Fans are productivity. The Internet subverts the rules of the game for Chinese films

For China's traditional big-name directors such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and Feng Xiaogang, how do they feel when the films they worked so hard on and spent several years to shoot ultimately do not perform as well at the box office as a film directed by a crossover actor, or a film shot by a writer in several months and which sparked countless controversies?

Indeed, when films directed by actors and writers such as "Lost in Thailand", "A Love So Beautiful", "The Breakup Master", "Tiny Times" series, and "See You Tomorrow" easily made over 100 million yuan at the box office, or even broke 1 billion yuan, perhaps they were announcing the arrival of a new era in the Chinese film industry: "fan economy" and the Internet are profoundly changing the rules of the game for Chinese films.

"Fans" are productivity

A new "cross-border" director who has been hotly discussed recently is expected to be unveiled soon.

Although the person involved responded with "Haha", it may have been confirmed that Hunan TV's top host He Jiong will make his directorial debut with "Gardenia Blossoms".

As a successful host, He Jiong is also planning to cross over to become a director, probably attracted by previous successful cases.

From the release of Tiny Times 1 in 2013 to the release of Tiny Times 3 this year, the series of films directed by the popular figure Guo Jingming has set new box office records for domestic films amid controversy. Statistics show that as of August 5, the total box office of the three Tiny Times films has exceeded 1.3 billion yuan.

"If "Tiny Times" had not been directed by Guo Jingming himself, few people would dare to invest in it." Faced with the impressive box office of the "Tiny Times" series, an industry insider pointed out bluntly.

So, when faced with the "newcomer" Guo Jingming in the director circle, what are the reasons that prompted investors to dare to invest?

The answer given by Cao Haitao, managing director of Broad Venture Capital, is: count the number of “fans”.

"They have tens of millions of fans on Weibo, so as long as 1% of those fans go to see the movie, the movie will not lose money." According to Cao Haitao, before investing in a movie, investors must first obtain the fan power survey results from different companies on everyone from directors to main actors.

The reason behind this is that after the development of social networks, the appeal of celebrities has been demonstrated through intuitive data, and whether a person is popular or not can be seen clearly on the Internet.

Peng Kan, director of R&D and consulting at Lezheng Media, believes that the development of social networks has given these cross-border stars and investors confidence. Stars can directly feel the value that their influence can bring, and investors have also seen this.

"Recently there was news that Chyi Chin will join the movie 'Somewhere Winter'. If Chyi Chin had not made any contribution to this movie, I believe half as many people would watch it," Cao Haitao added.

However, the above-mentioned industry insiders also told the reporter of "China Business Daily" that these stars and directors who have crossed over into the film industry are often not really "directors". Many professional problems in filming need to be solved by professionals such as technical instructors, consultants, and assistant directors. The name of the director may be used more for marketing considerations.

Although he was reluctant to characterize his "Tiny Times" as a fan film, Guo Jingming also admitted in a previous media interview: "Every time a book is released, there is accurate data. I know very clearly what kind of people like this book, including fans of Yang Mi, Amber Kuo, and Ke Zhendong. We have conducted surveys on them."

Survey data provided by Endata Consulting shows that among the top ten provinces and cities in terms of box office on the first day of "Tiny Times 3", eight of them overlap with the top ten provinces and cities in terms of the geographical distribution of Guo Jingming's personal fans, and the box office share and fan distribution share of the other six provinces and cities, except Beijing and Guangdong, are very close.

In comparison, "Old Boy: Way of the Dragon", which was also invested by LeTV Pictures and grossed over 200 million yuan at the box office, once faced difficulties in promoting the film because it did not have the fan halo of stars such as Guo Jingming and Yang Mi in "Tiny Times".

According to Zhang Zhao, CEO of LeTV Pictures, it was really difficult when they first started making "Old Boy" and they hadn't figured out how to get the entertainment media to put Xiao Yang on the headlines. The film was originally scheduled to be released on May 1, but due to insufficient publicity, it could not be released as scheduled.

"Later, I decided to take another gamble and go back to videos. We made four MVs, and the first one we promoted was "Little Apple ." We didn't expect it to become so popular all of a sudden," Zhang Zhao explained.

"Star Director" = Product Manager

After gaining a large number of fans, what these new cross-border directors have to do is actually very simple: fully meet the needs of their fans.

