If there is a word that can run through domestic dramas in recent years, the word is "IP". Since novels such as "Step by Step" and "Flowers and Bones" have been adapted into dramas and become the phenomenon-level "blockbusters" of that year, the source of domestic drama content has increasingly relied on novel IP. According to the People's Daily, in the past five years, china has adapted more than 600 film and television dramas from online novels, and the number has increased year by year.
The increasing number of adaptations may be related to the popularity of novel IP dramas, which are the mother of many popular dramas. According to the "2019-2020 Annual Assessment Report on the Adaptation Potential of Online Literature IP Film and Television Dramas" released in January 2021, of the 309 popular film and television dramas from 2018 to 2019, 65 works adapted from online literary IP, accounting for about 21%; among the 100 most popular film and television dramas, this proportion is as high as 42%.
The film and television drama adapted from the novel is still the backbone of maintaining the market heat of the 2021 drama series, which can be seen from the broadcast of the episode in December: as of December 25, a total of 20 dramas have been broadcast this month, of which "Win or Lose", "Wind Rises Luoyang" and "Snow In the Knife Line" are all adapted from the novel IP. Although there are only 3 novel IP adaptations in December, according to bone data, so far, "Wind Rises Luoyang" and "Snow Knife Line" are the two most popular episodes on the whole network in December.
Looking back at 2021: the popularity is high, but the explosion is small and the reputation is low
As of December 25, 2021, there are 384 new series drama series on the whole network. According to the popularity data of bone data episodes on the whole network, the most popular episodes per month in 2021 are "Youfei", "Son-in-law", "Si Teng", "Long Song Line", "Miss Crow and Mr. Lizard", "Rebel", "You Are My Glory", "Sweeping the Black Storm", "One Life", "Breakout", "Lady Huozhu" and "Wind Rise Luoyang". Among them, in addition to "Miss Crow and Mr. Lizard", "Sweeping Black Storm" and "Breakout", the other 9 dramas are adapted from the novel IP. In addition, so far, "Lady Hu Zhu" is the hottest drama on the whole network in a single month.
According to the "2021H1 Serial Market Webcast Performance and User Analysis Report" and the "2021Q3 Serial Drama Webcast Performance and User Analysis Report" released by Yunhe Data, among the top 20 episodes with effective broadcasts in the first three quarters of 2021, in addition to "Sweeping Black Storm", "Mountains and Seas", "I Really Love You", "North and South", "Miss Crow and Mr. Lizard" as original scripts, the remaining 15 are adapted from novel IP.
It can be seen that the novel IP drama is in an absolutely leading position in terms of effective playback on the platform.
However, among the episodes broadcast in the first half of 2021, only the main episode of "Son-in-law" has an effective playback volume of 112 million, and the playback of other novel adaptations has not exceeded 100 million. Of the top 10 episodes viewed in the third quarter, none of the episodes were played more than 100 million times.
The effective playback data of the episodes in the fourth quarter has not yet been released, but the popularity of the episodes must be positively correlated with the number of broadcasts, and the popularity as the basis for considering the number of broadcasts may give a glimpse of the situation. In the Q4 that has not yet been counted, as of December 24, the episodes that have exceeded 80% of the monthly popularity of the whole network in the month of the start of the broadcast are "Lady Huozhu", "Wind Rise Luoyang" and "Snow Knife Line", of which "Lady Hu Zhu" has a network popularity of 82.56 in the month, "Wind Rises Luoyang" is 82.04, and "Snow Knife Line" is 81.63. In the first three quarters, the episode had the highest effective playback volume, and the popularity of the whole network in the month of broadcast was 82.39, and the popularity of the whole network in the month of the broadcast of "Sweeping Black Storm" was 80.09. It can be predicted that the average effective number of episodes of these three episodes may be around 100 million. Even so, in terms of the effective playback of the episodes of the novel IP series, only 4 dramas from 2021 to 2021 can be called "blockbusters" in the true sense.
