The one-day box office of the Mid-Autumn Festival has exceeded 200 million yuan, and the director's transformation has been praised.

the Mid-Autumn Festival celebrates reunion, and the film's box office "changed from loss to profit" on the night of the full moon, exceeding 200 million yuan in a single day after the worst week of the year.

original title: the Mid-Autumn Festival box office "bottomed out" topped 500 million yuan, which was 100 million yuan less than last year's Mid-Autumn Festival box office. Domestic films have polarized reputation

Mid-Autumn Festival reunion. After the weakest week of the year, the film box office also turned from loss to profit on the night of the full moon, and the Mid-Autumn Festival exceeded 200 million yuan in a single day. As of 22:00 on the 17th, the box office over the three-day period totaled about 512 million yuan, but it was still far below the 605 million yuan recorded during last year's two-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday.

this year's Mid-Autumn Festival is more lively than in previous years. The Mid-Autumn Festival "undertakes" a large number of domestic films withdrawn from summer holidays, and as many as 13 new films have been released in the first three days, including "A Chinese Odyssey 3", "July and Anson" and "McDull." Popular IP dramas such as Fanbao Cavalry and Anti-Corruption Storm 2, as well as famous directors such as the Hunter and my War, but films suitable for the Mid-Autumn Festival family carnival are as scarce as in previous years.

with the Mid-Autumn Festival getting hotter and hotter, are there enough high-quality films to fill the market? With the National Day holiday approaching, can the rising momentum of the box office take advantage of the opportunity to speed up? When can domestic films really get out of the downturn?

< strong > China's Mid-Autumn Festival < / strong >

is different from previous years. This year, due to the two-week difference between the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day, the adjacent "double festival" has not been able to form a period of about 10 days. However, after many adjustments, a number of domestic films still made their debut in the Mid-Autumn Festival.

for example, "A Chinese Odyssey 3" has been rescheduled twice, and the final schedule is set on September 14th. The seventh "McDull" series "McDull" was originally scheduled for July 22, but eventually the film decided to change gear to September 15 to avoid the overlapping target audience of "Doraemon."Anti-Corruption Storm 2," which was originally released in the summer, was finally scheduled for September 14, and "my War" was rescheduled all the way from March to September 15.

according to industry insiders, before 2015, the Mid-Autumn Festival was not taken seriously by the issuers, but with the box office success of "lost in Hong Kong", the Mid-Autumn Festival in 2016 became "fragrant steamed buns", and it is not difficult to understand that many films have been rescheduled to the Mid-Autumn Festival.

in terms of theme, this year's Mid-Autumn Festival films are more diverse than in previous years: there are commercial packaging of the theme war film "my War" and adaptation of Anne Baby's youth novel "July and Anson." there are both police and bandit action movie "the Hunter" and the new light comedy "very Father and son."

however, throughout the Mid-Autumn Festival in recent years, romance films and police and gangster films still play a leading role, and there are still few films suitable for Mid-Autumn Festival reunion and family reunion.

< strong > the box office of the Mid-Autumn Festival is not as good as last year's < / strong >

the "fiasco" in the summer half a month ago is still fresh in people's memory. In early September, the domestic box office hit the bottom of this year's box office, and hit a new low of 30.6 million yuan a day on Sept. 8. It was not until the day before the Mid-Autumn Festival, when five star blockbusters were released at the same time, that the inflection point was ushered in. The box office closed at 207 million yuan on the Mid-Autumn Festival, an increase of 107% from the previous month. However, the box office lacked stamina in the following two days, with the box office falling to less than 200 million yuan in a single day.

according to Yien Film think Tank, compared with 2015 Mid-Autumn Festival, the number of 2016 Mid-Autumn Festival shows increased by 40.95%, but the number of moviegoers decreased by 30.56%, and the box office also decreased by 32.51%. According to the analysis of people in the industry, there are two reasons: first, due to factors such as the reduction of ticket subsidies, the enthusiasm of the audience in 2016 is indeed much lower than that in 2016; second, the film released in the Mid-Autumn Festival in 2016 did not form a "popular style" like "lost in Hong Kong". The topic was not ignited.

judging from the box office performance of the new film, as of the evening of the 15th, among the top three new films at the box office, "A Chinese Odyssey 3", "Anti-Corruption Storm 2" and "July and Anson" are all popular IP dramas. Among them, A Chinese Odyssey 3 earned more than 85 million yuan on its first day of release and grossed more than 200 million yuan in its four days of release, taking the lead by an absolute advantage.

