Everlasting longing for each other, Lotus Tower, Jade Bone Remote, An Le Zhuan... Is there a "blockbuster" this summer?
August is nearing its end, with four films grossing over 2 billion yuan and a total number of viewers exceeding 502 million in the summer film season, setting a new record in Chinese film history. Although there are some impressive works in the summer season of domestic dramas, it overall gives people a feeling that it is difficult to sell them. Although the audience has been debating on the Internet about who Xiaoyao really loves in everlasting longing for each other, and some people have also verified whether the ending of Lotus Tower is sad or happy frame by frame, compared with the popularity of the domestic drama "Crazy Wind" at the beginning of the year, these topics do not seem to be out of the loop. Is there a real "hit drama" this summer?
Massive production of ancient puppet dramas, with up to 35 historical costume themes
"When I was young, I watched the Princess Huanzhu, and it seems that ancient costume dramas are bound to the summer archives." This summer, Chen Feiliu, a "post-90s" white-collar worker, tracked down many dramas, such as "everlasting longing for each other", "Lotus Tower", "Rising Sun All the Way", "Imperfect Victims", and "Joy". She clearly felt that the quality of this summer's dramas had been greatly improved. "You can see some responses of the creators to modern people's concerns, recognized values, or views on marriage and love in the ancient puppet dramas. In fact, ancient puppet dramas are suitable for all ages."
The stills of everlasting longing for each other
Nearly half of the new domestic dramas released during the summer season are based on historical costumes. According to data from Lighthouse Professional, as of August 30th, 71 new episodes have been released in the summer season, and the cumulative main film playback index of the drama market has reached 11.339 million, exceeding last year's 9.955 million in the summer season. The overall market playback has increased by 13.9% year-on-year. Among them, there are 35 ancient costume themes with a large audience, including Jade Bone Yao, An Le Zhuan, everlasting longing for each other, Lotus Tower, etc.
This is not a new phenomenon. Last summer, costume dramas were also the biggest winners, with popular shows such as "Dreams of China", "Splendid Stars: Rising Moon in the Canghai Sea", "Fragrant Fragrance: Fragrant Fragrance", and "Canglan Jue". From this year's summer season, major platforms have increased their emphasis on historical dramas, with a significant increase compared to the 22 dramas in last year's summer season.
In the view of Yang Minghan, a data analyst at Lighthouse Professional Edition, the overall playback volume of domestic dramas in the summer season has increased this year, while showing a high concentration of theme types and significant head effects. "In the ranking of the market share of domestic drama feature films in the summer, the market share of" everlasting longing for each other "is 10.1%, the market share of" Changfengdu "is 7.3%, and the market share of" Lianhualou "is 5.2%, occupying the top three seats in turn, and the top 10 dramas have 6 ancient costumes, and the market head is dominated by ancient costume dramas."
There are many hot dramas, and the only one that can be called "popular" is "everlasting longing for each other"
Although the popularity of this summer's popular costume dramas is not low, whether there are truly "explosive dramas" is a topic of constant debate among netizens.
Yang Minghan believes that the standard for "explosive dramas" is not only the leading performance level that best demonstrates the popularity of the series, but also the quality of content and reputation, which are important reference factors. "Dramas such as" The World ", which won the annual championship last year, and the widely recognized hit" Fury "in the first half of this year, not only lead in cumulative broadcast performance, but also lead the same period in terms of daily market share, with the highest average being over 30%. They also have high reputation, and during the hot broadcast period, they almost sparked a wave of watching and discussion among the whole people."
He analyzed that in this regard, "everlasting longing for each other" is relatively close to the standard, its market share of single day feature films has exceeded 30% on the drama update day for many times, up to 34.96%, and the single day broadcast index on the sixth day of the launch has broken the record of 2023 new dramas, "ranking the first in the summer market share with a relatively short broadcast cycle, and has a good reputation." It can be said that from the specific viewing performance, this summer only "everlasting longing for each other" broke through the tight encirclement, becoming a "blockbuster" in the sense of fact, its feature film broadcast index and market share have opened a significant gap with other similar dramas. Although "Changfengdu", "Lianhualou", and "Yuguyao" have achieved good broadcast results, the gap between them is relatively small, and the market share is relatively low compared to last year's summer season with the same ranking dramas.
The stills of everlasting longing for each other
Why Can everlasting longing for each other Explode? Shi Yun, a senior lecturer at the Shanghai Vancouver Film Academy, believes that the landing of characters is one of the important reasons why everlasting longing for each other can open up the situation and become a blockbuster. Many viewers believe that Yang Zi's portrayal of the female lead Xiao Yao as a clear and independent "big female lead" is due to the screenwriter's extensive professional and thoughtful plot preparation, which provides a clear growth line for the characters. "For a long time, in the ancient costume dramas with feelings as the main line, almost all the male characters around the female leader are perfect, but the four male characters in everlasting longing for each other are imperfect, and in the words of netizens, the" scum "is understandable. The audience can understand their pains and logic while they love and hate them. This imperfect setting makes the characters fresh and credible, and also makes the plot more interesting."
