"Warcraft" is a huge hit! The box office has reached nearly 600 million in two days. Why is it so popular?

"World of Warcraft" became popular after all.

At 00:00 on June 8, the Warcraft movie was finally released in mainland China, two days earlier than in North America.

How popular is the Warcraft movie? Let's take a look at the data first:

Before the movie premiered, the pre-scheduled screenings of "Warcraft" reached 12,000, breaking the record in film history. Two hours before the premiere, Wanda 's midnight pre-sale box office reached 10 million yuan.

On the 8th, the midnight box office on the premiere day reached 52 million, only 470,000 less than the previous midnight box office champion "Fast and Furious 7". The screening rate was 65.4%, which affected the screening rate of "X-Men: Apocalypse" and directly reduced it to 17.8%.

According to data provided by the WeChat public account Movie Warcraft, Warcraft sold 7.55 million tickets on the first day, an average of 87 tickets sold per second; the box office on the first day exceeded 300 million, ranking second in mainland film history; on the first day of release, there were over 110,000 screenings, and the number continued to increase to 120,000 on the second day.

Warcraft exploded, and almost everyone was talking about it in an instant. Players and non-players all wanted to take a look. Some people even began to call it the "Warcraft phenomenon". At present, it seems that Warcraft will undoubtedly become a representative epic masterpiece. What kind of movie would make people wait for ten years and go crazy all night from midnight? Why is the Warcraft movie so popular?

“The pessimism of foreign media has lowered expectations.”

Before the release of "Warcraft", foreign media and some professional film critics were invited to watch it in advance, but the film's reviews were revealed to be very low, with some even giving it a score of 37 (out of 100).

It is reported that foreign media believe that the main reasons why the Warcraft movie is bad are weak plot, unclear logic, and excessive bias towards players. However, according to the comments of netizens after the premiere, the reputation is not as bad as foreign media said. On the contrary, the low score was exposed in advance, which lowered expectations. Most people still have a good evaluation of Warcraft. Zhongqige couldn't help but think more, isn't the bad review leaked in advance really one of the marketing methods of the "Warcraft" movie?

"The special effects team of more than 2,000 people behind the scenes is a regular at the Oscars"

The reason why Warcraft has a good reputation is partly due to the stunning special effects in the movie. The movie cost 16 million US dollars. From the care and investment in character creation, modeling design, prop production, scene setting and visual effects, it can be called an unprecedented magical epic masterpiece.

According to Legendary Pictures' official WeChat account, the biggest challenge for Warcraft is the visual effects, and the behind-the-scenes production team is Industrial Light & Magic and Weta Digital, two Oscar-winning teams. They have won Oscars many times and are the top teams in Hollywood and even in the world. How top-notch are they? The award-winning films you love to watch, such as Avatar, Life of Pi, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Star Wars, are all produced by this team.

“The value of the World of Warcraft IP is rare”

First, let's talk about the game "World of Warcraft", which is different from "League of Legends" in nature. "League of Legends" is a competitive game, and the ultimate goal is to defeat others to win, but in "World of Warcraft", there is actually a world view. Like "Lord of the Rings" and "Game of Thrones", it has built a huge world in the plot, and in that world there are 14 races and 12 professions.

This is the world map in the game "World of Warcraft". Does it look familiar? The opening song of "Game of Thrones" also shows a fictional world map like this.

The character settings in the game "World of Warcraft" are not simple. Each character has its own personality charm and characteristics. For example, Arthas was originally a prince, and his character was full of kindness and justice. His fate took a turn during a massacre, and he fell. It was his fate and character that led him astray. The plot and characters in the plot also reflect the shadow of human nature and life in real life. Such a charming game will naturally immerse many fans in it and have high loyalty.

In addition, from the perspective of subject matter, whether it is a classic science fiction movie that was presented to the public 14 years later, or a popular game movie that has been anticipated by everyone for ten years, "World of Warcraft" can be called a rare super IP in China.

“China’s World of Warcraft Feelings”

The content of the Warcraft movie depicts the first year of the Dark Portal, when the orcs opened the Dark Portal and invaded Azeroth for the first time. It can be said that the movie directly brings fans back to the beginning of the Warcraft story.

It is reported that the most sentimental game among Chinese players, Warcraft III, was released in 2002. With its wonderful and immersive plot, highly interactive LAN battles and Blizzard's high-level CG animations, it completely impressed every gamer at the time. It has to be admitted that Warcraft has left a strong and profound impression in China.

Among them, the core group of World of Warcraft fans, those born in the 1970s and 1980s, constitute the "World of Warcraft Generation" in China. In their memories of those green years, World of Warcraft is as irreplaceable as their first love. These feelings are the reasons for the reunion of World of Warcraft fans. Some fans even admitted that the reason they must go to see World of Warcraft is that they have never seen so many World of Warcraft players gathered together in their lives.

“Using data analysis for precision marketing”

However, no matter what the reason is for the popularity of "Warcraft", the marketing of the film production team is also part of the reason. Some people also say that the marketing of the "Warcraft" movie has no highlights, no major topics, and is ordinary and unremarkable, but for a game with 100 million players, the word of mouth of fans should be enough to become a promotion channel for the movie, but the premise is that such a group of fans must be found accurately.

The Warcraft movie is jointly produced by Universal Pictures and Legendary Pictures (Wanda acquired Legendary Pictures for 23 billion in January this year). In addition, the financial backers behind it also include Tencent Pictures, China Film Group, Huayi Brothers, and Taihe Entertainment.

When the "World of Warcraft" project was just launched, Tencent Pictures worked with Legendary Pictures to conduct big data analysis, accurately dividing users into four target user categories: core users, cognitive users, active users, and opportunity users.

Games have always been a major advantage of Tencent Interactive Entertainment (in Tencent Interactive Entertainment's revenue, the revenue from Tencent games accounts for a very large proportion. It is reported that the daily turnover of Tencent games can reach tens of millions), so Tencent still has a wealth of big data on related publicity and marketing of games.

In September 2015, the official WeChat and QQ accounts of "World of Warcraft" were launched. This fan interaction platform can undoubtedly first drive the participation of the core users of "World of Warcraft" and narrow the distance between fans. If the core fans can be well managed, the good word-of-mouth of the core users before and after the premiere can drive the other three types of users.

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.