Tencent Interactive Entertainment's "posture" for entering the film industry: using IP to control the princes

Recently, I attended the launch conference of Tencent Interactive Entertainment's "Tencent Movie+". After an afternoon of discussion, I had several deep feelings:

1. Tencent Interactive Entertainment's approach to entering the film industry is very different from that of some previous video websites. Tencent Interactive Entertainment, which controls IP, definitely has greater ambitions in the film business. In the future, these films are likely to be invested in by Tencent Interactive Entertainment.

2. Tencent not only hopes to have an advantage in investment ratio, but also emphasizes deep involvement in production, which is also different from other Internet companies in making movies;

3. How valuable are the IPs under Tencent Interactive Entertainment? This is a question that Xiaoyu has been thinking about. Especially for some seemingly low-quality novels such as "The Daughter of a Wealthy Family" and games with simple plots such as "Everyday Cool Run" and " QQ Dance", what kind of tricks can be played in the adaptation of movies?

First of all, Tencent Interactive Entertainment’s “posture”

Before Tencent Interactive Entertainment, Tencent Video had announced its entry into the film industry.

At the Shanghai Film Festival in June this year, Xiaoyu was invited to attend a press conference for Tencent Video's entry into the film business. The theme of the press conference was originally "like a tiger with wings", but the day before the press conference, Yu Dong, chairman of Bona Film Group, said that "the future film industry will work for BAT", which caused an uproar in the industry.

Therefore, Tencent Video temporarily changed the theme of "Like a tiger with wings" to "Adding wings to a tiger". During the entire press conference, it repeatedly emphasized that it had a cooperative relationship with the film company and spoke in a very cautious tone. If I remember correctly, the films invested by Tencent Video are basically small-scale investments, with an investment ratio of about 15% to 20%.

At the press conference, Tencent Vice President and General Manager of Tencent Online Video Department Sun Zhonghuai revealed that since entering the film industry, he unexpectedly discovered that "connections" are the core competitiveness of this industry. Since excellent directors and excellent actors are quite scarce, there are many wealthy companies, but not many can successfully invest in them. The implication is that everyone in the film industry is a big shot and you can't afford to offend them.

In Xiaoyu's understanding, the basis for Tencent Video's investment in movies is that the channel resources owned by the video website have become a powerful tool for movie marketing. Tencent Video hopes to use this channel to gain greater value in the film market. This logic is very similar to the logic of Youku and iQiyi entering the film industry.

For example, Youku has co-produced 8 movies with a total box office of 2 billion yuan, but Youku did not invest a penny in these movies. Instead, it used its own website resources to exchange for investment shares and obtain box office revenue share.

In short, in this model of video websites investing in movies, video websites often play a supporting role, with a low investment ratio, and are mostly in a weak position in the entire film discourse. Moreover, the video industry is highly competitive. For an excellent movie, you can find Youku, Tencent Video, or iQiyi. In fact, no one has an absolute advantage.

But this time, Tencent Interactive Entertainment came out to make movies with a completely different logic and approach. Xiaoyu called it "using IP to control the princes."

Tencent Literature, Tencent Animation, and Tencent Games have accumulated a large number of IPs, and an excellent IP is undoubtedly one of the core values ​​of a movie. Compared with good directors and actors, a good IP has a stronger monetization ability and lower investment risk.

Therefore, Tencent Interactive Entertainment does not want to participate in the investment, but to be the main investor; not only to be the main investor, but also to be deeply involved.

In the words of Tencent COO Ren Yuxin, "We need to bring our understanding of games, animation, and literary content, as well as our understanding of users, into movies, and make movies with Tencent Interactive Entertainment's own characteristics."

Why are you so confident? Because of the IP!

At the previous day's EntEngine Annual Meeting, Shen Haobo, CEO of Motian Books, also had a similar confident speech. Motian Books has published "Zhu Xian", "Those Things in the Ming Dynasty", "Grave Robbers' Chronicles" and "The Legend of Zhen Huan". When Shen Haobo finished reading these titles, the audience in the audience began to scream.

