Picture source @Visual China
Text | Mouyu
If Zhang Yimou's comedy movie "Article 20" and the animated movie "Nezha 2: The Devil Boy Havoc" were placed in front of you at the same time, which one would you choose to watch? Enlight Media, the producer of
, has made the choice for everyone. "Article 20" has officially announced that it will be released on the first day of the Lunar New Year. This also means that "Nezha 2", which the public and the market have been waiting for for a long time, will not be released during the Spring Festival.
During the 2024 Spring Festival movie market, Enlight Media chose to bet on Zhang Yimou's comedy. It is not difficult to understand. After all, Zhang Yimou's "The River is Red" and "Sturdy as a Rock" in 2023 are the highest-grossing films participated by Enlight. Two parts.
also means that although has made frequent moves in the animated film market, feature films are still one of Enlight Media’s advantages in leading the film market.
And to some extent, this can also reflect Enlight Media’s business focus in 2024: live-action and animation, it all requires .
01 Live-action movie or animated movie?
It is actually difficult to say clearly whether the audience and the market prefer "Article 20" or "Nezha 2".
is also a key project of Enlight Media in 2024. The highlight of "Article 20" is director Zhang Yimou and the comedy theme. The more attractive aspect of "Nezha 2" is the influence of the animation IP and previous works.
Enlight Media chose to bring out "Article 20" to join the Spring Festival melee, simply because of two considerations:
One is affected by the characteristics of the Spring Festival market, family comedy is more suitable for this special period , and the 2024 Spring Festival period has already Among the five live-action movies scheduled for release, four of them are comedies. The unified bet of the first film company also proves that the Spring Festival is indeed the world of comedy;
The second is that the influence of Zhang Yimou’s personal IP brand has been verified in the Spring Festival , 2023 The box-office champion "Man Jiang Hong" during the Spring Festival last year was produced by Zhang Yimou. Enlight Media also participated in "Man Jiang Hong", resulting in a year-on-year increase of 63.38% in net profit in the first quarter of 2023.
According to Mouyu statistics, Enlight Media participated in and released 9 movies in 2023, with a cumulative box office of 8.437 billion yuan. Among them, the two movies "Man Jiang Hong" and "Sturdy as a Rock" directed by Zhang Yimou accounted for 69% of the total box office. %.
From the perspective of box office profitability, Enlight Media's choice to launch "Article 20" during the Spring Festival is actually a safer and more stable operation.
But judging from the market attention, there is no doubt that "Nezha 2" is a higher than "Article 20".
As an animation IP that once won 5 billion box office, "Nezha 2" shoulders the important task of the rise of Chinese comics. On the other hand, is a key project for Enlight Media to continue to develop the animated film industry and lay out the mythical universe of Chinese comics. The market expectations of cannot be underestimated.
In fact, it is not difficult to see from the positioning of "Article 20" and "Nezha 2" that live-action movies and animated movies have different meanings to Enlight Media:
Live-action movies are the main ticket bank of Enlight Media, and Enlight Media The media's layout of animated films is for the purpose of enhancing core competitiveness and increasing participation in the film market, so both live-action and animation must be grasped.
But from the perspective of the entire film market, there is no doubt that animated films must be Enlight Media’s most anticipated and watched project in the industry.
02 In 2024, Enlight Media ushered in the first year of animated films
Among the nearly 20 leading film and television companies in the industry, Enlight Media is the earliest and has the largest investment in the animation market. It can be said to be the pioneer in the domestic animated film track . In 2024, Enlight Media will continue to promote the development of the animated film industry.
At present, there are two brands under Enlight Media that focus on deeply exploring the animation industry. , one is Horgos Color Bar House established in 2015, and the other is Light Animation , which will be newly established in 2022. The two major brands divide work and cooperate to jointly Established the animation production system of Light Media.
Caitiaowu is the largest animation film label in China. It is mainly responsible for foreign investment in . It has invested in nearly 20 first-class animation production teams, such as the production team of "Big Fish and Begonia" Biantian, and the production team of "Deep Sea" Shenhai As of October, the cumulative box office of animated films produced and distributed by Caitiaowu has exceeded 10 billion.
and Light Animation was established to produce Light Media’s own animated film . It is mainly responsible for Light’s Chinese Mythology Universe project. It is currently in the early development stage, sorting out and building the “Chinese Mythology Universe” system, and has not yet If the completed film projects go well, the first film "Xiao Qian" may be released in 2024.
