Phenomenon Tran Thanh and the formula for making movies that make hundreds of billions

Tran Thanh in the movie 'Mrs. Nu's House', which he starred in, produced and directed.

Recently, many foreign films released in Vietnamese theaters have quickly made a lot of money. Blockbusters: Avatar 2, Avengers: Endgame earned nearly 300 billion VND. Minions: The Rise of Gru, Suddenly Win the Lottery... reached 200 billion VND. These seemingly unreachable revenue milestones have been set in recent times by Vietnamese films - something that no one thought could happen 5-10 years ago.

The most recently mentioned name is Mrs. Nu's House. It was only released on the first day of the Lunar New Year, but as of yesterday afternoon, the film had earned 434 billion VND, surpassing Bo Gia (also directed by Tran Thanh) to become the highest-grossing film in the history of Vietnamese cinemas.

The ranking of the top 10 highest-grossing domestic films at the box office has changed continuously after only 3 weeks when the new film "Nha Ba Nu" was released. The film took the runner-up position in the top 10 highest-grossing films of all time, which Hai Phuong held for 3 years, and then overthrew the throne of "Bo Gia" - a position that had been established since April 2021. "Nha Ba Nu" only needed 22 days to make history, while "Bo Gia" took 7 weeks to reach the revenue milestone of 427 billion VND.

It is worth mentioning that both of these films were directed, produced and starred by Tran Thanh. As an amateur actor and a popular TV MC with wide coverage, Tran Thanh attracted attention when the film Bo Gia was released in March 2021 and immediately caused a box office explosion.

His debut work had a strong effect, attracting 5 million viewers to the cinema during the Covid-19 pandemic and continuously breaking all revenue records, beating even Hollywood's billion-dollar blockbusters to climb to the top of the list of highest-grossing films with 427 billion VND.

No one is sure that Tran Thanh's second film will continue to be successful. But in fact, Mrs. Nu's House sells tickets at a higher rate than Bo Gia 2 years ago. The success of the two films directed by Tran Thanh is not difficult to explain.

Firstly, he chose the family love story, focusing on the relationships and conflicts of the previous generation, father and son (Bo Gia) and now mother and son (Nha Ba Nu). Tran Thanh chose everyday topics, the language comes from life, the characters from appearance to dialogue are close to the audience and more importantly, everyone can see themselves in them.

Tran Thanh is a big brand. However, audiences are not easily convinced to spend money to buy tickets if it is a useless, tasteless and emotionless film. He can only "get lucky" with 1 film, if anyone thought so after Tran Thanh released Bo Gia. But Tran Thanh has proven himself to be a good filmmaker, with a profession and knowing how to capture audience tastes with Nha Ba Nu.

In the top 10 highest-grossing Vietnamese films today, there are 3 films by Tran Thanh. In addition to Bo Gia and Nha Ba Nu, Tran Thanh also appeared in the film Cua Lai Vo Bau, released during Tet 2019 with a recorded revenue of 191.8 billion (currently in the top 4).

Amateur singer makes movies and earns hundreds of billions

In addition to Tran Thanh, the box office also recorded another amateur character with 2 successful films in terms of revenue, Ly Hai. From a commercial singer, Ly Hai turned to filmmaking, creating his own film brand called Lat Mat and is currently developing the 6th episode. He has 2 films that earned more than 100 billion VND, in the top 10 at the box office, Lat Mat 4 and 5, released in 2019 and 2021.

Although most of these films change the main actors, the content is not related to each other between the parts, and even the genre is different, Lat Mat still wins big every time it is released. Like Tran Thanh, Ly Hai chooses simple plots but familiar dialogues and settings, and a style that suits the taste of the Southern audience - which is the largest film market in the country and determines most of a film's revenue.

Looking at the list of the most popular Vietnamese films in history, we can see that half of them focus on the theme of love and up to 4 films were released during Tet, which is the peak time to attract audiences to the cinema and the golden time to increase revenue when there is almost no direct confrontation with Hollywood blockbusters. However, it is difficult to find a common formula for all high-grossing films because the success of each film outside the box office depends on many factors.

Golden time and decisive factor

Choosing the topic and timing is very important. For example, with the same revenge action genre, the movie Hai Phuong by Ngo Thanh Van was released in February 2019 because of its attractive topic, eye-catching action scenes and quite new to the audience at that time, and there were no direct competitors, so the revenue exploded with 200 billion VND.

Meanwhile, Thanh Soi, a film of the same genre, was released by Ngo Thanh Van in late December 2012. Its content was no longer new, too violent, and it had to compete directly with the billion-dollar blockbuster Avatar 2, so it suffered heavy losses. Therefore, choosing the time to release the film and researching the psychology and tastes of the audience are important factors.

Among the top Vietnamese films with the highest box office revenue is Mat Biec - a work released at the end of December 2019 with 180 billion VND. Adapted from the famous work of Nguyen Nhat Anh, conquering the audience with beautiful and romantic scenes, combined with attractive soundtrack and released at the right time when the audience was interested in Vietnamese films, Mat Biec was a big winner.

However, there are also works that have made breakthroughs in revenue because of their unique content, fresh acting by the actors despite not having stars, and choosing to release them in theaters right on the 30.4 holiday season, such as Em chua 18. Released in late April 2017, the film earned 171 billion VND even though the female lead Kaity Nguyen was unknown at that time and Kieu Minh Tuan was not yet an A-list star.

Two other psychological romance films produced in 2020, Blood Moon Party and The Old Lady 3, are also in the top 10 highest-grossing Vietnamese films at the box office. Perhaps apart from the release date, the attractive material from the original film (with Blood Moon Party being a Korean remake of Intimate Strangers) as well as the brand of The Old Lady, which has been known from previous parts with entertaining content, flashy settings, and beautiful actors, made these two films earn around 170 billion VND.

Blockbuster movies, which are synonymous with high revenue, obviously have attractive, relatable content that attracts the attention of the majority. In addition to good media coverage, most of these works win thanks to word of mouth. The explosion of social media is an important environment for a movie to easily reach the public.

According to Vietnamnet