Special feature of 1905 film network Douban 6.3 points, 4 days box office 25 million.
In 2021, films starring directors, actors and actresses were shortlisted for the Young Directors Project Unit of Shanghai International Film Festival, which gained great attention in the industry.
After the film was released two years later, some netizens claimed that it had the greatest emotional impact among similar anti-fraud themes, and it was a complicated female story, praising Zhou Dongyu and Zhang Yu for their screen charm and superb acting skills.
Some netizens also sharply criticized "the genre film that I thought was true, and as a result, the audience found themselves in the killing pig plate" and "there is a feeling of temporarily changing the script after watching" Put All Your Eggs on Fire ".
Also released in September, Hehe is also a venture capital project: "Yong ‘an Town Tales" was selected as the venture capital of the 2020 Film Festival; The Love History of Sangui won the most potential director award at Golden Rooster Film Venture Capital Conference and the winning project jointly recommended by investors and the winning project selected by genre optimization in Beijing International Film Festival.
After landing in the cinema, The Tales of Yong ‘an Town currently has a box office of less than 3 million, and The Love Story of Three Nobles has a box office of more than 4 million, all of which have encountered a dilemma in the market.
Harmony, which stands out from the venture capital platform, is a new director’s work with a double harvest in box office and word of mouth in the previous two years. But this year, there is no movie that has gone from venture capital to release and achieved a box office of over 100 million.
10 venture capital projects completed and released.
"Cosmos" is the most eye-catching, with a minimum box office of only 125,000.
According to the incomplete statistics of 1905 Film Network, among the films released in the cinema in 2023, 11 films have been selected as venture capital units of major domestic film festivals or new director support programs. From February to November, basically, at least one movie hatched and finished from venture capital enters the cinema market every month.
Of the 10 films that have been released, 3 have grossed more than 10 million yuan: "Parrot Kill"; 3 box offices are less than 500,000:; Four box offices are in the million-dollar range: Umbilical Cord, Tales of Yong ‘an Town and Love History of Three Nobles.
From the perspective of market performance, only Cosmic Exploration Editorial Department is the most outstanding and successful, with more than 67 million box office, and high score evaluation on the platform of Cat Taodou, which is generally affirmed by fans and the public. The lowest box office was "The Wild Cafe", with only 125,000.
The market results of other films are not ideal, especially Street Kids. Although the film is the work of a new director, the cast is not "new" — — And the company’s 7 impressions were created and produced, with Guan Hu as the producer and Liang Jing as the chief producer, starring,,, and so on.
Street Baby was praised by the venture capital units of Shanghai International Film Festival, Pingyao International Film Festival and Hainan Island International Film Festival at the venture capital stage. After the film was completed, it was shortlisted as a concern unit of Cannes Film Festival and won many honors such as the best actress at Pingyao Film Festival. Unfortunately, when this work is aimed at cinema audiences, the box office figure is only 164,000.
Venture Capital is a comprehensive trading platform that is dedicated to exploring the new strength of excellent films and creating investment, production, marketing and publicity for high-quality film projects. Venture capital provides a comprehensive stage for fledgling young directors and their projects, but once they enter the logical ecology of commercial development, the film can be shown in the cinema and achieved good results, and the difficulty is higher than that of completing the film.
Take Shanghai Film Festival, the earliest venture capital unit in China, as an example. Shanghai Film Festival Venture Capital has been successfully held for 15 sessions since 2007, and a total of 63 films have been shown in cinemas. On average, more than 10 or 20 venture capital projects are finally selected every year, and only about one-fifth of the 15 projects can reach the cinema smoothly.
After the venture capital project is released, the market performance is basically inseparable from three "outstanding" elements: outstanding type, outstanding lineup and outstanding quality.
Cosmic Exploration Editorial Department won the Best Original Screenplay Award of the Film and Television Venture Capital Association of the China Science Fiction Conference in 2019. At that time, the judges, as well as the top management of China Film and Ali, finally became the producers of this film.
The reason why the box office of the film exceeded expectations lies in the prominence of science fiction+comedy, the strength of the behind-the-scenes team, and the prominence of the film itself in the comprehensive aspects of story, performance, image and expression.
Compared with Street Kids, even with a strong cast and honorary awards, the literary story expression and insufficient quality evaluation (Douban 6.2) have hindered the possibility of the film breaking through in the cinema market.