< strong > Director's transformation is praised < / strong >

for the busy Mid-Autumn Festival, the industry and audiences are more concerned about whether this pile of domestic new films can cover the "cold winter" of excellent films. Some senior film critics believe that compared with the summer films that can only watch Yan, some of the new films in this year's Mid-Autumn Festival have returned to the competition in plot and production.

among them, the Hunter, directed by Cao Baoping, put Liu Ye on the throne of Jin Jue Movie at the Shanghai Film Festival in June this year, while the youth film July and Anson, which focuses on the complex emotions of the post-80s generation, was selected as the opening film of the 2016 Hong Kong Asian Film Festival. The above two new films have also scored well in major film forums, with "July and Anson" with a score of 7.7 on Douban.com and "the Hunter" with a score of 7.5, which is also a domestic film with high ratings from audiences these days.

another interesting phenomenon is that during the Mid-Autumn Festival, two transformational films by famous directors emerged-Cao Baoping switched to Deep Wind and played black humor in the Hunter. Peng Shun, who started as a thriller, tried a water-themed war film in my War. Although the effect of the transformation is mixed, this spirit of innovation has received a lot of likes.

< strong > observation: the theme of the Mid-Autumn Festival is a little less "Family Happy" < / strong >

just when the Mid-Autumn Festival films are struggling to refresh the box office figures, a topic ignites the moments: "Mid-Autumn Festival reunion Day, why are there so few domestic 'Family Happy' movies?"

which are Family Carnival movies? At present, there is no film classification system in China, so we might as well simply understand "Family Happy" as "suitable for both young and old". If it is screened according to the foreign graded definition that "there are no nudity, sex scenes, drug abuse and violence scenes," there are indeed as few Mid-Autumn Festival films suitable for "Family Carnival" as in previous years. Among them, "McDull Fanbao Raiders", which is most suitable for the family, chose the Mid-Autumn Festival schedule because it took the initiative to avoid "Doraemon" and "settle for second best".

on the one hand, there is the call of fans for domestic "Family Carnival" films, on the other hand, it is the weakness of this kind of domestic films in the market.

also focuses on parents and children. the two domestic animated films McDull Fanbao Raiders and the reappearance of Azure Dragon of the Immortal Beast, which are released in the Mid-Autumn Festival, are not as popular as the French fantasy comedy "Nine lives" at the end of the season.

looking at the current Chinese film market, whether live-action films or animated films, "Family Carnival" types of works are rare, and high-quality ones are even more rare. This has something to do with the increasing pattern of domestic genres, the theme is single and nothing new, and the audience is getting narrower and narrower: either police and bandit films and romance films full of routines, or cartoons and children's dramas by primary-age, and there are very few domestic films that are both suitable for children and attract adults.

in contrast, in American films with PG level and below, under the premise that they are suitable for children, they pay more and more attention to the perception of adults. Whether it is the classic Disney animation "the Lion King", the fantasy comedy "Journey to the Flying House", or the recent "Zootopia", it is all "top-grossing and applauding". These contents are "all-age" good works with both interest and artistry, and their success is worthy of reflection and reference by domestic filmmakers.

admittedly, no matter in reality or in the movie, the concept of "Family Happy" is like lubricating oil and adhesive, which satisfies people's expectation and yearning for a better life, and plays a positive role in maintaining family happiness and social harmony. As the second-highest-grossing Chinese film market in the world, "Family Carnival" films have a bright future.

it's just that regardless of the Mid-Autumn Festival or other short and long holidays, if there are more eye-catching "Family Carnival" films in the film list, domestic filmmakers must first jump out of their conceptual limitations and "look at money" and "look forward." After all, only when more audiences get a "family reunion" in the cinema can the domestic film market prosper.

Edit: nancy