Text | Mouyu
2024 The "No. 1 worst movie of the year" in the movie market fell on "花千 Bone".
As the entire industry is preparing for the Spring Festival, the film market seems a bit quiet, and the box office performance is not very impressive. The biggest loser is the movie version of "A Thousand Bones" produced by New Faction Culture. Since
was released on January 20, the cumulative box office of html in 55 days has only been 5.47 million , which is far from meeting expectations. It was even rated as "the worst of the year" by the movie channel. It can be said that it has lost both box office and reputation.
To the surprise of the producer and director, the movie "Waterloo" shared the same producer with the drama version, and the filming location was also in Chongzuo, Guangxi. However, the drama version became a national hit, but the movie version was not. Unsatisfactory, the director continued to go "crazy" on Weibo, feeling that he had failed the audience and the team.
In fact, the collapse of the movie version of "A Thousand Bones of Flowers" is not just an investment failure in a project, but it also represents problems with the new faction's judgment and prediction of the entire film and television industry .
Invalid IP, outdated content
The failure of the movie "A Thousand Bones of Flowers" is actually not that surprising.
For Tang Lijun, the film producer and drama producer, the box office was definitely far from their expectations. In fact, the original production team was very optimistic about the entire project and spent four years polishing it. , before being presented to the audience.
But this is actually the problem. From the birth of the "Flower Bone" IP to the release of the movie, the production cycle was too long, and the entire project was outdated.
First, the IP of "Flower Thousand Bones" has expired, and the IP content is no longer suitable for the current market development trend of .
The novel "Flower Thousand Bones" was serialized in 2008. It has been more than 15 years ago. The elements in the novel such as master and apprentice, sadomasochism, fairy tales, and blackness were very popular at that time, and even affected the popularity of the Internet literature industry for a time. trend.
However, with the emergence of a large number of novels and film and television works of the same type, the market has become saturated. The elements that were popular in the early years have now become clichés. The entire industry is pursuing new things, but the movie version of "A Thousand Bones of Flowers" is still there. It's hard to get the audience interested by playing the same old tricks, let alone go to the cinema and contribute to the box office.
Of course, this does not mean that early IPs are not suitable for adaptation. Many classic literary works have very good film and television effects, but "A Thousand Bones of Flowers" itself is an IP stacked with popular elements, so it will definitely be time-sensitive and inevitable. There is an obsolescence problem.
Secondly, the adaptation of the movie version of "A Thousand Bones of Flowers" missed a good opportunity. The time, place, people and people did not occupy .
Tang Lijun mentioned this issue during her self-analysis. Why was the original cast not used to shoot a movie when the TV series was at its peak? At that time, she was thinking about content innovation, and whether the remake of the movie could bring something new to the audience.
From the perspective of content production, Tang Lijun is responsible for the audience as a producer, but from the perspective of commercial profitability, the entire movie version project missed the most suitable period for adaptation , coupled with the encounter with masks during the filming of the film The problem, comprehensive offline control, also brought a certain degree of difficulty to the shooting, as the time and location were not favorable.
In terms of people and people, Tang Lijun also intended to bring together the original cast in the early stage, but the scheduling problem of the leading actors was difficult to solve, so in the end they had to make a big change.
In fact, in the film and television industry, if the project backlog is too long, there will be obsolescence problems. The movie version of "A Thousand Bones" changed actors in the early stage, and subsequently adjusted the schedule many times. The entire production and release process was full of twists and turns.
What's more, before the Spring Festival itself is a slow period in the film market. Both the audience and the market are looking forward to the Spring Festival. Although the theaters have given "A Thousand Bones" a relatively large number of films, it is useless if no one comes into the theater.
Whether it is from content production to scheduling, New Faction Media and Tang Lijun's choices have certain problems. The box office failure of the movie version of "A Thousand Bones" was not entirely unexpected.
Over-reliance on IP and single business model
Many viewers and the industry are curious as to why New Faction would choose to produce an IP that is obviously outdated. However, in the view of Muyu, New Faction and Tang Lijun would choose to develop "Flower Thousand Bones" IP is actually not surprising.
In fact, the entire new faction cannot make its fortune without "Flower Thousand Bones". Tang Lijun, the founder of the
new faction, once worked at Oriental Radio and was mainly responsible for public relations planning. She only officially entered the film and television industry in 2014, and her first work was the 2015 national hit "A Thousand Bones of Flowers".
In fact, Tang Lijun recognized and explored the value of Internet IP relatively early, including the development of the entire IP industry chain . After the TV series "A Thousand Bones of Flowers" became popular, Tang Lijun continued to develop peripherals, games, etc. Category, while continuing the popularity of TV series, it also makes a lot of money. In the same year that the
drama version of "Flower Thousand Bones" became a huge success, Tang Lijun established New Faction Cultural Media. The production and operation of the entire New Faction's early works were actually based on the development model of "Flower Thousand Bones".