Score of everlasting longing for each other Douban
The martial arts drama "Lotus Tower" starring Cheng Yi, Zeng Shunxi, Xiao Shunyao, and others ranked first in the summer season with a high rating of 8.2 on Douban. Although "Lotus Tower" also has good broadcast data, its topic discussion on social platforms is still less than that of "everlasting longing for each other".
Douban rating for "Lotus Tower"
Ms. Wang is a fan of martial arts novels, and "Lotus Tower" is her favorite drama of the summer. "It teaches people to let go, reconcile with themselves, and reconcile with the world. It is a work worth reminiscing about, and the plot advances quickly and has a strong sense of rhythm. There is no dog blood love tug." However, when she recommended this drama to people around her, she encountered a lot of obstacles, and many people didn't want to watch it when they heard "love tug without dog blood.". "Male audiences don't like watching TV dramas, while female audiences want to see love stories. They prefer everlasting longing for each other."
Chen Feiliu also regrets that "Lotus Tower" was not able to "explode". "The popularity has not really increased, perhaps due to promotional strategies. Moreover, I clearly feel that this year's summer season is crowded, and it is even harder to break through with all the top students in the class. Perhaps the production team can also have new considerations in scheduling."
It is an undeniable fact that both martial arts dramas belong to the genre of ancient costumes, but in the past two years, the number of martial arts dramas is not as good as that of immortal knights. Although well performing dramas such as "Sword in the Snow" and "Youth Song" have also achieved good results, according to the 2022 Lighthouse Drama Market Report, the overall broadcast market of martial arts dramas has not entered the top ten in genre performance, and genre performance has declined overall. Shi Yun analyzed that the theme of "Lotus Tower" naturally blocks many viewers. "Currently, female viewers are still the mainstream in the TV drama market. Compared to male detective themes, idol dramas are more attractive to them."
Lotus Tower stills
In Shi Yun's opinion, the popularity of everlasting longing for each other has more market reference value in this summer archives. On the one hand, the drama is adapted by the original author, catering to the basic needs of "book fans" to the greatest extent possible; By having multiple male leads with distinct personalities string together multiple emotional scenes with different focuses, it can meet the needs of the "CP fans" group; Yang Zi, who plays the female lead, also has good acting skills and considerable popularity in the ancient doll circle.
Similar to summer films, awesome's marketing and publicity are equally important in addition to its excellent quality. For example, everlasting longing for each other opened its "role number" on the microblog platform, released microblogs related to the story with the help of the people, and interacted with netizens, bringing many topics out of the circle. On the playback platform, the drama team also set up a character "punishment wall" to respond to the audience's needs that were "abused" by the plot in the drama. "After the rise of short videos, audiences inevitably have topic thinking, just like when watching short videos, they always look at the title first. Nowadays, when watching movies and TV dramas, they also look at the topic first," said Shi Yun.
The script that is least respected is actually the most important
Recently, the VIP of the Xianxia drama "Seven Hours of Auspiciousness" has been completed. The drama belongs to S+production, and is also supported by "traffic" such as Yang Chaoyue and Ding Yuxi. The theme is also a relatively large category of ancient dolls, but the response after broadcast was not satisfactory. The popularity on iQiyi's website was only 7381, and one day the popularity was even slightly lower than that of the revenue sharing drama "Vanishing Traces". It is worth mentioning that both "Qishi Jixiang" and the popular drama series "Canglan Jue" from the same period last year were produced by stellar gravity, and the adapted works were all written by online author Jiulu Feixiang. Not only that, during the summer season, "Jade Bone Yao" starring Xiao Zhan and Ren Min, and "An Le Zhuan" starring Gong Jundi and Li Reba did not become the imagined "hot selling" ancient costumes.
In the eyes of industry insiders, the era of relying on replicating popular products has passed. Shi Yun revealed that the production classification of S+, A, B and other TV series in the industry is mainly based on the influence of the original work and the rank of the film and television team. Recently, there has been a phenomenon where the popularity of the B-level revenue sharing drama "Vanishing Traces" is slightly higher than that of S+'s "Seven Hours of Auspiciousness". "This is very normal, and every year there is a phenomenon of capital not being able to pick up the wrong investment."
"On the one hand, the concentration of genres leads to more intense market competition, with one decreasing and the other increasing. On the other hand, content of the same type and homogenization also consumes the audience's interest and enthusiasm. From the perspective of audience aesthetic preferences, what remains unchanged is the pursuit of high-quality content," said Yang Minghan. At the same time, in terms of playback performance and word-of-mouth, high-quality content is still more favored by audiences. However, how to amplify advantages and improve efficiency in terms of themes and topics is also worth considering at the promotion level.
This summer, many TV dramas opened high and closed low, and the lack of respect for screenwriters in the industry is often the most important reason behind it. Also a major production of S+, "An Le Zhuan" was heavily questioned after its broadcast due to its plot flaws, and ultimately ended in a dismal ending. The first author of the play responded to the audience's doubts about the adaptation of the script, stating that the content written by himself was only presented until the end of the 11 episodes, and that "there were major changes to the subsequent plot settings, and I did not participate.".
"When filming" The Legend of Chen Qianqian ", everyone was not optimistic about it. As a result, the script became a blockbuster because of its new ideas. Now that plays such as" everlasting longing for each other "have become blockbusters again, the script that is least respected is actually the most important." Shi Yun said.
