Reality shows the increasingly fierce competition of the film market, where quality, distribution strategy and audience reach play a decisive role.
One of the notable cases is "Blood Moon Party 8" by director Phan Gia Nhat Linh. The work was released on April 30th with the participation of Miu Le, Van Son, Lien Binh Phat and many famous guests. Despite receiving a certain attention when it was released, the film quickly lost momentum in the box office race.
After more than a month of screening, the film's revenue stopped at about 33 billion VND before leaving theaters. This is a difficult figure to help producers recover capital, because a commercial film project currently often needs significantly higher revenue to break even after deducting the profit sharing ratio with the cinema system.
Not better than the movie "The Underworld Beauty Salon", a horror film that was once expected to attract young audiences thanks to the beauty theme combined with spiritual elements and Ngoc Trinh's return. However, the work did not create a strong enough word-of-mouth effect.
According to Box Office Vietnam data, the film only reached about 12.6 billion VND. Even in the last days of release, the work almost did not sell tickets, showing that its appeal has seriously declined. With the current level of production and promotion costs, this revenue level is considered very low for a commercial film.
Another case that causes regret is the movie "Hero" starring Thai Hoa. The work once received much expectation thanks to the actor's name and the action and drama theme. However, revenue of about 46 billion VND has not yet created a sufficiently large boost in the market. In the context of increasing Vietnamese film production costs, this number is not considered commercially successful, especially when the film has to compete with a series of competitors at the same time of release.
Another sad reality is Duc Thinh's movie "Trum So". Although the male director and his wife Thanh Thuy made efforts to promote it, the movie only grossed 17.5 billion VND. According to Duc Thinh, to recoup capital, the movie needs to bring in 80 billion VND in revenue. Thus, the male director's project suffered heavy losses outside theaters.
The reason why many films fail is not only in the quality of the content. The fierce competition between Vietnamese films, pressure from foreign films, limited number of screenings and ineffective media activities can directly affect revenue. Besides, the audience's habit of choosing films is increasingly strict, making works that do not create highlights very easy to be eliminated after only one or two weeks of release.
Reality shows that box office revenue is no longer completely dependent on stars or rampant promotion campaigns. Cases like "Blood Moon Party 8", "The Underworld Beauty Salon" or "Hero" are warnings to filmmakers that large investment does not necessarily mean commercial success. In the increasingly fierce race of Vietnamese cinema, the ability to reach the audience is the decisive factor in the survival of a film.
Currently, there are 2 new Vietnamese films being screened in theaters: "Oc muon hon" and "Ma xo". However, revenue is still a difficult problem for producers.