At the first project sharing meeting after the establishment of the new faction, Tang Lijun had already established the development model to develop the entire IP industry chain, and formed a cutting-edge IP adaptation team. The early works of the new faction, such as "Rebirth of the Celebrity" "Superstar", " drunken exquisite " and "trembling Abe" were all adapted from online novels, and based on the evaluation of IP value, they were subsequently developed in multiple categories.
After the TV series "Drunken Linglong" was broadcast, web games and mobile games were developed. "Shiver, Abe" was registered as a movie in 2021. " Rebirth of the Celebrity Superstar " also has comics, before the arrival of the IP era , the new faction has attached great importance to the development of high-quality IP in all categories, and has achieved good results.
There is no doubt that Tang Lijun’s prediction of the development trend of the entire film and television industry was ahead of her time. This was the confidence that the success of "A Thousand Bones" brought to her, and the development goal of the new faction at that time was to continue the success of "A Thousand Bones" Adapt the template, to create , a business model focusing on high-quality IP development. The business model of
did bring good benefits to the new faction in the early days. The risk of adapting high-quality IP is low and the return is high. Compared with spending several years to polish an original script, it is more cost-effective, so it is better to start a new one a few years ago. Factions have also always relied on IP adaptations.
But the problem is that over-reliance on IP adaptation will inevitably lead to a lack of originality. With the advent of the IP era, manufacturers in the entire film and television industry are scrambling for IPs. High-quality IPs have been snatched by major film and television manufacturers, and new factions cannot survive. When it comes to IP adaptation dividends, there is also the problem of lack of original works, so there has been a lack of influential works in recent years.
Tang Lijun is not unaware of this problem. In an interview with The Paper, she said, "It is understandable that relies heavily on IP. But we must pay attention to the preferences and pursuits of young people. Iteration is very fast. The IP you buy is the same as what you see." Data, it has a lag. After you buy it back, you may find that this content has become less popular in the past few years. You want to wait, but the authorization of IP is time-limited. If you shoot it, it will be wasted. So IP is indeed a double-edged sword. "
In fact, the current new faction is facing the same dilemma. The IP content purchased in the early years is no longer popular, but if you don't shoot this IP, it will It was wasted, so I have been in an embarrassing state of neither getting better nor getting worse, and there has been no breakthrough in film and television production for a long time.
New faction’s way to break the situation
In fact, the new faction has been looking for new ways to break the situation and create more diverse business models.
As for the main business model of the new faction, Tang Lijun not only purchases IP externally, but also has been trying to incubate the original IP with . Due to excessive consumption of IP, there are fewer and fewer IPs suitable for film and television development. The only way to control the upstream of the IP industry chain is Only then can you harvest a steady stream of high-quality IPs. For example,
collaborated with Zhou Dedong to incubate the original IP "Turn Left 90 Degrees in the Forbidden Zone". The new faction's original idea was to create a suspense-themed weekly drama. In fact, it is similar to the suspense theater currently produced on long-form video platforms.There is no doubt that the
project has good prospects, but the problem is that this weekly drama format means that the investment must be very large. Whether the new faction can afford the initial investment capital has also become a problem, so the follow-up "Forbidden Zone Left" The project "Turn 90 Degrees" has also been temporarily shelved.
It is difficult to break through in film and television production, and new factions have also begun to look for new business models, such as the combination of film and television bases and cultural tourism industries , which can not only provide filming locations for film and television creations, but also open up offline live entertainment to drive tourism consumption. The popularity of the
drama version of "A Thousand Bones" made Chongzuo, Guangxi, the filming location, become a popular tourist city. The number of tourists reached more than 4.5 million the year the series was aired, and tourism revenue exceeded 3.3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 46.91%. Obviously, It's a profitable business.
In 2019, after discussions with the local government of Chongzuo, Tang Lijun planned to build a film and television base for Southeast Asian countries based on the local natural geographical advantages and cultural characteristics of Chongzuo. On the one hand, it will attract more young consumers to travel to the local area, and on the other hand, it will drive Domestic film and television dramas go overseas and go to Southeast Asian countries to embrace a larger market. At the same time, they can also help local villagers get rid of poverty, killing multiple birds with one stone.
At present, Tang Lijun's idea is gradually advancing. The Hangzhou Wanqifeng Investment Management Partnership controlled by her has invested in Guangxi Firestone Cultural Tourism Development Co., Ltd., and Guangxi Firestone has applied to start radio and television program production in 2021 Operating business, listed as one of the producers of the film version of "A Thousand Bones of Flowers".
At present, the cultural tourism industry is gradually recovering, Guangxi has also become a popular tourist province, and offline live entertainment is becoming increasingly popular, which may also bring new vitality to the new factions that were hit by the box office of "A Thousand Bones".
But as a film and television production company, the most important thing for New Faction is to have a mature film and television development and production process. After all, building offline live entertainment is only the first step. In Tang Lijun’s vision, the goal of taking film and television culture overseas is ultimately achieved. , to open up the entire overseas market, and needs to be built on mature and stable film and television production . The failure of
's "Flower Thousand Bones" will definitely bring a heavy blow to the new faction, but the new faction has its own advantages in the conversion of high-quality IPs. The only problem is how to amplify the advantages, which requires further practice and exploration by the new faction.
