Text | New Voice Pro, Author | Mao Lina With the launch of "Sauvignon Blanc Season 2", the fierce battle for costume dramas this year has entered a fierce battle. As the biggest hit during last summer's summer vacation, "Sauvignon Blanc Season 1" won the popularity of Tencent dra

text | New Voice Pro, author | Mao Lina

With the launch of "Sauvignon Blanc Season 2", the fierce battle for costume dramas this year has entered a fierce battle.

As the biggest hit during the summer vacation last year, "Sauvignon Blanc Season 1" won the popularity of Tencent drama series on the site during the broadcast, Tencent's New Year's list TV series, the number of Tencent drama series investment brands, Tencent drama Yunhekuyun playback volume, Tencent It ranks first in the average number of views of the single-broadcast online drama cloud collection. "Sauvignon Blanc Season 2" has become popular before it is aired, and the feature film has not yet been released. Hot searches for related characters have already dominated many social platforms. Whether it is the platform, the production company or the market, they have high hopes for it, which also makes this year's costume drama king. more competitive.

Judging from the drama market in the first half of this year, whether it is the overall number or the probability of hits, ancient costumes still occupy the core position.

Zhao Liying and Lin Gengxin's " and Feng Xing " was launched in March and topped multiple charts on its first day. After the completion of "Traveling with the Phoenix", "Celebrating More Than Years 2" further heated up the costume market. It broke through 30,000 popularity points in 57 minutes on the first day of its launch, becoming the fastest drama series to reach 30,000 on the Tencent platform, and with 2.646 billion feature films. The number of views topped the Beacon Professional Edition h1 TV series ranking list.

"Celebrating More Than Years 2" is coming to an end, and Youku's "Mo Yu Yunjian" will take over. As the TV drama with the fastest popularity value to reach 10,000 points on Youku in 2024, "Mo Yu Yun Jian" has been ranked top 8 on the site including the TV series popularity list and the Youku V list popularity list, and even boosted the downloads of the Youku app.

Among the film lists released by several parent video platforms, costume is also the most important project reserve direction. The group of production companies and creators behind these projects have also become the core production capacity for competition and cooperation among various platforms. At the same time, a group of leading production companies, represented by Ningmeng, are also integrating ancient costumes into the process of product development. as one of the core directions.

In a competitive situation that can be called the Red Sea, it is not only faced with the changing aesthetic needs of users, but also the objective dilemma of the industry with serious homogeneity and difficulty in innovation. Although there have not yet been disruptive changes, some changes have begun to appear in the ancient costume track. With the new trend of consensus content, many platforms have also begun to focus on establishing their own brand style, and even use it as an opportunity to overtake in corners.

Costume is still the market leader

Costume IP drama is still a key project of each platform, and it can effectively attract market attention.

"Traveling with the Phoenix" less than 26 hours after it was aired, the popularity on the site exceeded 30,000, becoming the fastest drama to break 10,000 on the Tencent Video site at that time, and winning 23 brands; The popularity exceeded 30,000, attracting 55 brands.

"Mo Yu Yun Jian" was not favored by the market before it was aired. After the airing became a hit, brands followed suit. Advertisers doubled within 5 days of its launch, and the number of brands reached 42 when it was completed. Even "Fox Fairy Matchmaker: Moon Red", which did not perform as well as expected after its launch, received investment from 35 brands.

It can be seen that no matter how the drama market changes, the core position of costume dramas in the market is difficult to shake, and brands are willing to pay for it.

Among the recent film lists released by various platforms, costume dramas are still a major category, and historical dramas will become the focus of the platform.

At the iQiyi World Conference in April this year, iQiyi released two major sections: "Legend of the East" and "Jiang Hu Chapter", a total of 14 costume dramas. "Moon Red Chapter" and "Yan Xin Ji" have already met the audience. , the remaining 12 are in the waiting sequence.

Among them, "Bamboo Industry Chapter" and "King Power Chapter" and the already aired "Moon Red Chapter" belong to the national comic IP " Fox Demon Little Matchmaker " sequence, and "July Snow" is adapted from the "new martial arts writer" Cang Yue of the same name. The work, "The Big Dream Returns" is directed by Guo Jingming, and the story is derived from " Shan Hai Jing ". "The Strange Stories of the Tang Dynasty: Journey to the West" is jointly produced by iQiyi and Changxin Media, supervised by Guo Jingyu, and belongs to the "Tang Dynasty" series IP. "Night Never Harvest" is a costume war drama that depicts the special forces of the Ming Dynasty. It has only 18 episodes.

