Written by: Beijing News reporter Teng Chao
"The Wandering Earth 2" was released in 32 days and the box office has reached 3.86 billion yuan. Outside the theaters, the officially authorized peripheral derivatives of "The Wandering Earth 2" also sold out, with a crowdfunding amount of 118 million yuan, creating the highest record for crowdfunding of peripheral derivatives of film and television IP in China.
The products of the crowdfunding of "The Wandering Earth 2" are taken from the three very important props in the film: multifunctional all-terrain transportation robot dog stupid, artificial intelligence MOSS and digital life card. The robot dog stupid and artificial intelligence MOSS are designed and manufactured by Transwarp Model Studio, and Saifan Science Fiction Space is responsible for manufacturing digital life cards. The Beijing News interviewed Liu Chang, an investment partner of Transwarp Creations, and asked him to talk about the design and production process of the two product models of stupid and artificial intelligence MOSS in "The Wandering Earth 2", as well as the current situation of the domestic derivatives industry.
After the launch of the peripheral derivatives platform officially authorized by "The Wandering Earth 2", the crowdfunding amount reached 118 million yuan in 9 days.
Compared with the maturity of the film derivatives industry in the United States, Japan and other countries, China is still in its infancy and still has a long way to go, but in Liu Chang's view, this "The Wandering Earth 2" peripheral derivatives crowdfunding is a good business case and an important starting point for the industry to mature.
Reach the crowdfunding goal in 1 minute and break 100 million in 9 days
Liu Chang said that the peripheral derivatives authorization of "The Wandering Earth 2" is not exclusive, and the film will be officially licensed to several companies, each of which will do its own category. This time, Vansai Science Fiction Space and Transwarp Heavy Industry Model Studio took the peripheral license of the movie together, and then did crowdfunding together.
On January 22, 2023 (New Year's Day), the movie "The Wandering Earth 2" was released, and the official authorized model peripheral derivatives of the movie were also officially launched on the "Aliyu - Make Point New Goods" platform, with a crowdfunding target of 100,000 yuan. However, after only 1 minute, the platform achieved the crowdfunding goal, and the crowdfunding exceeded 50 million yuan in 6 days of launch, and on January 30, the 9-day crowdfunding amount has exceeded 100 million yuan. On February 1, the crowdfunding project was sold out and removed, with a total crowdfunding amount of 121.95 million yuan (there were a small amount of refunds during the crowdfunding process, as of February 21, the crowdfunding amount was 118 million yuan), and the number of transactions exceeded 520,000, creating a historical record for crowdfunding of derivatives surrounding Chinese film and television IP.
For the popularity of this peripheral crowdfunding, Liu Chang said that the earliest estimate should not be bad, but he did not expect to reach such a amount. "Our team are all fans of Mr. Liu Cixin, and we have a certain confidence in the original work." As the designer and manufacturer of peripheral products, the Transwarp team did not see the film before designing the peripherals, but based on their trust in the director's team's ability and the peripherals of the first part of "The Wandering Earth" sold well, they also had confidence in the second part.
Earth Engine for derivatives of "The Wandering Earth".
Four years ago, when "The Wandering Earth" was released, Saifan Science Fiction Space released crowdfunding on the Taobao platform, and Transwarp participated in the design and manufacture of two peripherals: Mars rover and Earth Engine. At that time, the project crowdfunded nearly 7.7 million yuan, setting a new historical record for crowdfunding for movie peripheral categories on the platform.
When doing the peripherals of the first part of "The Wandering Earth", Transwarp Heavy Industries has received feedback from some users, and when obtaining the peripheral authorization of "The Wandering Earth 2" this time, some more core users also strongly recommend that the peripheral products be restored to the greatest possible extent to the original work. Liu Chang explained, "Our users may be more hardcore sci-fi fans, they don't want to simplify the appearance and function of the product, and don't want the product to be too biased towards toys."
Both the finished version and the assembled version pursue high degree of reproduction
When the product design was initially made, the film officially provided some graphic materials to the surrounding licensors, and the licensors did product modeling on the basis of the flat materials.
Transwarp is responsible for designing and manufacturing the stupid and MOSS peripheral models of "The Wandering Earth 2", which are available in two versions: finished version and assembled version. The finished version mainly considers the degree of reduction, mobility and the performance of the overall coating. In addition to considering the restoration of the film image of the assembled finished product, the assembled version pays more attention to the user's simplicity and speed in the assembly operation, without the help of external forces, such as glue, spraying equipment, etc., even the layman can easily get started and assembled.
