There are more and more bad domestic films: Are these young actors not good enough?

In July this year, the summer box office fell sharply for the first time year-on-year. Data shows that since July, the total domestic box office revenue has exceeded 3.6 billion yuan, a decrease of 16% compared with the same period last year. This is also the first time in the past five years that the domestic box office has fallen. Some industry insiders believe that there are several reasons for this. First, third-party ticketing platforms no longer burn money to subsidize tickets, and second, there are too many bad movies. In July and August this year, more than 90 new films were released, but bad movies accounted for almost two-thirds. In my opinion, two-thirds is actually a relatively tolerant statement.

In recent years, among the domestic genre films, as long as it involves the thriller genre, nine out of ten are undoubtedly bad films. "Chopstick Fairy", "The Haunted Ghost in the Deserted Village", "Zhang Zhen Tells Stories: Shared House", "Pen Fairy Collides with the Ouija Fairy", "The Evil Voice of Magic City", "Horror Love Story: Death Highway", "Death Written: Rebirth after Disaster", these films have a Douban score of three points and a box office of millions. Comedy is also a field with a high yield of bad films, such as "Pretend to See: Movie Master" and "Ulong Courtyard". But the largest group of bad films is undoubtedly fan films or youth films. Last year, there were "Gardenia Blossoms" and "Tiny Times", "Everything Grows", "Why Sheng Xiaomo", "Left Ear", and this year, there are "Whose Youth Is Not Confused" and "My New Sassy Girlfriend". Let's look at movies such as "Black Fan", "The Bounty Hunter", "So Young 2", "The Three-Body Problem", "Murder in the Water Years", "So We Will Love", "Pili囧花", "The Demon Doctor", etc., which are basically around 3 points on Douban, and below 4 points.

In recent years, many young actors have gradually become active on the big screen through their popularity, opening up a new pattern for male actors in the Chinese film industry and also opening up a pattern of young actors dominating the screen. At present, the pay of young actors continues to hit new highs. An industry insider revealed that the quotes for TV series and movies of the most popular young actors are constantly rising.

But we also see another change in the film itself: there are a lot of fan films of youth, many film plots are sloppy and boring, the actors' performances are stiff, "super perfect characters", the naked display of material, YY desires, the desire for unearned gains, etc., and these young and handsome movies have become the basic types and common characteristics of bad movies.

As capital and hot money pour in, the film market has changed: However, movies with idol characters can no longer fool the audience

There are reasons behind this. On the one hand, the film market has been hot in the past two years. Forbes pointed out that China's box office will exceed that of the United States next year. Because the market is hot, a large amount of capital and hot money have entered. In the big circle of film investment, hot money comes from companies in various fields including banks, trusts, PE, listed companies, private capital investment, equity financing of film projects, crowdfunding financing, finance, real estate, e-commerce, etc. They have entered the market for the purpose of making quick money, causing the market to be extremely impetuous. Various film and television companies in the fields of finance, real estate, and the Internet have been established. It is reported that at the Shanghai Film Festival in June this year, a large number of new film companies were established, and the number of new film lists reached 400.

Therefore, as various capitals entered the film market, the market was shrouded in the trend of making quick money, and the film began to change. Thrillers, comedies, and fan films are all genres that require low investment and make money quickly. When hot money enters the distribution, it also helps to push a large number of bad films into theaters. For example, more than 90 films were released in the summer season this year, which even exceeded the total number of films in the second quarter of last year, and bad films accounted for the vast majority. On the other hand, the change after the capital side dominated the film market is that what makes money quickly is invested in, how to make it to cater to the needs of fans is made, and whoever has a lot of fans is used. It doesn’t matter whether he can act or not, so we see that the "super perfect persona" targeting the fan market frequently appears in film and television dramas. The perfect persona with zero flaws in all aspects satisfies many female audiences’ imagination of the "Prince Charming".

There is a lack of high-quality domestic content and good directors and screenwriters. Many links in the film industry system are not up to standard.

But over time, the audience began to mature. A set of data from Penguin Intelligence shows that the attractiveness of the movie story is the first influencing factor, accounting for 36.8% of the respondents. Movies with "super perfect characters" obviously can no longer fool the audience. Fan movies with perfect characters like "So Young 2" were criticized by the audience and film critics after they were released. They were criticized for having almost no plot, and 80% of the scenes in the movie were either at home or in a hotel. This gameplay really violates the market rules. The final box office of 300 million was also questioned as being inflated, but Weiying made a guaranteed release of 400 million.