In addition, iQiyi’s “Condensation Project” also has many historical dramas to be broadcast. "Fu of the Tang Dynasty" and "Fu of the Han Dynasty" are jointly produced by iQiyi and CCTV, while "Fifteen Days in Two Capitals" is adapted from Ma Boyong's novel of the same name.

In Tencent Video's costume drama reserve, there are also two Ma Boyong IP dramas, " Chang'an's Lychee " and "The Disciple of the South Eater". There is also another one produced by Goose Factory and Xinli, which is nicknamed "The Big Pie" The historical drama "Zhang Juzheng" is to be aired.

In the costume drama market in the first half of this year, Youku performed very well. Taking advantage of this momentum, Youku's Pampered Theater has recently been officially upgraded to "Shenghua Theater", and there will be 6 costume dramas in the future.

"Spring Flowers" is produced by Youku, co-produced by Curiosity Pictures and Perfect World Pictures, and is regarded as Youku's next dark horse in costumes. "Jade Curtain" fulfills the audience's wish to see the duo of Liu Yuning and Zhao Lusi, and is also a strong contender for dark horse dramas. "The Rise of Time" stars the powerful actress Reyza and is produced by Youku and Alibaba Pictures. It is a legendary drama of the age of women.

In addition, Youku also has reserves in historical dramas. The drama version of "The Legend of Wang Yangming" is directed by Zhang Yongxin, director of "The Age of Awakening", with Liu Heping serving as literary consultant. "The Code of Along the River During the Qingming Festival", which was launched in October last year, stars Zhang Songwen and Bai Baihe and is produced by Kung Fu Pictures. It is also one of Youku's key costume projects.

Who is in charge of the prosperous period of ancient costumes

The popularity of "Mo Yu Yun Jian" has once again proved the core competitiveness and irreplaceability of Huanyu Film and Television in the ancient costume genre. Currently, Huanyu Film and Television has another film called "Five Blessings" to be aired, with Yu Zheng serving as the chief producer. It is an urban costume comedy.

Xixi Pictures is also one of the strong drama companies in the costume genre. "Good at doing costume dramas" has always been the most important label for Yang Xiaopei, the founder and CEO of Xixi. She has participated in the production of costume dramas such as "Lonely Empty Courtyard", "Choose Heaven" and "Swinging". After the establishment of Xixi Pictures, "Eternal Jue Chen" and " Let's Try the World " established its position in the costume genre.

Relying on its advantages in the costume track, Xixi Pictures has been developing towards diversification in recent years, but it still maintains a production rate of 1-2 costume dramas per year. During the Shanghai TV Festival, Xixi Pictures announced three costume drama project reserves: "Like Brocade", "White Lord" and "Hu Shanwei". Among them, "Hu Shanwei" is an adaptation of a real historical figure that it has not been involved in before.

In 2018, Xinli Media joined China Literature Group and became an important part of its content industry chain. This "innate advantage" makes Xinli Media closer to good stories than other drama companies.

Xinli is behind the popular dramas "Traveling with the Phoenix" and "Qing Yu Nian 2" in the first half of the year. In addition, in the follow-up reserves, Xinli also has the costume fantasy detective drama " Da Feng Da Feng Men " and The historical and biographical drama "The End of the Wind, Zhang Juzheng" are two dramas to be aired that are extremely popular.

In recent years, many new forces have emerged on the costume drama track.

"Kwok's aesthetics" has been widely recognized by the market. After the broadcast of "Yunzhiyu", Guo Jingming's Shishi Culture has also become a new force in costume dramas by virtue of its magnificent polishing of the way of service. The popularity of "Canglan Jue" in 2022 has made Stellar Gravity gain word-of-mouth recognition. iQiyi's upcoming "Bamboo Industry" and "King Power" and Tencent Video's upcoming "Eternal Night Galaxy" and "Ancient Music Fenghua" "Records" are all produced by the gravity of stars. Writer Tong Hua and his best friend Tang Panjing founded Xinglian Film and Television. "Sauvignon Blanc Part 1" is the company's second work after its establishment.

In addition to the old and new forces, there are also leading drama companies that are constantly expanding into the costume track.