The MOSS and the dumb peripheral model assembly version in "The Wandering Earth 2" have 200+ and 60+ parts counts, respectively. Liu Chang said that at the beginning of the design, the team staff had to repeat many times in order to ensure that the parts could be perfectly assembled. How long does it take to assemble an assembled version of a dumb model? Liu Chang said that this varies from person to person, if you have never played before, you may have to fight for an hour, if you often play assembly may be tens of minutes.
"The Wandering Earth 2" peripheral derivative artificial intelligence MOSS.
Compared with assembled plates, which require their own parts, the production process of the finished version is much more complicated. Liu Chang explained that from the finished version process, after the product is injection molded, the plastic parts should be polished, sprayed, pad printed, and then manually assembled all the small parts, movable test, drop test and other tests to determine that the assembled finished product will not fall apart, and then package and ship, so the entire production process is relatively long, and the production cost will be much higher than the assembled version. For example, the crowdfunding price of the stupid assembled version is 188 yuan, and the finished version is 488 yuan. The crowdfunding price of the MOSS assembled version is 148 yuan, and the finished product price is 318 yuan.
Liu Chang said that in terms of design, Transwarp's products are currently the most restored to the original among the authorized products on the market, "from the structure of the product to the movability, to the coating, including some details, it must be restored to the exact same model as in the movie, which is a focus of our design and a difficult point." In Liu Chang's view, the stupidity in "The Wandering Earth 2" is a more complex peripheral that Transwarp Heavy Industries has done, but the team has also done more sophisticated and complex before, such as completely restoring the peripheral model of the China Aerospace Zhurong Mars Rover.
The stupid disassembly diagram of the mechanical dog around the derivatives of "The Wandering Earth 2".
In order to ensure timely delivery, actively stop crowdfunding
In May 2022, "The Wandering Earth 2" was completed for two months, and Vansai Science Fiction Space and Transwarp Heavy Industries obtained the official authorization of the project together, and the product was approved in September and the product design was carried out in October. This time is very tight for Liu Chang and the entire design team, who used to work overtime and overnight until the day before the Spring Festival.
Fortunately, the crowdfunding amount of nearly 120 million yuan has paid off for all efforts. However, the "campaign" was not over, and the next model delivery was still a tough battle.
"Post-production is still quite stressful," Liu Chang said, some time ago, he also led the staff of Taobao to see the progress of the factory, there is no big problem, you can wait for the shipment with more confidence.
When the project launched a crowdfunding campaign on the platform on the first day of the new year, the crowdfunding amount soon reached 120 million yuan. In the face of consumer enthusiasm, the official even released an announcement of "Fast Optimistic Shadow Rational Consumption", and said: "The crowdfunding meeting will last until February 23, I hope you don't rush to place an order after watching the movie, and wait a few days to calm down before thinking about whether you still need these peripheral products." If you still like it, buy it again. Crowdfunding products will also be sold in stores and merchants after the delivery of crowdfunding orders, all in time", calling on consumers to buy products rationally.
"The Wandering Earth 2" peripheral derivatives, mechanical dogs stupid.
In the end, officials did not wait until February 23, and on February 1, the crowdfunding project was sold out in advance. Liu Chang said that according to the trend at that time, if the crowdfunding time was extended to the 15th day of the first month (February 5), the crowdfunding amount might reach 150 million yuan to 170 million yuan, but in order to ensure the timely delivery of products, the crowdfunding was actively stopped.
"In fact, we took the initiative to cut production capacity, and did not want to extend the shipment to 2024," Liu Chang said, after the crowdfunding ended, the team made a production progress statistics, divided the order into 4 batches of production, delivered in 4 times, the earliest batch was delivered in June this year, and the last batch was delivered in mid-November this year. The current scheduling and batch delivery time are the result of repeated calculations by the team and the combination of the factory's production capacity, the number of workers on each production line, etc.
After returning from the Spring Festival holiday this year, workers began to work overtime and enter the testing stage of the final mold, because it involved a lot of assembly details and required repeated testing. A hole in the mold, large or small, will be too loose or too tight after assembly, so repeatedly test the molded parts molded by the mold. For example, the stupid model, it has a lot of places that can move, head, legs, robotic arms, wheels, etc., can not be too loose or too tight, need to be tested repeatedly, before starting mass production.
