The best of us broke 200 million. Is this the best youth film？

Special feature of 1905 film network The one-day box office champion in the past three days is not a Hollywood blockbuster, not directed by Jing Wong, but a less eye-catching youth film — — .

From the fourth place on the first day of the film’s release, the cumulative box office reached 232 million, which has occupied the first place in the box office list for three consecutive days, which surprised many people.

At the beginning of the release, some media revealed that "The Best of Us" was suspected to have a large number of "ghost fields" and was suspected of flooding the box office. This news was also forwarded by Weibo of Jing Wong, the director of the film Chasing the Dragon 2 in the same period.Later, the film released a statement saying that this phenomenon was caused by system problems or special reasons in individual cinemas, and there was no "box office water injection".

At present, this incident is still inconclusive, but judging from the current box office of "The Best of Us", the film has surpassed that released on Valentine’s Day, second only to 354 million, becoming the second highest-grossing youth film this year. A ticketing platform also predicted its box office to reach 379 million.

Massive attack

How does "The Best of Us" achieve a counterattack?

　

From the distribution of "Want to See" data published by a ticketing platform, it is not difficult to see that the female audience after 95 or even 00 is the core audience of "The Best of Us". The proportion of female audience who "want to see" accounts for 76.5%, and the proportion of audience under the age of 24 also reaches 74.2%.

　

This portrait is very different from the Chinese film "Chasing the Dragon 2" released in the same period. The latter wants to see that 69.9% of the users are men, and the audience over 25 also accounts for 54%.

　

　

The Best of Us caters well to the needs of the target audience from the film itself to the publicity focus.

　

Different from the pain-related youth films that prevailed in previous years, from The Best of Us, Hello, Old Times to Warm Hours for Us, the theme of campus sweet pets has always been the explosion machine of youth dramas. This is the reason why the drama version of "The Best of Us" is so popular, and the shadow version also strengthens the "sweetness" in the characters and plot settings.

　

The interaction between Yu Huai, the hero and heroine, and Geng Yan emphasizes "sprinkling sugar" and "CP sense". In the second half, Yu Huai’s leaving without saying goodbye is a routine, but it won the essence of the romantic film "there is abuse in sweetness and sugar in abuse", which provides a good emotional outlet for female audiences who cherish their youth and look forward to love.

　

Compared with the films of the same period, The Best of Us is also more strategic in propaganda.

First of all, combined with the hot topic of "College Entrance Examination", a feature clip of "The Teacher’s Last Reminder before the College Entrance Examination" was posted on Tik Tok Hot Search, which aroused many "memory killings" and the related videos were praised more than one million times.

　

　

Similar to movies such as Sad Than, Ex 3, the promotion of The Best of Us on social networking sites also focuses on the selling point of "tears".

During the road show, the pictures moved by tears of audiences of all ages received high comments and praises, which achieved good sinking communication effect.

　

　

Although "The Best of Us" was not as good as "Chasing the Dragon 2" on the first day, it surpassed "Chasing the Dragon 2" on the third day due to the continuous fermentation of publicity and word of mouth, and finally ranked first in the box office of Chinese films in the Dragon Boat Festival. In the following working days, the film also completed a one-day box office counterattack against X-Men: Dark Phoenix.

　

It is worth mentioning that "Dark Phoenix" and "Chasing the Dragon 2" both belong to sequels, with Zhu Yu as the predecessor, and the audience had high hopes for the sequel, but the quality of the two films failed to meet expectations, resulting in the collapse of word of mouth, with only 7.1 points and 7.6 points on the ticketing platform.

On the other hand, "The Best of Us" was not optimistic before its release, but because the quality of the film was acceptable, people had a sense of surprise beyond expectations. Although Douban scored only 5.8 points, the scores of the two major ticketing platforms both exceeded 8 points, far exceeding the new films in the same period, and it is not difficult to understand the box office counterattack.

IP magic remains the same.

What is the "best" youth film?

　

In 2013, Zhao Wei’s directorial debut won 726 million box office with an investment of 60 million yuan, and it is still one of the most popular Chinese youth films. The low-cost and high-return mode of "To Youth" has also caused capital to flock, which has ignited a large number of homogenized youth film projects.

In June 2013, it was released and won 484 million box office. In the next two years, Tiny Times 2, 3, and 4 were released intensively. Although word-of-mouth disputes continued, the second film with the lowest box office also accounted for 296 million.

　

In 2014, it was released one after another, and the box office was around 500 million. Coupled with the following films, such as "To Youth 2" and "Looking at Paradise with Trees in Summer", youth films ushered in a concentrated outbreak in 15 or 16 years.

Most of these youth films follow the formula of "IP adaptation of hot youth literature+starring traffic stars+derailment, car accident, abortion and other extreme plots". While achieving high box office and high return on investment, they are gradually consuming the enthusiasm of the audience.

For a time, bad movies and dog blood almost became synonymous with youth movies.

　

　

In 2017, youth films entered a trough, with the highest box office of only 64.85 million, which failed to exceed 100 million. Adapted from the sum of popular IP, the box office has not exceeded 10 million mark. The audience has entered the aesthetic fatigue period for this type of youth film.

At the same time, the popularity of a number of online dramas such as "The Best of Us" has also provided new ideas for the creation of youth films.

　

In August 2016, Chang ‘an’s online novel "The Best of Us" was remake into an online drama of the same name, starring Haoran Liu and Seven, and scored a super high score of 8.9. The cumulative broadcast volume of the whole network reached 3.34 billion, making it a phenomenal youth drama of that year.

The popularity of the drama The Best of Us is not only due to the sense of CP that Haoran Liu and Seven, a pair of "bitter CP", overflow the screen, but also because of the delicate and realistic description of high school life in novels and scripts.

　

There are no extreme conflicts or painful youth such as abortion, car accidents and violence, but only simple school life such as military training, examinations, placement of arts and sciences, chorus, and ignorant love.

　

It is under the joint action of "casting the fairy" and the story of grounding gas that "The Best of Us" successfully had a chemical effect with the audience, which made the nostalgic feelings of the post-80 s and 90 s realize a concentrated outbreak.

This time, the film version of "The Best of Us" also continued the success rule of the drama version. Although the actors’ acting skills and adult passages have caused a lot of controversy, and the overall quality is not as amazing as the drama version, the natural display of high school life is still the key factor to impress the audience.

　

This is also reflected in another youth film explosion "Teacher Good" this year. The film looks back at the post-80s youth from the teacher’s perspective in a unique way. Although there is nothing outstanding in the drama and shooting techniques, it still successfully touches the audience with its realistic plot and high degree of restoration.

From "Flash Girl" to "Teacher Good", the youth films that have been well received in recent years are increasingly showing a trend of "returning to reality", which arouses the audience’s sense of substitution and emotional resonance with grounded plots and characters. After all, for most people, youth is not so vigorous, but only those simple little things.

　

In the casting of the leading role, it is no longer just a matter of flow. More and more youth films boldly use new actors with a "sense of youth" and no longer use the so-called star act young to perform. The theme is no longer limited to love, but extends to more dimensions such as family, friendship and teacher-student relationship.

For youth films, IP and traffic are not original sins, and there is no universal law for scripts. In the era when quality is king, the success of youth films will return to the simplest two words — — Good-looking.

　

After all, there is "the best of us" in the youth, so it is naturally not allowed to trample on bad movies at will.