Can a short comment on Douban in 1.5 yuan really affect the box office？

Sony saved the early box office of Expression Fantasy Adventure and Dark Tower by delaying scoring.

Special feature of 1905 film network This summer, although the film produced by Sony was not introduced, it caused a hot discussion among netizens because of the freshness of 7% rotten tomatoes. The word-of-mouth difference is obvious to all, but the film won $24.5 million in the first weekend in North America, second only to the runner-up in the box office list that week.

　

The secret is simple: Sony won’t let any users comment before the release. After delaying the opening of the rotten tomato comment "the pro-test is effective", Sony applied this trick to another new film, which shows that the film side attaches importance to "rating".

　

This year’s summer file in North America showed a downward trend, and the box office hit its worst performance in more than a decade. Foreign media analysis said that rotten tomatoes were a major cause of the decline in box office. This argument sounds deja vu, because in the mainland film market, there have been films accusing Douban and Cat’s Eye, and some media even shouted "Bad comments hurt China movies". Is the situation the same in the Mainland and North America? How much influence does scoring have on movies? Can a short review of Douban worth 1.5 yuan/piece really affect the box office? Xiaobian conducted an investigation with these questions.

　

Why is "grading" so important?

Hollywood filmmakers delayed the opening of comment time, and China filmmakers repeatedly questioned Douban.

　

In the era of "internet plus", the audience used to browse the comments on the Internet before watching a movie to see if a movie was "worth the price".

　

Recently, the discussion about "rating" and "box office" in Hollywood has been hot. Fizziology, an online research company, tracked the trajectory of every Hollywood blockbuster and found that the freshness of rotten tomatoes would have the greatest impact on the audience aged 25 and under. In their opinion, the freshness of rotten tomatoes is the truth serum whether the film quality can reach the pre-release publicity level, and it has also become the standard for young people to decide whether to watch movies. Therefore, some film companies choose to postpone the opening of rotten tomato scores to "buy time" for the box office.

　

Not only Hollywood is more cautious about scoring, but also domestic film companies pay special attention to scoring websites. Some film companies even accuse the scoring websites and question their authenticity. At the end of 2016, films such as "The Ferry Man" suffered bad reviews after they were opened. An Yugang, CEO of the film studio, once said at the event that he could not give high marks to the film on Douban when "a certain film" was released, and all four-star and five-star evaluations would not be displayed, implying that Douban operation was tricky. At that time, some media criticized Douban and Cat’s Eye by name, saying that bad comments hurt movies and destroyed the ecological environment of China movies.

　

This year, Chen Yongning, the producer of the youth film, wrote to Abei, CEO of Douban, publicly, saying that his film was maliciously rated by Douban. He said that the score of the film on other platforms was 7-mdash; 8 points, while douban only has 4.2 points. For these questions, A Bei, CEO of Douban, once answered in the article "Eight Questions on Douban Film Scoring", saying that Douban has an anti-scoring mechanism. "It is basically a lie to claim that you can score points."

　

How does "brush points" operate?

Douban 1.5— 3 yuan, the recent "Wolf Warriors 2" someone bought a water army spray.

Xiaobian learned that the scoring website can be scored by buying a water army. Recently, some people bought a water army to spray "Wolf Warriors 2"

Can the scoring website operate the scoring? The answer is yes.

Word of mouth before the release of the film is particularly important, and some filmmakers will choose to "buy the water army." A senior film marketer revealed, "Douban is the most difficult to brush now, and it is easy to be filtered out. Cat’s eyes are the best to brush." In addition to scoring short comments on websites, the filmmakers will also brush the praise of Sina Weibo and the "Want to See" of Cat’s Eye, and buy film critics before the release, so that they can post them on various platforms.

　

People in the industry generally believe that rating websites such as Douban will not deliberately suppress a movie, but the problem of "brushing points" is inevitable. Apart from the money spent by the film side to buy the water army, fans of some traffic stars will also have organized "raising numbers", and one person will "raise" several numbers at the same time, so that the movie that loves beans can be scored with multiple accounts when it is released.

Xiaobian learned in the investigation that there are still countermeasures for the filtering mechanism of douban.

　

In order to find out the market of the water army’s brush points, Xiaobian also pretended to be a customer on the Internet for consultation. Among them, the quotation given by merchant A is "three short comments". When Xiaobian mentioned the filtering mechanism of Douban, merchant A replied, "Douban is not easy to do, but it can be done."

　

Merchant B gave a detailed quotation: "Douban Movie Short Comment on 1.5 yuan", "Want to see and have seen 1.5 yuan", "Bad Comment on 1.5 yuan" and "Short Comment on 0.6 yuan, with a large quantity of 0.5 yuan" … … Merchant B revealed that Douban’s anti-brushing mechanism is to filter software numbers and spam, but their water army is all real people, and IP addresses come from all over the country. During the consultation, the other party also broke the news. "Wolf Warriors 2 was bought (sprayed), and the new drama Reba was also bought."

Douban short comment and brush quotation

　

It is understood that the businesses of these water army sellers are mainly concentrated in Douban and Zhihu. When Xiao Bian asked whether Cat’s Eye and Time Network could be divided, both sellers said, "I haven’t done it, but I can do it". It can be seen that the platform of Douban is more valued by the film and netizens.

　

It is true that the phenomenon of "brush marks" exists, but it is generally believed in the industry that "brush marks" have little influence on the overall score. As long as there are enough people watching a movie, a few opinions contrary to public opinions are easily drowned out.

　

A Bei, CEO of Douban, also talked about this issue in "Eight Questions on Douban Film Rating". "The small impact is still short-lived and individual. Because there are too many people who score normally, and because anti-brushing has long been a part of the daily work of Douban movies. " Chen Shaofeng, vice president of Peking University Cultural Industry Research Institute, also said, "If it is a popular commercial film, the deviation of evaluation will not be too great."

　

How does the industry view scoring?

The word-of-mouth composition of the mainland film market is different from that of Hollywood, and excessive publicity may be counterproductive.

　

Speaking of the view that "rotten tomatoes affect the box office", Chen Shaofeng said that the situation in the mainland and North America is not the same. Compared with Hollywood, which pays more attention to critics’ opinions, the word-of-mouth composition of the mainland film market is more complicated, and the professional level of film critics is different. In addition to rating websites such as Douban and Cat’s Eye, the word-of-mouth of Weibo, WeChat and surrounding groups can all become the reasons for the audience to enter the cinema. "Many domestic films have increased their screenings because of their good word-of-mouth. It is the word-of-mouth of social groups that plays a role.

　

"The douban score of a movie is determined by the average opinion of the people who come to score it. When everything else is the same, people who come to see a movie without much publicity tend to score high, but few people; I don’t like it originally, because large-scale publicity has set up high expectations, and I tend to score low, but there are many people. This is why independent films sometimes score high (only fans score), while box office miracles sometimes score low (people who don’t like them are also promoted). " A Bei, CEO of Douban, once analyzed the composition of the score in this article.

　

In his view, there are some essential conflicts between applause and box office, high scores and box office. Only truly popular movies can resolve this conflict. "In addition to making better movies, it is always king, and it is more important to grasp the degree of publicity. Excessive publicity may lower the score." .

　

With the continuous influence of the internet on the film industry, the development of the scoring system is becoming more and more important. Xuanfa Company should not break the industry rules by "brushing points", and film creators should not be clamped down by scoring. As Nolan said, "As a filmmaker, if he cares about comments, the industry will fall into an infinite loop. As a director, you can’t get caught up in these comments. You need to be yourself. " Only in this way can the film market have a more benign and sound development.