In-depth investigation of box office of Chinese export films： Beijing meets Seattle meets Waterloo in North America.

Compared with the indiscriminate bombing of Hollywood imported films in the mainland film market, sporadic Chinese films that occasionally "go out" have not received much attention in North America, which directly leads to the unsatisfactory or even poor box office performance of most films. However, since 2010, the pace of Chinese films going abroad has obviously accelerated, and the number of films appearing in North American cinemas has increased year by year, reaching a record 22 this year. However, it is worth noting that quantitative change has not contributed to qualitative change, and the status of Chinese films in North America has not been improved much, and their performance has not improved much — — In 2013, Chinese export films were still "looking for feelings". (Editor’s Note: Tai Chi Xia and shanghai calling are jointly produced by China and the United States; The box office list data in this foreign language does not take inflation into account)

Among them, movies with good box office in China, such as "Beijing meets Seattle" and "Search", have suffered from waterloo in the United States. It is decided that the North American box office performance of "Beijing meets Seattle" of the American Empire State Building is only 0.008% of the domestic box office; "Big shot" is the worst result of maintaining the North American box office of Chinese films for many years. "Beijing meets Seattle" and "Search" are all hard to shake their position … …

Beijing meets Seattle’s North American box office? You have to jump from the Empire State Building to "find the feeling"

Although the film shows the American image of a paradise on earth, the height of the Empire State Building can’t prevent the film from becoming a bottomless black hole at the North American box office. Compared with the film’s 500 million yuan in China, its box office in the North American market is like a "free fall" from the Empire State Building. "Beijing Meets Seattle" was released in North American cinemas on November 8th. By the time the film went offline on the 21st, it only earned $6,579, which set a new record for the North American distributor Huashi Company to release domestic films in North America.

North American poster of "Beijing meets Seattle"

North American box office of Chinese export films

"Beijing meets Seattle" is the most unsuccessful domestic film that Chinese lion introduced into the North American market. Among the 29 films that China Lion Company introduced into the North American market, this film is the only one with a box office not exceeding 10,000. In contrast, If You Are the One 2 and 1942 were relatively gratifying at the box office in North America through China Lion. The former reached $426,894, while the latter also recorded $312,954.

Although most of the location of Beijing meets Seattle was shot in Seattle, USA; Although most American media spoke highly of "Beijing meets Seattle", they thought that "it is different from common romantic comedies and restores the real life of American immigrants". Although director Xue Xiaolu personally attended the film’s premiere in Los Angeles … … But judging from the box office, the American audience didn’t care about the kindness of friends in China. The only cinema in Seattle that showed the film hastily took it off the production line after a week … …

The film’s three-day premiere in North America was $3,430, with an average box office income of 1,143 yuan, ranking 80 th in the box office list of 109 films released in North America during the same period. Its first week opened at the box office (11.8— — 11.14) was only $5,371, and the average box office income of a single museum was $1,790, and the box office ranking slipped to 83rd place. It seems that American cinema companies are not very interested in such "small fresh" romantic films as "Beijing meets Seattle", which were only shown in three cinemas in Seattle, Los Angeles and new york in the early stage. To make matters worse, on November 15th, the film was released in Seattle and new york cinemas … … The box office of a cinema in Los Angeles alone was unsustainable after the 15th. 15th — — On the 17th, the film’s three-day box office revenue was only $924; During the period from 15th to 21st, the revenue of all cinemas and single libraries in this film was $1,208 … …

The North American box office achievement of Finding Mr.Right … …

Up to now, in the list of 656 movies with box office income released in North America in the past year, Beijing Meets Seattle ranks 574th at the box office. Since 1980, the United States has introduced 1579 foreign language films. In this box office list of foreign language films in North America, "Beijing meets Seattle" is located at 1411. On December 8, 2000, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the best Oscar foreign language film jointly produced by China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the United States, appeared in North America. The film finally fought in the cinema for nearly seven months and ended with a record $128 million. So far, it still holds the title of the highest-selling foreign language film in North America — — It can be said that this is the most important "first" for Chinese films in Hollywood. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is far behind Beautiful Life with a box office of 128 million dollars. The latter grossed nearly $57.6 million, less than half of the former. The hero directed by Zhang Yimou followed closely, with a box office score of $53.71 million ranking third in the list of foreign language films in North America.

Nothing is worse, only the worst, and "Big shot" is not without feeling.

