During the Chinese New Year holiday, the hit Chinese science fiction movie"The Wandering Earth" has become a major consumption phenomenon in the Chinese movie market. "The Wandering Earth" is the first hard sci-fi movie in China and a box office hit, according to statistics, from February 5th to February 24th, "The Wandering Earth" has accumulated approximately RMB 2.0107 billion (including service fee) for the Mainland Chinese box office, making it the highest in China during the period of Chinese New Year. The movie has also gained positive domestic and international reviews; the New York Times and other international media reported this landmark Chinese sci-fi movie, stating that "China was a latecomer to sci-fi movie. That is about to change".
This seemingly accidental phenomenon of entertainment consumption actually has numerous points that the Chinese moviemakers, industries and policy departments to ponder. Anbound's researchers believe that the movie can provide food for thought, most noteworthy on how the future of China's movie industry should be developed and the impact of the movie industry on the future consumer society.
First, the development of the Chinese movie industry is problematic. Movies belong to the cultural industry, and in a more conventional way, to the entertainment industry. The movie industry is in fact, an industry with a long industrial chain. The current movie market in China is large and ranks second place in the world. According to the China Movie Administration of China, the total box office of the country's movies in 2018 was RMB 60.976 billion (approximately US$ 8.87 billion), equivalent to 74.5% of the U.S. box office (US$ 201.9 billion) in 2018. However, from the perspective of the movie industry, China and the United States are quite distinct from each other, which is also very different from the Japanese and Korean movie industries.
When Guo Fan, the director of "The Wandering Earth" went to the United States in 2015, he was astounded by the American movie industry: "The gap between the Chinese movie industry and the American's is too wide, especially in sci-fi movies. We are still riding bicycles, while the Americans are already driving the Ferrari." In terms of movie production, the modern movie industry includes a complex and professional industrial chain, which encompasses hardware, advanced studios, movie and television bases, and industrial-grade props production; in the movie-making process there are real-time shooting, landscape workshop, post-production one-stop modernization process; in terms of technology there is a large number of cutting-edge technology being applied to movie special effects and other production processes; when it comes to the content, we see editing, art, drama, cultural creativity, and other elements have all been highly standardized and specialized.
Chinese movies are not short of money, what is seriously lacking is the standards and processes of the movie industry. After studying in the United States, Guo Fan realized that, the standard of industrialization is not about money, but rather it is about professional process with clear division of labor; this is the biggest difference between the Chinese and American movie industries. The making process of American Hollywood movies can be divided quantitatively. For instance, a Hollywood movie can be divided into several independent project teams according their function, therefore the jobs of photography, special effects and other types of work can be completed efficiently. To what extent is Hollywood industrialized? Even the script of Hollywood movies has a uniform format, uniform font size, uniform line spacing. In contrast, the Chinese movie industry the industrialization of Chinese movies is still far left behind.
Second, Chinese society is moving towards a consumer society, and consumption on entertainment is an integral part of the consumer society. Take the box office, the narrowest sense of movie consumption as an example, the total box office of China in 2018 was RMB 60.976 billion, up 9.06% year-on-year; the number of people who went to cinemas in urban areas was 1.716 billion, up 5.93% year-on-year. The box office for Chinese movies was RMB 37.879 billion, a year-on-year increase of 25.89%, and the market share was 62.15%. China's movie box office is approaching the size of the U.S. box office and is gaining an increasingly important position in the global movie market. As mentioned earlier, the U.S. box office in 2018 has set a new record of US$11.9 billion; in the same period, the global total box office revenue was US$ 41.7 billion, an increase of 2.7% over 2017. Since China's population is more than four times that of the U.S., soon China's box office will likely be exceeding that of the U.S. Even if the scale of online movie consumption is put into consideration, we can see the same trend, as online movie and television consumption is also based on population size.
It can be certain that in the future development of China's consumer society, the consumption growth of all kinds of physical goods will become slower, while the consumption growth of various service types will occupy an increasingly important position, and the cultural aspects related to movies and television will have greater consumer flexibility. If we consider derivative consumption related to the movie and television industry, such as toys, tourism, hotels, and brand merchandises, the consumer and related markets of the broader sense of movie and television industry will be even larger. If one looks at Hollywood in Los Angeles and the world of the movie industry, the consumer market space of China's movie and television industry is quite impressive. Among the Chinese movie and television consumer market, sci-fi movies are undoubtedly a new category, and "The Wandering Earth" may open up a new consumer market.
In addition to the above-mentioned areas, the popularity of "The Wandering Earth" also reveals many other issues.
For example, professional movie investment and financing, and the development of the movie industry has a lot of room for improvement in China. In the integration of investment and industry, the American movie industry system as represented by Hollywood is rather mature, which can promote a virtuous cycle of capital and movies, and effectively control the movie cost and quality within the expected range. In the era of capital surplus caused by China's rapid urbanization, China is not short of money, and there are many floating capitals dispersing in different fields. The movie and television industry was one of the hot investment areas in the past few years, yet unfortunately, China's movie and television investment only stay at the quick profit-seeking level. Apart from promoting movie stars and gambling for short-term capital returns, it has not promoted the continuous improvement of the industrial chain of the Chinese movie industry. Promoting the movie industry requires not only money but also visions to grasp the dynamics and trends of the consumer market. This is especially true for the investment of sci-fi movies, where Chinese investment institutions still lack understanding and vision. For example, there is a certain movie group withdrawing from investing in "The Wandering Earth" because of fear of risk and now the same group has become a joke in the movie and television investment community. Without maturity and professional investors and investment systems, confidence will still be wanting in the Chinese movie industry, particularly in sci-fi movies.
It should also be pointed out that good sci-fi movies and television works should also have good effects on society. The current Chinese movie and television market is still full of low-quality works, like vulgar comedies, anti-Japanese movies or palace intrigue dramas. If China wishes to become a modernized, globalized and open major power confident in its culture, its movie culture market should not be supported just by such genres. On the other hand, good sci-fi works will not only bring quality entertainment consumption but also attract social attention to science and enhance the scientific curiosity of young people. In addition, in this kind of subject matter is easy to resonate with the world; it can showcase not just mankind's common values, but also Chinese culture and values, such as the importance of family in Chinese culture and collectivism in "The Wandering Earth".
Final analysis conclusion :
From an objective point of view, the emergence of the international-standard Chinese sci-fi movie "The Wandering Earth" is accidental. The creative team's dedication and sacrifice, and the large-scale human input and luck have made up for what is lacking in China's movie industry. However, this special case also reveals another new possibility, that like its box office, China's movie industry has a lot of room for development. In the future, it will also promote the development of China's movie and television market and provide a benign boost for the imminent consumer society.
