his previous life, Lei Weidong clearly knew that after the country joined the WTO, he began to vigorously rectify piracy, and it can be said that a lot of effort was made, starting from 2003 until 2018, when Lei Weidong crossed, it began to achieve certain results.

The box office of mainland films has been booming since 2012, and in just two or three years, it has become the world's second largest box office market, and has begun to catch up with the United States, the world's largest box office market.

The reason why the box office is so hot is that people have money in their hands is one aspect, and more importantly, there are two reasons. One is the popularity of 3D movies, I have to say that the 3D effect is too shocking, watching it in the cinema is completely different from watching pirated copies at home.

Before the advent of Avatar, Lei Weidong basically watched those Hollywood blockbusters at home, such as "2012", "Transformers" 1 and 2 and other films were watched at home.

I went to the cinema to watch a movie, except for accompanying my girlfriend to watch a few movies when I was talking about my girlfriend, I usually haven't been there, and I feel sorry for the money.

However, "Avatar" is different, after Lei Weidong accompanied his girlfriend to watch 3D in the cinema, how awkward it was to watch 2D at home. In the end, I deleted the pirated version of "Avatar" directly from the Internet, and went to the cinema to watch it again.

Can such a movie not be high at the box office? Of course, because Lei Weidong has eyes, watching 3D movies is a bit of a sin, when will Cameron invent a 3D movie without glasses!

The second reason is the importance that the state attaches to copyright, and after 2012, it is difficult to see pirated copies on the Internet when those new movies are released.

It's completely different from a few years ago, before 2010, there were pirated copies of the movie on the Internet just after it was released. This makes Lei Weidong, who grew up watching pirated discs since junior high school, feel embarrassed. Since you can't see pirated copies, you can only go to the cinema to watch the genuine copies.

It's a long way off, but it took more than ten years for the power of the country to slowly clear piracy out of the film circle, and it was impossible for Lei Weidong to use his own strength to clear piracy out of the film circle in the nineties, so it didn't take that effort, let's wash and sleep.