This summer, domestic new films represented by “The Missing She”, “In the Octagonal Cage”, “Three Thousand Miles in Chang’an” and “Fengshen Part I” are frequently released, and the market clearly shows the characteristics of strong schedule effect. Since August, the already hot market has added another “circle-breaking work”. “All or Nothing” earned more than 500 million yuan at the box office within 3 days of screening, which caused huge controversy in the industry-expanding the screening to an official release violated the principle of fairness and justice.
Screening is a common strategy in the film industry. It is usually a small-scale screening in a designated area and time period about a week before the official release of a film. The purpose is for word-of-mouth marketing, hoping to arouse more audiences’ interest through the spread of praise. . Although this “small scale” has not been specifically defined, for a long time, film publicity practitioners have followed the unwritten rule of no more than 10 cities and one or two shows per day.
The controversy brought about by “All or Nothing” was born from this. First of all, the time window given by the film crew is very long, up to 7 hours from 14:00 to 21:00, covering the prime time period of the whole day; secondly, spot screenings have been held all over the country. Since the film released various trailers in the form of short videos in advance, which attracted the audience, it started to be screened on August 5, one week before the official release, and got 15.4% of the screenings on that day, with a box office of 172 million yuan; The proportion rose to 21.3%, and the daily box office was nearly 220 million yuan; on the third day, the cumulative box office was 537 million yuan, becoming the overall box office champion in Chinese film history. Seeing that the screening event was scheduled to be officially released, which seriously squeezed the space for other film screenings, the film studio had to announce that the film would be moved to August 8 (the fourth day of screening).
The release of the file did not quell the negative effects of its “early run”. The film announcement will first announce the fixed file date. This fixed file is not only an agreement between the film studio and the audience, but also an important reference for other movies to choose the release date. After selecting the fixed file, the point-and-shoot method adopted by the film studio is only suitable for small-scale. If its scheduling affects the officially released films, it is obviously beyond the scope of point-and-shoot screening.
There is nothing wrong with point screenings, but there are rules. The screening activity of “All or Nothing” is not too much, but under the guise of screening, enjoying the dividends of screening, in fact, the film is arranged according to the official release, which violates the spirit of the contract, disrupts the market order, and squeezes other official screenings The film’s schedule share. From the perspective of short-term effects, good works have won the market, but in the long run, large-scale screenings during the screening period should not be classified as “normal market behavior”. If there is no warning, it will inevitably be followed by latecomers, which is unfair. And justice, leading to rules being broken, resulting in vicious competition, affecting the healthy development of the film industry.