In addition, there are 18 popular novel IP dramas mentioned above, but only 5 dramas have a Douban score of 7 points or more, and most of the episodes have mediocre reputation. In 2021, one of the most obvious tendencies in the drama market is that the reputation of the series is more and more able to drive the popularity of the series, and the audience's perception has increasingly become an important dimension in the evaluation of the series.
The most typical case is the "Imperial Gift of Small Works". The original "Royal Gift" is not a big IP, the drama does not have traffic stars to participate, the cost of the series is less than 40 million, and the Tencent video platform rating before the start of broadcast is B-grade. Yunhe data shows that when the drama was launched on April 29, the popularity of the whole public opinion was within 100, and the market share was less than 1%. With the fermentation of word-of-mouth, the Douban score of the drama was maintained at more than 8 points, and the highest popularity of the whole public opinion reached 349.52, higher than the average heat of TOP10 and TOP30, and the market share reached 7%.
In the case of most novel IP dramas with high popularity and low reputation, "Royal Gifts of Small Servants" stands out with the quality of the episodes, which proves that from a low-key small-cost web drama to a "out of the circle" series, the real driving force is the quality of the episodes, and the audience is increasingly paying for the reputation of the episodes. Under this premise, the poor reputation of most of the novel IP dramas in 2021 may be the reason why "big IP + traffic stars" cannot create blockbusters.
In addition, according to the data report released by the "Panker Workshop", most of the IP adaptations take "love" as the theme, and sweet pets and immortals are the most common themes. In the 41 episodes with a Douban score of 7.5 points or more in 2021, even "Love Is Delicious" and "If It Is a Person" involving "love" also use realism as the background of the series.
All this shows that the previous romance-based, suspended fiction IP dramas have reached the end of the water.
Looking forward to 2022: Bind writers to create a "universe" and set your sights on serious literature
Even if most of the novel IP dramas in 2021 are average, from the perspective of the 2022 film list that "Ai You Teng Mang" has released, the novel IP drama is still the focus of the layout of the major platform dramas.
A total of 370 dramas were announced on the film list of the four major video platforms, of which a total of 135 novel IP dramas were published. In addition to the episodes that have been broadcast since the release of the film list, the four platforms still have 99 novel IP dramas to be broadcast in 2022. From the perspective of upcoming dramas, iQiyi has the largest number of IPs, with 36; Tencent Video and Youku with 27 and 21 respectively; and Mango TV has the fewest IP dramas, with a total of 12. There are no adaptations of the novel IP in the 2022 episodes announced by Station B.
iQiyi has the most novel IP, but it has not been able to retain popular IP while developing novel IP on a large scale. For example, the broadcast platform of "Son-in-law 2" became Tencent Video, and "Qing Yu Nian 2" did not appear in iQiyi's film list. Among them, iQiyi's exclusive "Son-in-law" is the most broadcast episode in the first half of 2021, and "Qing Yu Nian" became the hottest episode of the month for two consecutive months during the broadcast period. In addition, "The Hidden Corner" and "The Silent Truth" adapted from Zijin Chen's novel have launched the sign of "Mist Theater", but Zijin Chen has signed an exclusive contract with Youku, and Youku plans to launch 10 works adapted from Zijin Chen's novel in the next 5 years, which will form 3 series of "female suspense", "urban transparent people" and "foggy".
Judging from the idea of "creating 3 series and 10 works in the next 5 years", Youku's ambition to create the "Zijin Chen Universe" is clear. Previously, Zijin Chen's "social reasoning" trilogy "Undocumented Crime", "Bad Boy", "Long Night Difficult" adapted into the drama "Undocumented Crime", "Hidden Corner" and "Silent Truth" were broadcast on iQIYI, and the Douban ratings of the three episodes were 8.1, 8.8 and 9.1 respectively, and the last two dramas were the most popular and popular dramas of iQIYI's "Mist Theater" so far.