Interestingly, before the release of the Tiny Times series, some people predicted that the box office would show a decreasing trend of “400 million, 300 million, 200 million, 100 million”, because from the perspective of the traditional film industry’s business model, Tiny Times had a strong negative reputation and fewer and fewer people would watch it. In fact, when filming the third and fourth Tiny Times series, Guo Jingming also found Zhang Zhao to discuss how to film the next story.

"If you make it more adult and change the worldview to an adult one, the pressure will be less." But Zhang Zhao clearly knows that the business model of this series of movies is based on the fan economy. "The way we communicate with fans is to let them tell us what they are not satisfied with in the first and second parts. As a result, they feel that it is not 'Tiny Times' enough, so we follow the fans' opinions."

For directors like Han Han and Guo Jingming who have fan economy, the promotion and distribution of their films must also start from the perspective of fans.

Due to its good interactivity and communication capabilities, Weibo is considered to be the most ideal platform for fan marketing.

It is reported that within 184 days from the announcement of the project of "See You Tomorrow" on January 6 to 15 days before the film was released on July 9, according to incomplete statistics, Han Han posted a total of 84 related Weibo posts, about one every two days.

In contrast, from the announcement of the project of "Tiny Times 1" on Weibo on November 9, 2012 to 10 days before the film was released on June 17, 2013, within 220 days, according to incomplete statistics, Guo Jingming also posted 148 related Weibo posts on his personal Weibo, about one post every day and a half.

Cao Haitao said that nowadays the main role of many film publicity and distribution teams is to create topics on social media such as Weibo and WeChat and spread the word from the perspective of Internet users. Compared with traditional methods such as purchasing subway and bus advertisements, the influence of these Internet communication methods cannot be underestimated.

In this regard, Zhang Zhao told the reporter of China Business News that, to a certain extent, Guo Jingming is not a director, but a successful product manager, and Tiny Times is a film product made by this product manager. "He made a real film product, a classic example of fan economy. Other directors can also be product managers, but most are unwilling to do so because product managers need to humble themselves and serve the user experience completely."

The double-edged sword of super high returns

However, compared with the process of film creation, promotion and distribution, what excites investors the most is the return on investment of films directed by new directors.

According to the current film profit-sharing principle, the producer can get about 40% of the box office revenue, and after deducting various expenses such as publicity, distribution, and taxes, the producer's net income is generally 20% to 30% of the box office. According to industry data, under normal circumstances, a movie's box office revenue must be at least 3 to 4 times the investment to recover the investment.

However, the low-budget films by "newcomers" such as Xu Zheng, Zhao Wei, Deng Chao, Guo Jingming, and Han Han have achieved astonishing box office results.

Among them, the film "Lost in Thailand" directed by Xu Zheng achieved a box office of over 1.2 billion yuan, allowing Guangguang Media (300251.SZ) to successfully advance into the ranks of top production companies.

"The box office is 10 times the investment, which is our goal as an Internet film company. The return on investment of Tiny Times is much higher than this." Zhang Zhao recently estimated that after Tiny Times 4: The Soul's End is released during the 2015 Spring Festival, the box office of this series of movies will reach 2 billion yuan.

"We are used to viewing directors like Zhang Yimou and Feng Xiaogang as important traditional industries, while new directors like Han Han and Guo Jingming represent the Internet new media industry. They use Internet thinking to produce, promote and distribute films, and we also want to invest in such an emerging industry," Cao Haitao explained.

Some industry insiders admit that fans control users, and users are the foundation of the Internet industry. In the future, as long as there is a fan economy or a large number of users, "Milk Tea Sister", JD.com, Jumei, Jiayuan.com, Baihe.com , etc. can all make movies, using users and matching them with a suitable Internet promotion team.

In Cao Haitao's opinion, the first half of this year can be regarded as a weak year for Chinese films from an investment perspective. Especially when the film revenues of Huayi Brothers and Enlight Media were not ideal, the emerging Internet model and the user-first fan economy concept attracted more attention in this weak year for films.

But the disadvantage of the eyeball economy is that the hot spots are fleeting, which makes the sustainability of the Internet yet to be tested. According to statistics, from 2009 to 2014, the most popular domestic films were Let the Bullets Fly, Love Is Not Blind, Lost in Thailand, Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons and Havoc in Heaven, and none of them had the same cast and subject matter.

In this regard, Professor Shi Chuan of Shanghai Theatre Academy told the reporter of China Business News: "Now there is a trend that it seems that it is easy to succeed in cross-border business, but it is actually not the case. Film is actually an industry with high professional thresholds, with high investment and heavy equipment. It is actually quite risky for celebrities to cross over and become directors."

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.