Picture source @Visual China
text | Mouyu
2024, male channel ip celebrates the New Year. "Qing Yu Nian 2", "Mortal Cultivation of Immortality", " Da Feng Da Feng Da Geng Ren " and other top male online text IP adaptation dramas have been launched online one after another.
Before the show started airing, the casting of IP characters became the focus of controversy.
Previously, "Qing Yu Nian 2" was the first adaptation of a male video online novel. It naturally inherited the previous advantages and placed "retaining 90% of the original cast" at the center of the promotion, and added Jin Chen and Yu Feihong , Mao Xiaotong and other new popular actors participated.
"The Legend of Mortal Cultivation" and "Da Feng Watcher" are more market-oriented in the selection of male protagonists, choosing the top-rated Yang Yang who turned over in "My World Fireworks" and "Camp with Love" last year. With Wang Hedi .
Among them, the casting of the former has caused the most controversy among the audience. Is it possible for to let the "handsome and self-aware" Yang Yang play the "plain-looking" "low-key and cautious" Han Li in the original work?
This is not only a question raised about "The Story of a Mortal's Cultivation of Immortality", but also a problem that has existed since the adaptation of the male video online novel.
The swinging casting model
The value of online articles on male channels is not as good as that on female channels.
When the value of online articles was discovered by the market, male and female online articles began to be adapted one after another at almost the same time. However, compared with female-channeled online novels that are frequently hit, male-channeled dramas include "The Legend of the Chosen One", "Jiuzhou Piaomiaolu", "Fights Break the Sphere", "Martial Arts", "The Ultimate Servant", "Return to the Ming Dynasty to Be a Prince" Many well-known IPs such as "The Legend of Yang Ling" almost without exception ended up on the street.
As the focus of a drama, the male protagonist is naturally put under a magnifying glass by the public to discuss whether he needs to be responsible for the failure of the TV series.
The actors who were responsible for the failure of TV series during this period were without exception the top niche actors at the time. This is related to the model of IP adapting "top IP + traffic actor" at that time. In order to cater to this model,
magnified the value of traffic actors, and the script was also significantly modified. The core logic of killing monsters and upgrading in the male channel IP has been weakened, strengthening the emotional line between the male and female protagonists.
pays more attention to sugar-coating than upgrading, which leads to the collapse of plot logic. Fans of the original work cannot match the content, fans of the actors cannot understand the story, and failure becomes a natural ending. Does the casting of
favor the market or the original work?
"Celebrating More Than Years" became a turning point.
When the casting was announced, Zhang Ruoyun's role as Fan Xian, who did not look particularly stunning, was once questioned. But facts have proven that after abandoning the traffic model, casting pays more attention to the matching between actors and roles, supplemented by the cooperation of veteran actors and actresses, and it is feasible to create high-quality dramas .
Among them, in terms of casting, " Celebrating More Than Years " spent 120 days hiring Chen Daoming three times. So far, it is the best promotional story of IP adaptation and casting that fits the original work.
screenwriter Lao Ma revealed to Mou Entertainment that the biggest problem before the adaptation of the male video was that the greatest charm of the male video online article was the "refreshing" feeling created by its content. However, during the adaptation, in order to cater to film and television creation, this biggest problem The highlights of the content are often changed by magic.
The "troika" behind "Celebrating More Than Years" Tencent Pictures, Xinli Media and China Literature Film and Television have established a new adaptation idea: more respect for the content of the original work in film and television and casting, to satisfy fans of the original work of the male video online At the same time, the quality of the series itself has attracted more female viewers.
Among them, Tencent Pictures conducts development and evaluation, China Literature Group provides high-quality IP and original understanding, and Xinli is responsible for content creation and production. The three families pursued the victory and created another "Brother-in-law".
"The Son-in-law" was developed very quickly. It will be launched in June 2020 and will be online in February 2021.
What followed was controversy. Guo Qilin did not rely on top-notch actors in casting, but did it really fit the original work?
Many film critics pointed out that the male protagonist Ning Yi in "The Son-in-law" was played by Guo Qilin, and he deliberately found an image that was more suitable for a "brother-in-law", with a sense of "husband" and "security".Judging from the non-original adaptation of the "Men's School" in the play, this casting still points to the market, that is, the female group that accounts for a larger proportion of the TV series audience.