In the current film market, as capital dominates the film market, young actors are used because of the market and popularity. Having acting skills is a surprise, and not having acting skills is the norm. But while it does not harm young actors, the audience is no longer buying it, which means that a play with a good IP and young actors is no longer able to make money. Who is responsible? In the view of China's famous screenwriter Wang Hailin, the producer should bear the greatest responsibility. "Because you chose the wrong actors and very bad actors to play this play, the responsibility cannot be entirely attributed to the actors." This makes sense, but it is also a bit subjective, because when the capital side enters, when the creators and producers cannot dominate the creative costs, the creation will be interfered with. For example, the capital side believes that which star has box office appeal, and the main creative production team can only accept it in many cases.

Today is different from the past. When capital enters the film market, it leads to the decision-making of nonprofessional bosses. These nonprofessional bosses do not understand the rules of film and only think about how to cater to the audience. They use the stars that the younger audience likes. On the other hand, more and more nonprofessional directors are also coming in. Now there is basically no threshold for being a director. Actors, hosts, or writers are all OK. Market appeal is the most important. For example, considering that many audiences are still in adolescence, their thinking and knowledge are still at a shallow level, lacking taste and appreciation, and they will scream when they see their favorite stars. Therefore, youth fan film genre has become the mainstream. Therefore, in many current movies, you can basically see all kinds of young handsome men wearing fashionable clothes, swaying on the screen.

But the fact that fans are not buying bad movies also means that movie consumption is also consumption, and everyone's time deserves to be respected. Wang Hailin, a famous Chinese screenwriter, believes that the production concept of focusing only on appearance is ridiculous. "They think that good-looking people can sell well and the audience will love to watch them. The audience is not stupid. If a person is good-looking, the audience will not be able to stand you shooting a 40-minute music video, right?"

There are too many bad movies. On the one hand, the actors are not up to standard. On the other hand, there is a lack of high-quality domestic content. Secondly, there is a lack of good directors and screenwriters. The stories of the movies are too poor. Thirdly, the industrial system is immature in special effects technology, content creativity, and visual output materials presented in movies. Although domestic screenwriters and directors do not admit it, it is an indisputable fact that many good domestic online literature, animation and other scripts have been filmed badly. The reason why good scripts are filmed badly is often because several or more links in the film industry system are not up to standard, and there is a lack of professionalism and industrialization system for operating movies. This is also the reason why audiences see more and more bad movies in theaters.

When you're going to take up two hours of someone's time, you have to do your best.

Robert McKee, the godfather of Hollywood screenwriting, once said: "When you occupy someone for a few minutes, you can be careless. When you are ready to occupy someone for two hours, you must do your best. Marketing may induce the audience to enter the theater, but once the ceremony begins, the audience needs a convincing reason to stay involved. A story must be able to grab the audience's interest, so that it does not fluctuate with the passage of time, and then give the audience a reward at the climax. This task is almost impossible to accomplish unless the story design can appeal to both aspects of human nature at the same time-intelligence and emotion."

If we say that in a movie story, wisdom and emotion should be reflected, the acting skills of the actors become the top priority. In the past, the glory of Hong Kong movies, in addition to the storyline and the aura of the stars themselves, the acting skills of many big-name stars and many veteran actors who graduated from the Hong Kong Wireless Artist Training Class played an important role in supporting the quality of many classic Hong Kong movies. However, nowadays, the fan movies produced by domestic directors can only inspire fans to lick the screen. So we see that in many bad movies, the character setting of the male protagonist uses the same formula.

In the current capital market, it is not important for young actors to have no acting skills, but it is important to have fans. For them, acting skills are just icing on the cake. But in fact, a plot lacking in connotation and young actors without acting skills will directly affect the reputation and box office of a movie. In "So Young 2", a Douban netizen commented: "Liu Yifei may not have thought that there will be a day when her acting skills can crush others." Therefore, many young actors' movies are not good and are therefore criticized as "one person ruining a movie." Is this year's young actors really not good? This is fair in the eyes of a famous Chinese screenwriter: "Other actors are working hard to hone their acting skills, but you can't do anything and still be the leading actor, so you have to be able to hold up. If you can't hold up, the audience will laugh at you, and you have to bear the blame." Under the fission-like dissemination of social networks today, high-quality movies will be spread quickly, and low-quality movies will also ferment quickly, leading to a decline in reputation and inevitable decline in box office.

