"Racing 3" lost box office, Pixar still has not entered the Chinese market

when foreign films returned to China in the first week after the summer, their performance was not as good as expected. With bad timing, cultural differences and policy barriers, Pixar's challenges are actually quite severe.

original title: why did Pixar's "Racing Story 3" not succeed?

after the summer was over, in the first week of foreign films returning to China, their performance was not as good as expected.

Luc Besson's "Interstellar Agent" won the highest production by virtue of its status as a visual effect blockbuster. But the box office, which averages less than 60 million yuan a day, does not match its production cost of as much as $210 million. Excluding the Chinese market, the film grossed only $130 million at the global box office, making it difficult to rely on box office recouping.

the director of the Theft car God, Edgar Wright, is called a genius director, and the Theft car God itself is a good crime genre. However, due to the lack of publicity in China, the audience's awareness is not high, which leads to the embarrassment that the film accounts for a proportion of the total box office, which is always about 10 percentage points lower than his screening rate.

and "Racing Story 3" of Disney's Pixar Animation Studios didn't do very well either. On its opening day, the film grossed less than 20 million yuan, lower than the opening days of the previous Pixar animated films finding Nemo 2 and the mind Secret Service. The box office of more than 60 million in three days also means that Pixar's efforts to open up the Chinese market have once again failed.

although Racing 3 is 11 years and 6 years behind the two previous films, the recognition of this series of films in China is not too low. On iqiyi, both previous films need to be paid to watch, but the total number of views still exceeds 40 million. Derivatives with the theme of "Racing Story" also sell well in China, especially a schoolbag made in the shape of "Lightning McQueen" can often be seen in all kinds of public places.

even so, Racing 3 still does not perform well at the box office, and one thing that is not good enough is that Racing 3 has never broken through the position of family fun. The story of "Racing 3" begins when Lightning McQueen faces a midlife crisis and feels weak when he is challenged by newcomers. In theory, this theme should resonate with more people, and even young people can empathize with it at a time when mourning culture is in power.

however, in the early publicity, the feeling of midlife crisis was weakened. The slogan "Lightning McQueen versus the handsome young man in the car world" will make people feel that this is just another mediocre showdown. The words "storm strikes and lightning strikes again" in the poster further weakens the theme of aging. There is no marketing point that can attract a wider crowd, which leads to the fact that the majority of people who actually come to the cinema to watch the film are still family audiences.

Racing 3, as a family movie, is obviously not that attractive to Chinese audiences. Compared with animated family films like Bear, which grossed about 400 million at the box office, Racing 3 has the disadvantage that it doesn't have daily cartoons to keep children interested. Disney itself is well aware of this, and the company has always emphasized building an emotional connection with the audience through stories. But as multinationals, they don't have the opportunity to do so in China.

in addition, Pixar itself has not been able to establish its own brand in China because of timing. In North America, Pixar revolutionized animated films with Toy Story. More complex stories and more sophisticated technology suddenly attracted people to flock to it, thus establishing the perception that Pixar is a good movie.

but in the years when Pixar showed great power, the Chinese film market was still very small. After the development of the Chinese film market, Pixar itself has declined, and the lack of creativity has led to a lack of animated films. This makes Pixar miss the opportunity to build a brand image in China. Not to mention, Pixar's stories, mostly with self-realization as the theme, with a strong American spirit, for the Chinese people, there are no small cultural differences.

of course, despite Pixar's disobedience in China, Racing 3 is not a high-quality movie in itself. Its rotten tomato score is 68%, which is lower than 74% of "Racing Story" and is not prominent in a large number of Pixar's works of more than 90%. Its global box office also fell from $462 million in "Racing Story" to $309 million in "Racing 3".

Lightning McQueen encounters a midlife crisis in Racing 3, which reminds him of his teacher, Dr. Blue Sky in Racing Story. After the car crash, Dr. Blue Sky tried to make a comeback but failed. Frustrated, he finally found redemption on the student Lightning McQueen.

"I am old, but my students have succeeded." Maybe Pixar faces the same problem.

Edit: xiongwei