This book industry tycoon said: "When I negotiate with others, they say, 'He has good directors and good actors, I say I have good IP; others say, 'He has big data, I say I have good IP; others say, 'He has Internet marketing, I say I have good IP.'"

In this world, whoever has the IP will rule the world. Those who have the IP will be respected and can use the IP to control the other lords...

Second, how to avoid failure in IP monetization?

Not all IP monetization efforts are successful. Han Han's novel "A City" was poorly adapted into a movie, and Guo Jingming's TV series "Tiny Times" was far less popular than the movie.

A careful analysis shows that the failure of these two works is due to the lack of deep involvement of Han Han and Guo Jingming. The former failed to reach an agreement with Han Han, resulting in the fact that although it was released before "See You Tomorrow", Han Han always regarded "See You Tomorrow" as his first movie and hardly helped promote it. As for the TV series "Tiny Times", Guo Jingming only served as a screenwriter consultant and did not devote himself to it.

On the contrary, the success of the movie version of "Tiny Times" and the movie "See You Tomorrow" is largely due to the deep involvement of Guo Jingming and Han Han. In previous media reports, the publicity staff of "See You Tomorrow" once lamented that when the project started, they realized that "Han Han is everything."

Therefore, Tencent Interactive Entertainment’s film plan this time places great emphasis on deep involvement.

Chen Yingjie, general manager of the content and copyright business department of Tencent Interactive Entertainment, said that we are not simply licensing, we want to participate in the entire production. Tencent Games, Tencent Literature and Tencent Animation all have gold medal planners, producers and screenwriters behind them, and they are all storytellers. Tencent Interactive Entertainment also conducts research on user data behind IPs. We hope that everyone will participate in what direction users hope to go in the future. Users are God.

Even in the future, after a movie is released, if it is really good, it can be used on platforms such as Tencent Literature to incubate an imaginative and fantastic story, generating more energy through media and mobile Internet.

Third, how valuable is Tencent’s IP?

Let’s take a look at what these IPs are like.

Games: "God of War", "QQ Speed", "Everyday Cool Run", "QQ Dance"

Animation: "Lock Kingdom" and "Corpse Brothers"

Literature: Treasure Map (by Mo Yan)

These seven IPs will be given priority to be adapted into movies. In addition, in terms of literature, Tencent also recommended the fantasy novel "Fighter of the Destiny", the science fiction novel "Starry Nobles", the urban novel "Rebirth: Don't Mess with the Rich Daughter" and the ancient romance novel "Phoenix Palace".

When hearing the term "rich daughter", Xiaoyu couldn't help but think of novels like "The Domineering CEO Falls in Love with Me", so she began to discuss with the media people around her, how much value do these seemingly low-end IPs have?

It has to be admitted that there are no works such as "White Night Walk", "The Three-Body Problem" and "The Legend of Zhen Huan" on the Tencent Literature platform.

On the same day, listed gaming company Youzu Interactive announced that its subsidiary Youzu Pictures has obtained the adaptation rights to the famous science fiction novel "The Three-Body Problem". In addition to launching an adapted film, Youzu Interactive also plans to launch 5-6 game products adapted from "The Three-Body Problem".

Moreover, the plots of games like "Everyday Cool Run" and "QQ Dance" are quite simple. How many people would buy them if they were adapted into movies? If a game like "QQ Speed" were to be made into a movie, it would inevitably involve a series of car chases. However, with the production standards in mainland China, can such scenes really be done well?

When Xiaoyu was discussing with another media person next to her, she reminded me that on Tencent's platform, many of these IPs have received tens of millions of paid clicks. Note that this is paid, and some IPs have even received 4 billion free clicks. In other words, there is at least a basic audience, and as long as these fans can be served well and costs can be controlled, money should be made in the film market.

More importantly, Tencent Interactive Entertainment hopes to enhance these IPs through movies and increase the value of IPs. Of course, the final effect still depends on the market test.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.