Guaranteed releases can easily become a safe haven for bad films, transferring the risk of bad films to other links

On the other hand, "box office guarantees" are also helping bad movies to run rampant. The so-called box office guarantee is a box office promise made by the distributor to the producer. That is, the distributor makes an early market estimate of the film and sets a price acceptable to both parties. However, if the actual box office does not reach the guaranteed number, the distributor still has to share the box office with the producer according to this number. However, if it exceeds the guaranteed number, the sharing ratio will be more favorable to the distributor. We have seen that three companies of China United Huameng Culture Media guaranteed the distribution of Jackie Chan's "Skiptrace" at a price of 1 billion, and Micro Film Times guaranteed the distribution of "So Young 2".

Although guaranteed release allows distribution and production and other links in the industry chain to share more profits, when a large amount of capital pours in, guaranteed release may also become a booster for bad movies, which will make the market impetuous. The essence of guaranteed release is not an estimate of the quality of the film, but an estimate of the box office. In the current situation of overheated capital, the marketing of bad movies is not conducive to the development of the entire film industry. The box office guarantee is more likely to become a safe haven for bad movies, and even lead to box office inflation. For example, industry insiders pointed out that on July 11, the seat sales of "So Young 2" at Hangzhou Times United Cinema were very strange. After 16:30, all the "So Young 2" screenings were sold out in the first row of the theater when there were still a lot of vacancies.

The box office guarantee will also transfer the risk of bad films to other links, creating a vicious cycle.

Capital parties should wake up: only by respecting the market can the success and unity of film business and art be achieved.

The investment purpose of Chinese film and television capital is more based on the profit of box office sharing rather than on how to improve the quality of the film itself, the evolution of high-level development models such as special effects technology and industrialization system. If the powerful channel of online ticket sales on the Internet can only promote fan movies and sell young movies to increase the box office, the capital output of Chinese giants cannot be seen behind the output of film culture. The strength of the movie box office is only the improvement of users' demand for spiritual entertainment and the strength of channels and capital. This will lead to the inability to retain technical talents in the film industry system, which is not a healthy industry model after all.

The author previously believed that this would breed an industry crisis to a certain extent, including the Internet celebrity economy and fan economy bubble brought about by the Internet. This trend may cause the entire film industry to become short-sighted and evolve towards the opposite low-industrialization model. This is something that the Chinese film industry should learn from and reflect on. On the other hand, low movie ratings and criticism of young actors for not having acting skills will not harm their popularity, but in the long run it will affect their future career. After all, young actors will be replaced by a new batch every few years. To gain a long-term foothold, they must hone their acting skills to pave the way for their own transformation, otherwise their future career will be full of uncertainty.

The dismal box office and extremely low ratings in July have prevented a large number of bad movies from making money. This is a normal movie logic and the beginning of consumers becoming rational. Data shows that women are more easily influenced by social network reviews than men, and they tend to choose movies that are hotly discussed and highly rated on social networks. Therefore, the audience's ability to eliminate and discern has improved, which means that the "super perfect personality" as a fan-attracting tool is no longer feasible. Fan movies are ultimately a marginalized product of movies and cannot become mainstream.

In fact, what the capital market needs to see is that the domestic films that took off in terms of word of mouth and box office last year, including relatively high-quality films such as "The Return of the Great Sage", "The Lost Tomb", and "Charlotte's Troubles", are basically not fan films of young actors, but more of the box office brought by the comprehensive word-of-mouth of the film's own connotation and content, special effects, plot, and actors' acting skills. Therefore, it is normal logic that bad films have low box office, which should make the capital side understand and wake up that the audience is not stupid, and the era of asking a few young actors to hang around on the big screen to make money is over. A movie that ignites the box office ultimately needs to do its best in terms of plot, actors, directors, photography, art, production, special effects and other aspects, and show a kind of awe for the market, in order to finally achieve the success and unity of film business and art. It is also the inevitable path for China to gradually bid farewell to the low-industrialized fan film model and move into a complete, industrialized, professional integrated production mature film system.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.