Short Essay--Why Chinese Variety Movie (综艺电影) Fades Away?

Why Chinese Variety Movie (综艺电影) Fades Away?

A SWOT Analysis for Chinese Variety Movie

Variety movie is the derivative of variety show, which is adapted according to the structure, characters and plots of variety show. In 2014, Dad，Where Are We Going (爸爸去哪儿1) earned nearly 700 million yuan box office, becoming the dark horse movie in that year. After that, variety movies draw great attention in both academic and industry field. In the next year, 2015, three variety movies, Running, Man (奔跑吧兄弟)(433 million yuan box office) ,Dad，Where Are We Going (爸爸去哪儿2) with 221 million yuan box office and Emperor’s Holidays (爸爸的假期) with 112 million yuan box office , made more attempts to explore this movie genre while the reputation kept going done. When it comes to 2016, the most watched variety movie, Royal Treasure (极限挑战之皇家宝藏) only earned 125 million. As a result, variety movie has not appear during the 2017 new year movie season.

Rating Information about 5 Variety Movies
Movie	Douban(豆瓣) Ratings	Mtime（时光网) Ratings	Mean Ratings	Box Office（million yuan）
爸爸去哪儿1（2014）	6.2	5.8	6	696
奔跑吧兄弟（2015）	4.1	4.4	4.25	433
爸爸去哪儿2（2015）	4.5	4.8	4 .65	221
极限挑战之皇家宝藏（2016）	4.3	4.7	4.5	125
爸爸的假期（2015）	3.3	4.1	3.7	112
Ps: Douban&Mtime are the most professional movie websites in mainland China.

From the short history of variety movies in China, they are disappearing in public’s sight. To understand why Chinese variety movies gradually failed, a SWOT analysis will be conducted.

    Strengths. Generally, the movies were adapted from the most popular variety shows in China, them enjoy a board audience base which can be transferred into box office effectively. Secondly, based on the variety shows, the promotion can be more pointed to target audience through TV channels. Due to the great attention gathered by the program before, many professional producers and distributors get involved in which offers a strong support.

   As to the weakness, the most criticized one lies in the production phase. Compared to traditional movies, variety movies usually put more efforts on celebrity effect rather than the film-making in terms of time and money, not to mention the artistic value. For example, it only took 5 days and 50 million yuan to finish Dad，Where Are We Going (2014). Such crazy shooting procedure is very common in variety movies. Therefore, the performance, scenes or technology are easy to disappoint audiences. In the other hands, such feedback can cause negative influence on variety show or celebrity. As a result, this strategy cannot be used again because a certain number of audiences already lose faith in this brand.

Another weakness comes from the story itself. To make it more profitable and less risky, the story of the movie and the story of the program is not distinguished. In other words, those movies just a long time version of the variety show. In this case, audiences may feel cheated to some extent. Furthermore, the overlapped content will bore audience as well. So there is little possibility for audience to buy tickets again.

The huge progress in Chinese economy, especially in movie industry, bring great opportunities to variety movie. Firstly, as the income increase, people are more willing to spend money on entertainment while watching movie is a good choice. Besides, there is a rapid growth in the number of theaters and screens. Since December 31, 2016, the total number of Chinese screens has reached 41179, over the United States, China has become the biggest movie market in the world. Thus, the audiences need diverse movie genres and content. Variety movie as a new type is easy to draw people’s attention. Also, the quality of Chinese movies varies and good work is rare which provides opportunities to variety movies as well. In addition, as the development of the group buy websites and movie industry, the price of movie ticket is quite affordable.

Threats. As the development of movie industry, audience have higher requirements for movie. However, variety movies, lacking of artistic value and meaning, cannot meet those demands. What is more, the competition in China movie market becomes more and more fierce. A number of good works stand out which gather more attention. In this way, there is less consumers for variety movies. Additionally, the competition for variety show is fiercer since video websites stared to make their own variety shows in diverse formats. Relatively, adhesiveness of users for each variety show decreased which increases the risk of making variety movies.

According to the SWOT analysis above, in my opinion, the biggest problem of variety movie is whose content and style cannot keep up with the demand of audience on account of the weakness—lacking of content. Meanwhile, although variety movies did enjoy some strengths and opportunities which are difficult to develop into core competitiveness. Consequently, variety movie in China only experienced a short brilliance.

Reference:

1.综艺电影票房渐入窘境—制片人王征宇：尝试要付出代价 from http://news.mtime.com/2016/01/25/1551853.html

2. 银幕数世界第一后，观众还期待什么from http://collection.sina.com.cn/whcy/2017-01-04/doc-ifxzczff3749082.shtml

3.     data from http://www.cbooo.cn/;http://www.mtime.com/; https://movie.douban.com/

by SUN Jian  Student ID: 1155081100