Russian film distribution in 2021

Traditional values ​​and issues of financial efficiency of national cinematography

After the departure of foreign distributors in 2022, the Russian cinema chain suffered a serious blow due to a content deficit. It is impossible to “import replace” the entire lost volume at once due to the long (about two years) production cycle. But, as always happens after a crisis, new opportunities for profitable investments and the release of successful projects have appeared in the industry. 2023 and 2024 have become a period of recovery. However, questions about the quality of film content, especially the part designed to demonstrate “social impact” and positive value guidelines, remain.

Sources are our everything!

Taking into account data deficiencies for a number of films (the budget is hidden by producers and distributors), an assessment was made based on the number of screens, budgets, screen time, box office receipts, views, and audience ratings. A complex indicator of “recoupment” was used (the film must collect at least two of its production budgets).

For the period 2021-2022, data is provided for 336 films, for the period from January 2023 to the end of May 2024 – only 217, it is assumed that from June to December at least 120 more films should be released. The data source is available at repositories

There is a reason to be proud!

The first thing to pay attention to is the share of commercially successful Russian film projects: it increased from 5.4% to 12.4%. Which is especially relevant after the disastrous 2022 for the industry.

In 2023 and 2024, the average and median number of screens increased – cinema chains began to pay more attention to Russian films. In this regard, the departure of foreign distributors was a positive moment for Russian producers.

The budget of Russian projects has increased significantly. Box office receipts have increased less: the gap between the average and median values ​​is due to the inclusion of a number of anomaly projects in the overall statistics (Cheburashka became an absolute box office record holder in early 2023).

Table 1. Distribution data for successful films for 2021/2022

*2021-2022 – 18 successful projects (out of 336) or 5.4%

Table 2. Distribution data for successful films for 2023/2024

*2023-2024 – 27 successful projects (out of 217) or 12.4%

When quantity does not mean quality

An alarming indicator is the decrease in payback values ​​against the backdrop of increased budgets: from 4.115 on average to 3.554 (from 3.768 in the median to 2.852), which indicates the limited capacity of the Russian national film market.

The niche of foreign distributors may soon be filled, so a further increase in the number of films released in the context of a limited cinema network may lead to “cannibalization” of target audiences and excessive competition between projects.

And it is here that the industry needs to focus not on the number of projects in development, not on large budgets, but on the quality of the products, working out issues of market expansion and export of film products abroad, as well as on “multiple passes” of target audiences due to cross-platform distribution of content and effective film franchises.

What about the “spiritual bonds”?

Patriotic or “ideological” cinema is a fully-fledged separate genre of film narrative, recognized and respected by critics all over the world. Eisenstein’s “Battleship Potemkin,” “Chapayev” by the Vasilyev brothers, and others are true masterpieces of Russian and world cinema, not to mention a number of films on war themes, from the canonical “Only Old Men Are Going to Battle” to Elem Klimov’s “Come and See.”

Even such projects as “Sea Battle” and “Independence Day” (in reality, they are “blatant” agitation and propaganda of American exceptionalism and the power of the American army) can be classified as propaganda films with ideological content.

All famous films with “patriotic impact”, regardless of the country, have one thing in common – they are commercially successful!

Why are modern Russian “battleships” drowning in the darkness of the rental industry?

The advantages of the so-called Russian “patriotic cinema” are obvious to the naked eye: the number of screens showing the film is significantly higher than the average for the sample, and the same is true for production budgets.

The period 2021-2022, although accompanied by noticeable competition from Western films, at the same time there was an opportunity to “push” a competing film into the distribution schedule.

In 2023-2024, Russian films were released in conditions of less competition from Western projects (excluding the factor of “gray” distribution and pre-screening service). The average and median budgets of a Russian “patriotic” film were more than 2 times higher than the budgets for the industry. In terms of box office receipts, such a dependence is not expressed; on the contrary, the average and median “box offices” diverge greatly: this is due to the fact that there are very few box office and commercially successful films on the film market; most, unfortunately, did not turn out to be financially effective.

Table 3. Comparison of indicators of patriotic content and the sample of national films for two periods of time

Subjectivity of audience assessments and information campaigns against Russian cinema

The most subjective of all categories is the audience rating. The IMDb rating for Russian patriotic films has dropped significantly, by almost 1 full point. This does not indicate an objective deterioration in the quality of films, since it is a direct consequence of the “cancel culture” policy towards Russian cinema and discrediting campaigns initiated on social networks.

In defiance of IMDb, the audience rating of Kinopoisk has increased somewhat. But the gap between the median and the average has grown, which primarily indicates the appearance of films of different quality – rated both positively and extremely negatively by the Russian target audience.