In order to improve production efficiency, the team changed the mold of the surrounding model from the original one set of molds for one product to one product with multiple sets of molds to do injection molding, which shortened the injection molding time, and reduced the wear caused by excessive injection molding times, and ensured the production time and quality of the product.
The domestic film derivatives industry has yet to be developed
At present, the peripherals of domestic film and television products basically use the form of crowdfunding. In Liu Chang's view, most of the entire industry chooses this method, which is also a conservative choice in reality. The initial crowdfunding goal of "The Wandering Earth 2" was only 100,000 yuan, which can be said to be relatively conservative.
Liu Chang said that in the vicinity of film and television products, manufacturers are uncertain about how much volume to make. For example, the popularity of the movie can be maintained for about a month, and if the peripheral products are not sold during this time period, there may be a backlog of inventory in the future. Moreover, there is no particularly typical case of the development of derivatives of film and television works before to give people confidence, so at present, the surrounding areas of domestic film and television works basically choose the crowdfunding method, which is equivalent to selling them in advance when the popularity of film and television works is the highest, so that after there is a clear sales quantity, production will begin.
Transwarp employees are participating in the design of derivatives related to The Wandering Earth 2.
Compared with domestic, foreign countries are much more mature in the development of film and television peripheral products, especially in the United States and Japan. In fact, the box office revenue of many foreign film and television works only accounts for a small part of the entire industry income, and the peripheral development of its derivatives is its pillar industry. Japan has "Pokémon" and "Doraemon", and the United States has theme parks such as Disney and Universal Studios.
The total global box office of 9 movies in the "Star Wars" series is about 8 billion US dollars, but the derivative revenue created by the IP has exceeded 40 billion US dollars according to incomplete statistics. More than 40 years ago, when director George Lucas signed an agreement with Twentieth Century Fox, he would rather give up 40% of his salary and related commercial rights, but also retain the ownership of the film and the right to sell all peripheral derivatives, which is quite wise (in 2012, Lucasfilm was acquired by Disney, and the "Star Wars" copyright belonged to Disney). In the case of "Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens", released in 2016, Disney began to sell derivatives three months before the movie was released. Sales of a single BB-8 robot reached $2 billion.
Liu Chang said that foreign countries have a relatively good foundation in the development of derivatives, and there are decades of precipitation. If a project needs to do peripheral development, it may be authorized about a year in advance, get the relevant materials to start designing, and when the film is released in theaters, there is already spot sales in theaters. At present, the domestic derivatives production authorization sales channels are not mature, and there is no particularly clear awareness in the industry, when to put authorization, what kind of things should be found to whom, how to do it well, where to sell, when to start selling, why so divided, and so on There are no such detailed rules or frameworks.
In recent years, Liu Chang has also been doing animation derivatives development. He found that although individual animated films had excellent box office results, their derivatives were still lagging behind, and the overall sales were relatively limited, while the development of live-action film derivatives lagged even behind the animation industry. The amount of crowdfunding for "The Wandering Earth 2" has become the highest amount of crowdfunding in China's cultural entertainment peripherals, which is still very meaningful for the entire film derivatives development industry.
"This case is a very important starting point for the industry to mature", Liu Chang said, only if everyone values this market, can we standardize and improve the industry, including whether the film side will expect the benefits of this piece, and give more openness and convenience to all authorized licensors, such as pre-negotiation, giving more materials, and communication at the creative level.
In Liu Chang's view, the greater the expectations of the film side for the derivatives industry, the more attention will be paid to it, and the audience will also have a psychological expectation, forming a consumption habit, when there is a movie they like released, in addition to being willing to buy movie tickets, they will also go to find the corresponding derivatives. Liu Chang guessed that if the peripheral products of "The Wandering Earth 2" were directly placed in the peripheral product sales area of the cinema, this channel closer to consumers may have a greater conversion rate.
For the development of the film derivatives industry, Liu Chang is very confident, "I think the industry will definitely have a better development direction from this case, maybe at the beginning this kind of science fiction series IP is easy to do productization, and subsequent other films are gradually doing better in the relatively growing industry."
This article is the original content of Beijing News Fun Entertainment (ID: yuleyidian).
Without the written authorization of the Beijing News, it shall not be reproduced and used