Of course, "Beijing meets Seattle" is not the most unsuccessful Chinese film released in North America. Chen Kaige’s "Search" and Xiaogang Feng’s "Big Shot" have even worse box office results in North American cinemas. Search, which was delayed for 10 months, earned $1,067 at the box office in North America this year, almost breaking the embarrassing record of the lowest box office in North America for Chinese films held by Big Shot — — 820 dollars.

Up to now, a total of 656 new films have entered the North American cinema this year. Including Private Custom, which just appeared on the 20th, the number of Chinese films has reached 22, which is also higher than last year (20), creating a new high. In terms of box office revenue, the total box office of all new films was 9.613 billion US dollars, of which 7,639,800 were Chinese films. Although it rose by more than 60% compared with last year in terms of books, we should know that only "The Grand Master" contributed 6.595 million. Apart from The Master, which supports the facade, only four films, Drug War, Private Order (which is being released and the box office will increase), Destiny and Tai Chi Xia, barely passed the box office line of 100,000.

On the other hand, last year, as many as 10 films crossed the threshold of 100,000, mainly distributed in the range of 200,000-300,000, and the relatively average performance was much better than the generally bleak scene of Chinese films this year.

Analysis of Chinese film distributors: although Chinese lions are single-minded, their output is limited

Huashi is a "foreign monk" who devotes himself to making Chinese films distributed in North America. Founded in October 2010, Huashi has successively released two Xiaogang Feng masterpieces, Tangshan Earthquake and If You Are the One 2. In particular, the latter finally earned nearly 430,000 US dollars, which still holds the highest box office record for Huashi’s films.

In 2011-2012, Huashi indirectly released 21 Chinese films in two years, including many romantic films, such as Global Love, Love, love in the buff and Girlfriend • Boyfriend, etc., and the distribution of schedules is relatively even, which can be regarded as finding the rhythm of distribution, and also letting North American audiences develop corresponding viewing habits. However, due to the CEO milt &bull before February this year; Barlow’s resignation led to the reorganization of the company’s management. Until mid-June, China Lion released its first work "To Youth" in 2013, and the audience’s enthusiasm was not high. In the end, it only achieved a single performance of less than $4,000. However, the box office of the following two "Tiny Times" was significantly higher, and the revenue of a single museum exceeded $7,000.

Throughout the past three years, the scale of Huashi’s films has obviously decreased, from the average number of 25 cinemas in 2011 to single digits this year, and the performance of a single museum has also declined. It seems that it will take time to recover. When asked about the challenges faced by the company, Robert &bull, vice president of China Lion North America; Lundberg admitted to the Tencent reporter that "piracy is a big blow and a big problem". In addition, compared with the first two local teams who are willing to spend money on advertising, Chinese lions are also quite restrained in the cost of publicity. In addition to paying for outdoor advertisements for individual films [such as "1942"], they still focus on low-cost social platform promotion and grassroots word-of-mouth marketing.

Of course, talking about the box office can’t just look at the overall performance. When measuring the box office results, North American publishers also value the single-store income (the average box office of each theater) because it can more objectively reflect the performance of the film. For example, the box office champion "The Grandmaster", due to the large-scale release of the film in 804 theaters in the United States, its single-room income ($8,202.7) is not as good as the small-scale release of the well-known masterpiece "Destiny" ($16,853.2) — — The latter was only shown in six cinemas for a short time (recently, IFC Cinema in new york began to show the film at the request of the audience). Looking at the 22 Chinese films this year, as many as 14 films earned less than $5,000 in a single library, while only 6 films did not cross the line last year.

In the past four years, Chinese films have been stumbling forward in North America. From 6 movies in 2010 to 1.093 million, 16 movies in 2011 to 3.072 million, 20 movies in 2012 to 7.64 million this year, although the number has been increasing, the pattern of limited influence, excessive dependence on individual movies and large box office fluctuations has not changed. (Editor’s Note: snow flower and the secret fan is usually counted as an English film, so it is not included in the following table)

Chinese films are struggling.

How much did the North American film market leave for China?

In the entire North American film market, American films account for 92%, European films account for 6%, and only the remaining 2% is reserved for other countries, including India, South Korea and Japan. Many people in the industry believe that even if the 2% market share is completely won, it will not have much effective effect on the development space of China films. Nowadays, Japan and South Korea have gradually lost their local film markets, and all of them have been "occupied" by Hollywood films. China’s film market is also facing the same problem. Therefore, in the face of the dilemma of the loss of the local market, the capital behind the film is even more reluctant to take risks.