Like Zijin Chen, the authors of novels whose style types are obvious and whose IP has been tested by the market include Ma Boyong and Tail fish. Ma Boyong's "Twelve Hours of Chang'an" and Tailfish's "Si Teng" have a good reputation and popularity after broadcasting. Judging from public information, major platforms will form a situation of creating an "IP universe" around the content layout of these writers.
In iQiyi, the benchmark with Youku's "Zijin Chen Universe" is the "Ma Boyong Universe". The drama series "Wind Rises Luoyang" adapted from Ma Boyong's original "Luoyang" has been broadcast, and around this IP, iQIYI has also developed three projects: the online movie "Wind Rises Luoyang's Yin and Yang Realm", the animated film "Wind Rises Luoyang's God Machine Boy" and "Wind Rises Luoyang's Twin Pursuit". In the list of films released by iQiyi, Ma Boyong's novel IP "Wind Rises longxi", "Daming under the microscope", "Five Days of Two Capitals" and "Whale Riding in the Four Seas" also appeared.
Tencent Video launched the "Tailfish Universe". As early as June 2021, Tencent Video announced that it had purchased the rights to five novels, namely "April Affair", "West Out of the Jade Gate", "Three-Line Reincarnation", "Keel Burning Box" and "Owl Up the Green Soil". Among them, "West Out of the Jade Gate", "Three-Line Reincarnation", and "Keel Burning Box" are three stories that are carried out independently but share a huge world view.
The IP of genre novel authors enters the field of dramas, which not only expands the content dimension of the series, but also makes people see the prototype of the production project, standard and process of the series.
While major platforms are deeply bound to writers, the wind direction of novel adaptation has also blown from online literature back to serious literature.
In October 2021, iQIYI's 2021 Joy Club announced the "History of National Spiritual Growth" series of films, and Lu Yao's novel "Life" and Liang Xiaosheng's novel "The World of Man" were prominently listed. On the list of 2022 iQiyi films, there is also Shuang Xuetao's "Moses on the Plains". Yu Hua's "Wencheng" and Jin Yucheng's "Blossoms" also appeared in Tencent's 2022 film list. Wang Meng's "This Side of the Landscape", Liu Yuxin's "Ancient Street", Xu Zechen's "Going North" and so on also announced that they will be filmed and televisionized.
The profound spiritual core and strong realism are the advantages of serious literary adaptations, and the "high and low" and the difficulty of artistic and commercial in harmony are the other side of this coin. In the past two years, the film and television dramas adapted by serious literature such as "I Am Yu Huanshui" and "Loading Stage" have achieved good market feedback, indicating that serious literature has not become obsolete.
At the same time, today's market orientation is also conducive to serious literary IP adaptations.
In the drama market in 2021, realism and serious themes are on the rise. For example, the total number of plays of "Sweeping Black Storm" exceeded 5.3 billion times, and the popularity of "Xiao Minjia" reached 83.47 on the whole network in a single day after it was launched.
In addition, in 2021, a total of 3 dramas such as "Mountains and Seas", "The Age of Awakening" and "Meritorious Service" have a Douban score of more than 9 points, and "The Age of Awakening", which has scored 9.3 points, is the highest-rated domestic drama since 2014. Among the episodes with a Douban rating of more than 7.5 points, in addition to "Mountain and River Order", "Royal Gift of Little Servants", "Hello, The Other Party's Defense Friend 2", and "The Day It Becomes You", the remaining 37 are dramas with serious themes and realistic themes.
Compared with the realist dramas, other types of dramas such as Sweet Pet, Fairy Tale, and Fantasy have performed poorly. Taking sweet pets as an example, more than 50 sweet pet type dramas were broadcast in the first half of 2021, but the only one that really has the heat and "goes out of the circle" is "Si Teng". All this shows that the market is calling for serious themes and the return of realism. In the case of the poor reputation of most of the novel IP dramas based on romance, the hope of the novel IP adaptation liu dark flowers lies in serious literature.