" Kung Fu Panda 4" has a box office of over 150 million within three days of its release, and leads the way with 27.5% of the film schedule. It can be said to be the most popular imported movie so far this year.
Itâs no surprise that this movie is so popular.
On the one hand, "Kung Fu Panda 4" has a pretty good story and entertainment. This series has reached the fourth part. The screenwriter has opened up a new story direction for the sequel, and also introduced new characters such as Phantom Queen and Xiao Zhen. As a result, the Dragon Warrior Po has also embarked on a new journey and faced new tests.
is different from the previous work. This time the Furious Five are absent, but this is not a shortcoming. The movie will spend time on the five characters, focusing on A Bao, A Bao's two fathers and new characters, deepening character creation and exploration. It has a lot of laughs, so "Kung Fu Panda 4" has good laughs, and from time to time there are passages that make the audience laugh collectively.
On the other hand, the sequel still continues a lot of Chinese elements inherited from the previous game, and the Mandarin dubbing cast is also very attractive. Compared with other Hollywood blockbusters, "Kung Fu Panda 4" is more approachable and can naturally attract both children and adult audiences. .
There is another point. Although this sequel has the meaning of old wine in old bottles, this time it is deeper in theme and more educational. The interpretation of change and immutability, coping with challenges, and shouldering responsibilities is very good. It is very educational for children and is indeed worth watching.
What I want to talk about next is other than the movie, the capital behind it.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the "Kung Fu Panda" series is a cash cow in the field of animated films. The domestic box office of the first three films was 186 million, 611 million, and 1 billion respectively. The global box office was 385 million, 658 million, and 304 million. First, Remember this set of numbers.
The beginning of the series "Kung Fu Panda" was released globally in 2008. It was jointly developed by Paramount and DreamWorks, which was acquired by them in 2005. It was very business-minded from the beginning of preparation. At that time, China had become the world's second largest movie market, and the film studio The two major markets of North America and China are both available. Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie and other big names are dubbing the film, and Hans Zimmer is invited to score the music. In order to please the Chinese audience, not only the protagonist is a panda, the movie is full of Chinese elements, but also Jackie Chan was invited to dub. Laying the foundation for box office success.
However, what is more dramatic than the plot of the movie is that the capital behind it has been flowing from the creation period of the movie. After the release of "Kung Fu Panda", Paramount and DreamWorks officially separated. However, the "Kung Fu Panda" series continued to be created, so the only producer of "Kung Fu Panda 2" was DreamWorks, and Paramount "stepped back" to take over the film distribution work. Also participating in the distribution was Disney's 20th Century Fox and China's China Film, Huaxia and so on.
Looking back at the above set of numbers, "Kung Fu Panda 2" was very successful at the box office, with a global box office of 658 million. This made this series a big cake, and everyone wanted to take a bite. So, when it came to "Kung Fu Panda 3", The capital behind it has undergone earth-shaking changes.
When "Kung Fu Panda 3" was released in 2016, Paramount had no trouble at all. But after switching to 20th Century Fox, DreamWorks also seemed a little helpless. Another opportunity was the Chinese film market in those years. It has developed rapidly and has surpassed North America to become the world's largest film market. With more say and bargaining power, the capital behind "Kung Fu Panda 3" has undergone earth-shaking changes.
On the one hand, the two main producers were changed to China Film and DreamWorks, which is equivalent to the development of "Kung Fu Panda 3" by these two companies. This is not to mention, in order to further localize the movie, a company named As a company of "Oriental DreamWorks", this Sino-US joint venture was jointly established by Chinese Culture, Shanghai Media, Shanghai United Investment Co., Ltd. and DreamWorks Animation.
Do you still remember the logo at the beginning of "Kung Fu Panda 3"? The moon logo of DreamWorks has a panda sitting on it. It looks like the company was established to develop this series. After all, the establishment of this company is to ensure that Chinese companies can get more profits from the box office, and to facilitate more cultural output.
However, the good times did not last long. Although "Kung Fu Panda 3" grossed 1 billion at the domestic box office, the global box office was less than half of the previous film. Therefore, the two parties failed to strike while the iron was hot and quickly launched a sequel. The company also existed in name only. Oriental DreamWorks later developed two works, " Snowman " and " Flying to the Moon ", both of which failed at the box office. In 2021, it officially announced three works of "Naihe", "Extreme Shore" and "Star Wish", but now we see It should have been shelved. The biggest blow is that now that "Kung Fu Panda 4" is released, it has nothing to do with this joint venture. This is actually the result of capital wrestling. Let's continue to look down.
After the release of "Kung Fu Panda 3", DreamWorks' own life was not easy and it needed to find a bigger backer. So in 2018, NBC Universal acquired DreamWorks Animation, which was equivalent to being merged by Universal Pictures. The company
is gone and IP has changed owners. The new owner Universal Pictures has no interest in Oriental DreamWorks, which was established by DreamWorks and a Chinese company. What's more, the global box office of "Kung Fu Panda 3" is not very satisfactory. The fourth part will be Oriental DreamWorks. It makes sense to be kicked out, so the "Kung Fu Panda 4" released this time not only has nothing to do with Oriental DreamWorks, but DreamWorks doesn't even appear in the title sequence.
However, Universal Pictures holds this IP, and the results of the works developed are not very good. As of press time, the global box office has reached 230 million US dollars. There is little hope of surpassing "Kung Fu Panda 2". It is also difficult to catch up with the previous one, except The reason for the movie itself is also to blame, and the movie market has changed a lot. "Kung Fu Panda 4" was not born at the right time!