With one external investment and one internal production, Enlight Media’s animation production system has gradually improved. Enlight Media’s 2023 mid-term report shows that the company currently has nearly 40 films being promoted in stages, more than half of which are animated films. .
It is obvious that Enlight Media will continue to make efforts in the animation industry in 2024 and even in the future. It will also inevitably widen the gap with other leading film companies in the animated film track and form its own brand effect with differentiated content.
However, an unavoidable problem is that compared to live-action movies, animated movies do reduce part of the salary expenses, but the production cycle of high-quality animated movies is relatively long, generally around four to five years. In the view of , Development efficiency will inevitably become a major constraint for Enlight Media to build the animation industry.
Although Enlight Media already owns two major brands, Color Bar House and Light Animation, due to the large size of the entire Mythical Universe system and too many development projects, Enlight Media’s existing production capacity cannot meet the development needs, which has also resulted in a far lower production capacity. not enough.
Throughout 2023, Enlight Media has only released two animated films. Among them, the production cycle of "Deep Sea" is as long as seven years. Although there have been innovations and breakthroughs in production technology, the investment has also increased as a result. In the end, will the film studio respond? Ben couldn't be sure.
In 2024, Guangwang's investment in animated films will continue to increase. Whether it is "Nezha 2" or "Xiao Qian", the first movie in the Chinese mythological universe, whether it can be profitable actually depends entirely on the box office, which to some extent The above and reflect another problem that Enlight Media has in the layout of the animation industry, that is, the business model is single and completely dependent on box office revenue .
Enlight Media’s content attributes are very obvious. Its absolute main business is the production of movie content. According to Enlight Media’s 2022 annual report, the revenue from movies and related derivative businesses accounted for 78.57% of the annual revenue, and the brokerage business revenue accounted for 78.57% of the annual revenue. to 21.39%. Compared with other leading film companies such as Alibaba and China Film Group, Enlight does not have a large-scale layout in the theater business and offline live entertainment business, which will affect the anti-risk ability of to a certain extent.
Taking the two together, once the development efficiency of animated movies does not meet expectations and the movie project fails to be released as scheduled, Light, which mainly relies on box office revenue, will inevitably be affected.
So this also goes back to what was mentioned above. Although Raytheon invests heavily in developing the animation industry, it will never abandon its main ticket sales of live-action movies, both live-action and animation.
03 ai, the next "protagonist" of Enlight Media
In the internal letter to Enlight employees in 2023 by Wang Changtian, chairman of Enlight Media, he has actually revealed the key development direction of Enlight in 2024 and even in the next few years - ai technology and content creation Combined with .
From the perspective of the entire film and television industry, AI technology is developing faster and faster, and its application scope is becoming more and more extensive. Many leading film and television companies are actively exploring the application of AI technology in film and television content production. and Mouyu believe , the advancement of AI technology has helped Enlight Media the most, especially .
Light takes animated films as one of its main businesses, and the production of animation mainly relies on digital and technical tools, and AI technology will play a greater role in it.
On the one hand, there are indeed deficiencies in the development efficiency of Light Media animation projects, and AI technology can actually improve production efficiency. , for example, uses AI to generate animation performances, special effects, details, including the rendering of some animated movie scenes, which can greatly reduce production team’s workload and increase productivity. If Enlight Media originally could only release two to three animated films a year, then after applying AI technology, the production of animated films may be increased to about five.
On the other hand, for leading film and television companies like Enlight Media, there are so many projects developed every year, and there is a lot of pressure on script creation, which will affect the development speed of the project to a certain extent, while ai and chatgpt It can improve the efficiency of script creation .
Wang Changtian spared no effort to express his optimism about AI technology in film and television content creation in an internal letter to employees, and emphasized that he will try to participate in the development and application of AI in film and television segments in the future. However, the problem is that although the market is optimistic about AI technology, the audience I don’t have much favorable impression of AI.
In essence, AI technology is production synthesis, and the entire creative process is mechanical. For the content creation industry that requires investment of emotion and soul, AI can never replace the creative thinking of real people, so it has also been resisted by some creators. .
In fact, AI technology is a tool with very obvious advantages and disadvantages. It is true that it can improve the efficiency of content creation, but there is really no way to guarantee quality. What Light Media needs to do is how to further improve the quality of content on the basis of ensuring it. Improve efficiency and optimize the content creation system.
solves this problem. Perhaps the application of AI technology can become a major "killer" for Enlight Media in the production of live-action and animated films. The increase in production capacity can also make Enlight Media's business model single and risk-resistant to a certain extent. The problem of deficiencies is alleviated.
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