Accused of consumer suffering Xú Zhēng responded.
The film "Retrograde Life" is being broadcasted in cinemas. On August 13th, the film director and starring Xú Zhēng and actor Wu Jiakai appeared in Hangzhou roadshow. According to statistics, as of noon on August 12, the box office of summer movies in 2024 has exceeded 9.2 billion yuan. Although it is inferior to that in 2023, with the release of more kinds of rich movies, there is still room for the summer movie market to pick up.
"Retrograde Life" focuses on the story of Gao Zhilei, a middle-aged unemployed person, becoming a takeaway, and is written, directed and starred by Xú Zhēng himself. Xú Zhēng shared in the roadshow that he chose to act in person because of his deep resonance with the role, so as to more accurately present the complex feelings inside the role. After the film was released, the audience’s evaluation showed polarization, and some critics thought that the film was suspected of "consumption suffering". Xú Zhēng responded by saying that the movie can’t meet everyone’s expectations. He respects every feeling of watching movies, and emphasizes that it is unfair to criticize directly before watching the movie.
Since the release of Retrograde Life for six days, the box office has quickly exceeded 200 million yuan, which indicates that Xu Zheng has once again set foot in realistic themes after Dying to Survive. Dying to Survive not only achieved commercial success, but also aroused social concern about medical equity. In its first week, it topped the global box office with 1.333 billion yuan, and finally gained 3.1 billion yuan.
As a hot spot in the film market, summer movies continue to attract diverse film works. Although the opening of the summer file in 2024 is slightly dull compared with the previous year, with the strong performance of films such as Catching Dolls and Silent Killing, and the addition of new films such as Decryption and Safe Evacuation from the 21st Century, the market is expected to usher in new growth momentum. According to statisticians’ analysis, many domestic and foreign films to be released in the next few weeks, including The Hedgehog and Detective Conan: A Million Dollar Five-pointed Star, will have a positive impact on the summer file.
The industry predicts that the summer box office in 2024 may remain in the range of 17.5 billion to 21.7 billion yuan, showing that despite the challenges, the film market is still recovering, especially the producers of high-quality content are expected to usher in performance improvement.