Nowadays, a large amount of hot money has poured into the mainland market, which makes more film practitioners turn their attention from export to domestic sales. Some production companies have figured that instead of spending a lot of money to invest overseas, it is better to quickly dig for gold in the domestic market.

Luo Sidian, an expert on film studies in China, once said that such a problem is a structural obstacle for all non-English films to enter the American film market. Because in the eyes of American audiences, non-English movies are "art movies", and "art movies" can only be released in the category of art theaters.

The publisher team has expanded, but it is still a game for a few people.

In North America, cinema distribution itself is a highly competitive and difficult business, while Chinese films are obviously not mainstream films, and the market space is very narrow, so the number of "players" that can be accommodated is also limited. Among them, there are companies like China lion and WellGo that are struggling to survive; There is also the unfortunate Indomina Media who was dragged down after several films were released; The remaining filmmakers with deep pockets only occasionally taste the "freshness" of Chinese films — — In the past four years, although the number of Chinese film distributors in North America has expanded slightly, from the initial five or six to about ten now, its niche market is still an indisputable fact.

　

The impact of "beating" will eventually change, and urban love is difficult to "try and make mistakes"

What kind of Chinese films sell well in North America? I’m afraid the film, the creator and the media people can’t give a standard answer. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero and other films have set box office records for more than ten years, but Chinese films are still at the level of "beating" a few mainstream audiences in North America. However, it’s a bit reluctant to let the series of Ip Man and various films around key words such as "Tai Chi" and "Kung Fu" prop up the whole situation. Therefore, it is a gratifying progress to see that the Chinese lion pays attention to developing the market for Chinese students and new immigrants, and tries to introduce various urban youth romance films from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Although the effect is still mixed, no matter how "wrong" it is, you can finally try "right" only if you keep trying.

Schedule? Piracy? It is king to choose the right film and publicize it in place.

Speaking of the reasons for the bleak box office in North America in Chinese films, it is often simply and rudely attributed to the publisher’s failure to choose the right screening date, which made piracy take advantage of the loopholes and lost the box office. However, this year’s sharp contrast between The Master and The Dragon King, the capital of Di Renjie, makes this excuse really untenable: The release date of The Master in North America is seven and a half months later than that in the Mainland, while Di Renjie released by AMC appeared in North America simultaneously with the Mainland; On the one hand, there are theme types with broad market potential, coupled with precise marketing with full firepower, on the other hand, there are stories that are too foreign and appear quietly. In the end, the vastly different box office performances of both sides speak for themselves.

Analysis of Chinese Film Distributors: Varnstam has deep pockets and hard skills.

This year’s 22 Chinese films are distributed by 12 different companies, and they can also be roughly divided into several echelons. First of all, Varnstam, a well-known independent publisher in Hollywood, has always been famous for his "winning a good film", "generous publicity expenses" and "tough public relations skills", and is regarded as the leader in the industry. This time, the release of "The Grand Master", Varnstam not only let director Wong Kar-wai and starring Zhang Ziyi go to all parts of the United States for publicity, but also marked "Martin • Scorsese strongly recommended the localization label, and invited him to attend the grand premiere of the film in new york. In addition, the group went to the San Diego Comic-Con, and of course, the special screening for Oscar held in Los Angeles earned enough attention.

At the same time, Varnstam also cooperated with The New York Times, LA Times and other major media and professional magazines in all kinds of film reviews, advertisements and public relations manuscripts, and created wonderful trailers for North American audiences. Both online and offline, the publicity work was done quite well. On the day of the film’s release in Los Angeles, the author went to watch the movie at the first time and found that most of the audience were Americans. The cinema I went to, which is located in the west of Los Angeles and adjacent to Beverly Hills, rarely showed Chinese movies before because of its superior geographical position. Presumably, only such a strong distributor as Varnstam can seize a place from it.

Even a rough calculation shows that the publication cost of "The Grand Master" is definitely more than one million dollars (the "admission fee" paid to the cinema alone is 8-1,000 dollars/home, and more than 800 cinemas have counted nearly 800,000), but I just don’t know whether the box office of less than 7 million in the end can make Varnstam return to the book. But Varnstam doesn’t seem to care — — It is said that Harvey, the boss of the company, took the film mainly to "please" Megan &bull, the owner of Annapurna Pictures, the nominal publisher of the film; Ellison — — Larry &bull, the founder and CEO of Oracle Bone Inscriptions; Ellison’s daughter is a well-known local tyrant in Hollywood, and she has invested in masterpieces such as The Master, Hunting Bin Laden and american hustle. As an investment and production company, Annapurna Pictures didn’t publicize its resources and experience, but Varnstam’s joining just sold his personal feelings in exchange for further cooperation between the two companies in the future. Therefore, regardless of the film’s profit and loss geometry, Varnstam will bear it.