Objective indicators of the return on investment of film projects have changed little. The effectiveness of projects is generally low and indicates the dominance of approaches from 20-30 years ago, the absence of non-standard, creative thinking. The “lengthiness” of patriotic films has also increased by 10 minutes, which always has a negative impact on the viewer's impressions.

The most revealing comparison would be with the general data of Russian national cinema for the specified periods of time.

Among the positive changes is that the average payback of a Russian film project at the box office has increased from 0.815 to 1.009 (the effect of the departure of foreign competitors). But to reach the payback point, it is necessary that for every ruble invested there should be 2 rubles of box office receipts in the theater network and, accordingly, an increase in the share of films that are successful at the box office from the current 12.4% to at least 20-25%.

The average and median budget of films and box office figures have increased. This can be explained by the elimination of competition from foreign films; the share of “gray film imports” and pre-screenings of foreign products is less than the share of “official” projects until 2022.

In the analyzed list of Russian patriotic films for the two periods, there are no films that fully paid for themselves at the box office. The closest to the coveted bar of “two budgets” was the space drama “Challenge” (payback – 1.857)

The expert said that we need to mow – they will mow in winter too!

The reasons for the lack of commercial success of patriotic projects and films with positive value orientations are quite obvious: budgets are too large (there are not enough viewers for everyone), the author’s subjectivity during creation, and incorrect positioning.

The latter arises from the dominance of the “social impact theory” in cinema, which mistakenly assumes that a film that is well-reviewed by experts or narrow focus groups will automatically be in demand by target audiences. But the impact of content on a professional expert is not the same as the impact on a mass audience.

The classic sociological “sampling error” in project evaluation does not allow us to focus on creating commercially successful products loaded with positive values ​​that are in demand by the target audience. For example, in research “Platforms” uses a standard sample of respondents of 1,400 people aged 18 and over, used in socio-political questionnaires before elections. Given that the main category of cinema visitors is teenagers and young people aged 12 and over (visitors aged 35+ are represented to a lesser extent) and 68% are girls and women. The research sample does not correspond in characteristics to the general population of those who go to cinemas.

You don’t see “Impact”? – but it’s there!

The selection of films taken into development by the Platform experts based on the presence of “social impact” does not characterize the entire set of national films released during this period. It is quite possible that films “with impact” were left outside its scope, and the value of individual films was exaggerated.

The third mistake is related to the fact that on the same scales, for example, the series “The Word of a Boy,” which has tens of millions of views, is compared with a chamber drama with a number of views of, at best, several tens of thousands.

The result is obvious: films are created with the best intentions and genuinely good intentions that are not interesting to mass audiences; experts give them positive reviews, a good release time is chosen for them, other films are promoted, but the effectiveness and efficiency in transmitting “traditional spiritual and moral values” still leaves much to be desired.

As a result, films ignored by the viewer receive a high rating on Kinopoisk (a very narrow audience, slightly larger than the creative team of the project, votes for the film) and enthusiastic reviews from experts – and a new generation of films is filmed in their likeness. The circle is closed. Does this remind you of anything?

The vicious circle of netflexism-disneyismA

Reminds me of the infamous “agenda” with its initial attempt to broadcast “agenda values” head-on, which ended in a drop in profits and the dismissal of all sorts of “diversity directors.” Both Disney and Netflix have drawn conclusions; now, if the “agenda” is presented at all, it is gradually and in the middle-end of a film or series – they first attract the viewer's attention, draw him in, then, as the plot develops, “screw in” and “overtone” the required values.

Russian film projects so far assume a “frontal” presentation of the corresponding content and values. Which looks very clumsy and leads to low results at the box office, and “children lose to wizards” almost always.

What to do?

To implement an effective “value policy” and create content that is effective in its impact, a completely different approach is needed, based on:

– objective quantitative analysis of the factors of success of films, including historical distribution data (the viewer is conservative and always looks for something similar to past experience, but at the same time demands to be “surprised”)

– taking into account the interests of target audiences, including big data from search queries and people data from marketplaces and film platforms.

– objective evaluation of comments, reviews, synopses and film scripts using language models and natural language processing tools

– objective evaluation of video, audio and images using “computer vision”

– rigorous sociological research with a carefully prepared sample (or better yet, work with the entire general population).

High-quality film content, in demand by the target audience, can always be supplemented with the necessary meanings and values, since the technologies of “soft” script-integrated product placement are available and effective in the commercial sector. And nothing prevents them from being adopted in other creative industries and in the implementation of state information policy in the sphere of culture and art.

A good “ideological” project is always a commercially successful project.