Both Parrot Killing and Gentle Shell belong to emotional films, which are not the strong type and emotional films favored by the mainstream of the market, because there are practical issues such as "killing pigs" and "mental illness" to add color to the packaging. Zhou Dongyu and Zhang Yu’s "Starlight" lineup will attract more attention than the movie "Rambo Knocking", which is also a realistic literary expression and a pure amateur cast.
Umbilical Cord and Love History of Three Nobles are both from two newcomers, female directors, and they are both supervised by producers. They try to make breakthroughs and explorations in domestic minority themes and fairy tale fantasy love types respectively, which is worth encouraging. Yao Chen’s film company, Bad Rabbit Film, is in charge of "Umbilical Cord" and takes photos; Yao Chen co-starred in The Love Story of Three Nobles, and the cast included, etc.
Regrettably, the genre themes of the two films are still relatively unpopular. Even with the help of a strong cast and famous actors, it is difficult to become a big dark horse in the same competition, even if they do not reach a high level in quality or surprise the public.
Venture Capital → Cinema → Xuanfa
How to become "Life Events"?
In the short-listed projects of major venture capital platforms in China, the investment scale and production volume are often not too large, and there are literary films and genre films. Because it is the first or early work of a new director, the author’s expression or artistic attribute is often heavy and not very commercial. (except for the venture capital meeting for genre films)
Even if the original text of the project is literary and artistic, if it can be commercialized again, it can "turn the stone into gold" in the market. Many film companies aim at this kind of works with commercial potential on the venture capital platform, and Life Events is the most classic case in recent years.
In 2019, the film won the attention of Lianrui Film through Pingyao Venture Capital. The script was originally named "Going to Heaven", combining the director’s own family history, focusing on the funeral culture in North China and the group story of little people. When Lianrui took charge of this project, the film also changed qualitatively.
"I didn’t expect to come in. I didn’t expect to be able to make such a big cinema-scale movie." Liu Jiangjiang once told the 1905 film network that from Going to Heaven to Life Events, he was willing to abandon the expression of a smaller group of people and devote himself to creating more popular commercial films. The film was also a great success, winning over 1.7 billion box office.
For venture capital projects that can’t be adjusted and insist on making literary films, when the works are finished, it is more necessary to find the audience accurately, so that there will be opportunities to return to the original and make profits.
However, at present, there is no cultural atmosphere for watching literary films and art films on a large scale in China and a complete and mature art cinema, and there is a lack of art cinema construction in various places. The director’s new literary work is being prepared for release. He thinks, "It is unrealistic to expect that art films have to have a box office of 100 million yuan in commercial cinemas. I hope that the media and Xuanfa can try their best to care for domestic literary films and give them a crack. I hope that the commercial market can be more inclusive of literature and art and give more seats to literary films. "
Since the current film market mechanism is like this, it is even more necessary for literary films to "use a good knife on the cutting edge" and use accurate publicity strategies after landing in the cinema.
The Tales of Yong ‘an Town was shortlisted for the director’s biweekly unit of Cannes International Film Festival and won the best director of Pingyao International Film Festival, with a douban score of 7.4 and a good reputation. But why is the box office not as bright as the "Cosmic Exploration Editorial Department" that was amazing and Pingyao at the beginning?
The film focuses on the plot and lines, such as "A toast to Chinese movies" and "Nothing will happen in Yong ‘an Town", and pays too much attention to the literary direction, while the road show mode of routine operation and the lack of topics in the network and short video positions are the crux.
How to attract more viewers to pay for a film like Parrot Killing, which is difficult to locate simply by genre and literature, from creation to release?
In the presentation session of the venture capital roadshow of Shanghai Film Festival, producer Don He said that the story of "Parrot Killing" can be filmed in three dimensions: making a film purely discussing women’s psychology at low cost; Balance the author’s exploration of characters’ emotions and the suspense types of women’s anti-killing with the cost of medium weight; Make a commercial film with high cost.
After communicating with the director, Don River chose the second scheme. Obviously, after the film was released, it was questioned: on the one hand, the results of the creation were controversial; On the other hand, the film vigorously promotes the dramatic fraud scene before the screening, but the film itself pays more attention to the introverted subtle expression of the emotional wrestling between women and fraudsters, which makes many viewers have an expected gap and is difficult to understand.
From "Love Myth" and "Life Events", since the establishment of major domestic venture capital platforms, a number of well-received and well-received masterpieces have come out. Venture capital is only the "first stop" for new directors and new projects to make public appearances. Only by continuously polishing good content and finding the right way to hit the audience can it be turned into an equation to win the market.