A few days ago, the distributors of the three major summer domestic films "Monster Hunt", "Pancake Man" and "The Return of the Great Sage" have all issued notices to the theater companies for the extension of the keys, and the three films will be postponed for one month. Among them, "Monster Hunt" was postponed to September 16, "The Return of the Great Sage" was postponed to September 9, and "Pancake Man" was postponed to September 20.
The so-called key, in short, is the "key" of the movie projection. A key can only open one lock, so a key file corresponds to only one movie and one movie server. The key is produced by a special unit. Currently, only two are authorized in China, one is the Digital Program Management Center of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, and the other is the China Film Digital Film Distribution (Cinema) Company. Before the movie is released, the key production unit will publish the key in the download area of the official website for movie theaters to download. In general, keys are valid for one month, which varies slightly for each movie.
Once the key file is released, the playback time of the movie will also be determined. If the show needs to be extended, the key file needs to be reissued. The decision on whether to extend the key for a movie is mainly based on the opinions of the copyright owner of the movie, and the reference factor mainly comes from the "hotness" of the movie in the market.
As of yesterday, the cumulative box office of "Monster Hunt" has exceeded 2.1 billion yuan, becoming the first Chinese-language film to exceed the 2 billion yuan box office mark. The box office of "Pancake Man" totaled 1.12 billion yuan, and "The Return of the Great Sage" totaled 870 million yuan. This series of dazzling figures just confirms the reason for the extension of the keys of the three films that have been released for nearly a month.
So far, "Monster Hunt" is the runner-up in mainland film history, second only to "Fast and Furious 7" with 2.426 billion yuan. Maoyan box office analysis shows that as of 21:30 yesterday, the real-time box office of "Monster Hunt" was 19.252 million yuan, accounting for 21.38% of the total. Based on this calculation, it may only be a matter of time before "Monster Hunt" hits the mainland's highest box office figure of "2.4 billion" and rewrites the record of "Fast and Furious 7".
The cinema is the examination room, and the box office has become the only criterion for testing films. However, in the examination room, there has never been a reason why the invigilator will extend the examination time for a candidate because of his good answers. Although "Monster Hunt" and other films are not the first films in China to decide to extend the screening, in the infancy of the domestic film protection month, the gold content of this box-office miracle remains to be discussed. The high box office, high quality and good reputation cannot be fully drawn. No. Moreover, as one of the investors of "Monster Hunt", Tencent Video has spared no effort to provide the film with a wealth of online interactive resources and marketing channels, which has greatly increased the coverage and reach of the film. It created another "phenomenal" film in Chinese film history.
If the show time is extended just to catch up with "The Fast and the Furious 7", which is the "highest domestic box office", is it not a lack of self-confidence in domestic films? Blindly emphasizing that surpassing the well-known imported blockbusters can make oneself proud. Such logic is not what Nietzsche called the "morality of the weak": when the weak cannot change their fate by their own strength, they place their hopes on the strong. weakening in order to obtain the possibility of their own survival. In layman's terms, it is called a glass heart.
In the current Chinese film market, the box-office myths of "Monster Hunt", "Pancake Man" and "The Return of the Great Sage" are rare. Film distributors should know what to do when they see fit, and movie keys are not a secret medicine to boost the box office. The movie market should give consumers enough choices. No matter how high the box office is, it will cause aesthetic fatigue after a long time. The purpose of key extension should never be limited to numbers. Its real significance is to use more time to verify the ability of "good money" to drive out "bad money" in the market.
The above article is transferred from Beijing Business Daily, commentator: Yang Xi
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