Ningmeng Film and Television, which specializes in realistic themes, entered the costume track with "One Thought Guanshan" at the end of last year. The first sister Liu Shishi paired with the popular youngster Liu Yuning, which effectively attracted market attention and gave Ningmeng a good start in the costume track. In addition, Ningmeng also reserves "Book and Dream", "Returning at Midnight", "Moonlight Thousand Miles" and "One Thought Jiangnan" which belongs to the "One Thought" series.

has launched the 2023 first hit "Hurry". The blank films and TV shows are quite special. They have a deep binding relationship with Ma Boyong's IP, such as "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an", "The Silk Case of the Ming Dynasty under the Microscope", and Ma Boyong's IP drama "Chang'an's Lychee" is to be aired on Tencent Video.

The direction of the water flow is changing.

After looking at the platforms and drama company’s reserves for broadcast, it is not difficult to find that the direction of the water flow on the costume track has quietly changed. We may be able to explore future trends from three directions: content, visuals and character relationships.

Let’s talk about the overall content trend first.

When talking about costume dramas in the past, it must be a combination of big IP + big stars, but now the costume + genre has become a new direction in the industry. To some extent, type is the most direct way to create differentiation.

Changxin Media's "Tang Dynasty Weird Stories" is a representative example. A large amount of content and elements related to ancient Chinese supernatural novels are incorporated into the narrative. "Tang Gui" completed the genre innovation of "costume + fantasy", and gained reputation and a group of die-hard fans as a dark horse that year.

In addition to "Tang Gui" which adds strange elements to traditional costumes, "The Wind Rises in Longxi" directed by Lu Yang integrates the spy genre, "Flower Room" and "Yan Xin Ji" borrow the mature genre of suspense to " Represented by "Tian Geng Ji", farming, a mature genre in the field of online literature, has been implemented in costume dramas.

let’s talk about vision. Aesthetic expression is like a watermark on a product, and it is also an important part of differentiation.

In this regard, Guo Jingming’s most outstanding performance in the world’s culture is that “beauty” has even become the most important label for the world’s products. Huanyu also continues to work hard on aesthetics. Before and after each drama is broadcast, Yu Zhengbi shares the source of aesthetic inspiration and research process on social platforms. This year's pearl makeup in "In the Clouds" also caused a heated discussion on the Internet. Maintaining a high degree of unity in concept design, CG graphics, actor makeup, and even promotional posters, Stellar Gravity has established a clear aesthetic perception on both the b-end and c-end.

Finally, there is the relationship between characters. In fact, in the field of costume, innovation in character relationships is the most likely to trigger discussions on the audience side.

"Sauvignon Blanc" became an instant hit in the summer of 2023. Its character relationship setting of one woman against many men is an important source of freshness; in the later period of the broadcast of "Mo Yu Yun Jian", the discussion on the emotional relationship between the male and female protagonists It has gone far beyond the revenge story line, and the extra story launched by Youku also focuses on the married life of the two. In the currently airing "Hua Hua Nian", the multi-person rebirth setting makes the character relationships more varied and extends a larger character relationship network.

The underlying idea is to create a character relationship that is more in line with the current mood and value perception of young people. It not only needs to provide new ideas, but also avoid suspension. The adaptation of the male and female protagonists in "Seven Occasions" was once considered by some viewers It reduces the charm of the story and makes it difficult to substitute. Within some film and television companies, "realistic costume" has become a keyword used to point to the creation of costumes with a more realistic feel. In addition to the changes in the general trend of

, around the red ocean category of ancient costume, represented by Tencent and Youku, the platform began to show some differences and form its own style and characteristics.

is based on Yuewen IP. Although there are also special content such as "Nine Righteous People" and "Lan Gui's Happy Event" online, dramas adapted from IP are still the main line of Tencent's costume content. For example, "Dafeng Watchman" and "Chang'an's Lychee" still belong to the category of big IP + big star + big production.

Youku, which has frequently appeared in dark horse TV dramas this year, has gradually formed a relatively distinctive content label, and has repeatedly achieved the effect of using small to expand.

First of all, it is a clear audience portrait of young women. On top of this, the costume dramas currently launched by Youku have the characteristics of strong concepts, strong sense of enjoyment and heavy CP creation, and stimulate user discussions by enriching character relationships.

's "The Year of the Flower", which succeeded "Mo Yu Yun Jian", has a distinctive label that makes people "take a look at Youku". It integrates multiple elements such as twins and reunions. Although the production accuracy and story rigor are subject to discussion, " "Spending Time" is still gaining popularity due to its "good taste". For the audience, this is a new certainty.