The subsequent conflict between male and female audiences in the drama also points to this contradiction: if occupies a larger audience base of female representatives in the market, then the casting issue will dig deeper, which is actually a market selection issue.
It is not difficult to understand why after the "traffic actor + male channel IP" was falsified, the choice of protagonists in "The Legend of Mortal Cultivation to Immortality" and "Dafeng Watcher" was different.
Male channel ip, female audience
Can Yang Yang play Han Li well in "The Legend of Mortal Cultivation of Immortality"?
is currently on the market and is generally not optimistic about it. Fen Qingfeng, the original author of
, told Muyu that in "The Legend of Mortal Cultivation of Immortality", the "ordinary" of the protagonist Han Li is the charm of the entire work. The author Wangyu of
always compares the protagonist Han Li with other emperors and darlings in the work, comparing their appearance, talent, and family background to highlight Han Li's nothingness. The highlight of the entire work of
is that when the protagonist is inferior to others in all aspects, relies on the forbearance, calculation and caution of a mortal to achieve a counterattack step by step in the world of cultivating immortals where the jungle is strong.
After "The Story of a Mortal Cultivating Immortality", the rise of "Mortal Flow" in online articles proves that this story model has been recognized by the market.
But this kind of role that needs to be "accepted" in the early stage should be played by Yang Yang. Qingfeng said helplessly: "Even if he is completely degreased, I will feel too bright standing there." The distortion of the character will collapse the logic of the entire story.
Screenwriter Lao Ma put forward his own ideas from the perspective of adaptation: some online texts of male videos are not suitable for adaptation.
The core excitement of some of the men's online articles is based on the following points:
1. The classic slap-in-the-face counterattack passage of "Thirty years in Hedong, thirty years in Hexi, don't bully young people who are poor";
2. Upgraded monster-fighting, Entering a new map to continue fighting monsters and upgrading, the feeling of pleasure keeps getting stronger in the process;
3. Some specific male pleasure points, such as "opening a harem", "telling dirty jokes" and "Xu Qi'an hooking up and listening to music";
except for the first point , the other two core cool points have problems. If the process of killing monsters and upgrading is copied into film and television dramas, the plot will fall into a routine; on the other hand, it is not in line with the requirements of mainstream social values, and relevant content cannot be displayed.
Therefore, it is not so difficult to understand that is difficult to highlight in men's online articles and female audiences dominate. It is not so difficult to understand that men's online articles serve female audiences.
In fact, many men's online articles have also achieved this, the most successful one being "Celebrating More Than Years". After the relationship between the male protagonist and other female characters was cut off, instead of viewing "Celebrating More Than Years" as a drama about Fan Xian cheating and counterattacking, it is better to view this drama as a drama about Si Lili and Haitang Duo. After Duo and other attractive female characters were released from the "reverse" emotional line, it is a female group drama with a complete personal main line.
Among them, Fan Xian's mother "Ye Qingmei", who has never appeared before, is the truly invisible heroine in the play. The playback data of
's "Celebrating More Than Years" also proves this. Although male users dominated at the end, female users brought more voice to the series during the broadcast.
New casting question, what about the sequel?
The same problem that plagues casting is, what about the sequel?
has adapted male novels with more than 10 million words into film and television. It has clearly abandoned the use of magical modification to shorten paragraphs, and season broadcasting has become the mainstream.
Take the current "Mortal Cultivation of Immortality" as an example. According to the character list, there is a high probability that the plot of the first season will end at the "Tiannan Chapter" like the anime.
However, according to the experience of the filming of "Qing Yu Nian 2", once the first season is successful, it will be extremely difficult to get the original cast together for the sequel. The least worth mentioning is the increase in actors' salaries. Compared with the rising remuneration, the more difficult part is that cannot finalize the same schedule for all the original creators.
Especially when the first series is so popular that a sequel is to be made.Starring actors will immediately receive offers from other companies, making scheduling a difficult task.
This also limits the ability of traffic actors with many activities and high salaries to star in male-channel IP adaptations.
Based on this, a new casting idea began to appear in the market: like Marvel, plan the sequel, find an actor who fits the original work but has a more cost-effective salary, and negotiate the actor's salary for many seasons at once.
In this mode, content becomes the real winner. Currently, there are relevant discussions in the country, but no company has taken this measure when the prospects are not yet clear.