Medium players have their own main characters.

Secondly, it is a medium-sized independent publisher with a good reputation in North Varnstam, including’s newly established sub-brands, such as Radius-TWC, VarianceFilms, Kino Lorber, First Run and Magnolia (CJ Entertainment, a Korean company, has only released a Chinese-language film of Breaking Up Contract co-produced by China and South Korea, so it is not included). Except for Variance Films, which has a lot of experience in publishing Chinese films, the others have released one occasionally every two or three years, which can be said to be in the stage of cautiously testing the water, but almost every one has its own main genre.

For example, this year brought Keanu • Radius-TWC, the debut film of Tai Chi Xia directed by Reeves, released its last Chinese film at the end of last year, and it seems that it is still conservatively following the traditional blockbuster themes of Chinese films such as "action" and "martial arts". Magnolia’s last film was Warlords in 2010. After three years, it chose the fantasy film The Legend of the White Snake, and still promoted Jet Li, which is quite appealing in North America. Although these companies are a long way behind Vivern Stein in the publicity strength, the number of cinemas is only single digits, and the number of cinemas is only around 30, but due to better control on the scale, almost all of their films released this year have earned more than or close to $5,000. Of course, the performance of Tai Chi Xia is really disappointing — — Because of its global and prestige background, Radius was able to spread in more than 100 theaters in the United States, but as a result, the box office of a single museum was reduced to a pitiful $910, which really lost a lot of money.

In the second echelon, Variance Films should be regarded as a special case. Since 2011, the company has issued Ip Man 2 and Jingwu Fengyun • Zhen Chen, New Shaolin Temple, Revolution of 1911, Let Bullets Fly, Tai Chi 1: Starting from scratch and this year’s Drug War are seven action-oriented films, and their box office results are above average. However, after investigation by the author, it is found that the distribution rights of these films are actually in the hands of another company, WellGo USA, which is good at the distribution of DVDs, VOD and other media platforms. For example, many Chinese films seen by North American audiences on Netflix and other video sites are distributed through WellGo. However, in terms of cinema distribution, WellGo has no advantage, which can be seen from its single-room revenue struggling on the qualified line: Four films released by WellGo this year, Love on the Rooftop, Ip Man: The Last World War, Tai Chi 2: The Rise of Heroes and guillotines, all rank in the middle and lower reaches of the list in terms of box office and single-room revenue.

Therefore, in many cases, WellGo will choose to hire more powerful Variance Films to be responsible for cinema distribution, while focusing on other platforms. Thus, the publishers of Taiji series and Ip Man series jumped back to WellGo from Variance. In fact, the same company was behind it, but the people who came forward were different. Besides Chinese films, WellGo will also release Korean films. In view of the different performances of Chinese and Korean films in North America, WellGo CEO Anne • In an exclusive interview with Tencent reporters, Walker bluntly said, "Chinese people have a poor habit of watching movies."

Analysis of Chinese film publishers: Wanda’s acquisition of AMC has hit a wall.

Finally, AMC cinema is also worth mentioning. Since it was acquired by Wanda Group in May last year, AMC, as the second largest cinema group in the United States, began to try to make film distribution across borders. This year, it released "It’ s too embarrassing for people to stop" and "Di Renjie • Three films: The Dragon King, the God Capital, and the Chinese Zodiac.

Among them, the first two films were screened in its 35 better cinemas, while the last film was spread to 102 cinemas in the United States. However, due to the unclear audience positioning and lack of publicity and promotion, the box office of the three films is not ideal, especially "Zodiac" by Jackie Chan, although it is a good selling theme of action comedy, only earned a mere $100,000 at the box office, and the income of a single museum was only $970.

Closing statement:

Unlike the mainland film market, which has entered a period of rapid and vigorous development, the journey of Chinese films in Hollywood is still in a difficult initial stage. In 2014, a series of works, including Detective, Demon Journey to the West, Magic Police and Frozen, will appear on the other side of the ocean one after another. Although the final box office performance will probably not improve, it will promote the progress of Chinese films in North America again. Chinese export films still have a long way to go. ……