Text | Mirror Entertainment, author 丨 Gu Zhenguan
In 2019, the cumulative pre-sale amount of the official derivative crowdfunding of "Nezha: The Devil Child Descends" exceeded 5.5 million yuan seven days after it was launched, setting a new crowdfunding record in the Chinese animation industry. In 2023, the pre-sale of "The Wandering Earth 2" reached 120 million at the end of the official derivative crowdsale, setting a new record for domestic film and television IP derivative crowdfunding.
Among them, 52TOYS launched a joint deformed mecha toy based on the mechanical dog "stupid" in the film, which took only more than 10 days and raised more than 8 million yuan in Taobao crowdfunding. A few days ago, Huang Jin, co-founder and president of 52TOYS, revealed that he is working with "The Wandering Earth 2" to develop a transformation product for the door frame robot, which is expected to be launched in the fourth quarter.
Under the aura of "The Wandering Earth 2", the development of derivatives of "Deep Sea" has not received much attention, but for a film with a relatively niche temperament, a single peripheral sales of 3000+ is already a very good result. After the beginning of the year, in addition to the hot development of derivatives in the film market, head animations are also making efforts, and many derivatives of "China Qitan" have entered the ranks of small hits.
In this context, the outside world has frequently expressed optimism about the domestic film and television derivative market. The domestic derivative market is indeed a blue ocean, but the water is also deep enough, and the category selection, scale control, pricing, project node, product launch time, etc. of IP derivatives development are all issues that film and television companies need to consider, which also affect the final market performance of derivatives.
The only thing that "The Wandering Earth 2" and "The Deep Sea" can tell the market is that the enthusiasm of domestic consumers for film and television derivatives is enough, but this enthusiasm is often determined by the content itself. If there is a lack of control and confidence in the content, then the pre-development model of "The Wandering Earth 2" and "The Deep Sea" in derivatives may not be suitable for reference.
The derivatives market continues to be hot
At the end of January, when the crowdfunding around the officially licensed model of "The Wandering Earth 2" ended, the completion rate reached 117931%. The film sets the crowdfunding goal at 100,000, which is obviously conservative now, but if you go out of consequentialism, you will find that this goal setting is reasonable.
After the box office success of the first part of "The Wandering Earth", the authorized development of derivatives led by Beijing culture and Beijing China Film marketing also began, and related derivatives covered all aspects such as diet, beauty, dolls, daily necessities, etc., including personnel carrier models, heavy carrier models, etc., but whether it is popularity or sales, these peripherals are far less stupid than this year's mechanical dog stupid and digital life card out of the circle.
The different performances of the derivatives of the two works are highly related to the content itself. First, the first part of "The Wandering Earth" is a success, but it is not a god, and "The Wandering Earth 2" is a landmark work that truly represents Chinese science fiction in the hearts of science fiction fans; Both, such high-quality content box office is not as expected, causing fans to put their eyes and hopes on derivatives; The three, the stupid, digital life cards, etc. that appear in the film, are obviously more topical than the personnel carrier in the first part, and all of the above contributed to the "saturated crowdfunding" of "The Wandering Earth 2".
On the other hand, the performance of related derivatives of "Deep Sea" in recent days is also remarkable, on the whole, nearly twenty products listed in official stores, most of which are designed closely according to the characters and images deeply rooted in the film, such as the plush dolls of the male protagonist Nanhe, the plush dolls of the sea otter, etc., of which the plush dolls of the male protagonist Nanhe have sold extremely well, with a cumulative total of more than 3000+ payments, leading the fault, and the second ranked is currently sold at 1000+.
After the beginning of the year, the derivatives of animation IP and the derivatives of movie IP have made simultaneous efforts, and the national comic "China Qitan" is a representative. At present, among the derivatives related to "China Qitan", the sales of fox boys' derived mobile phone brackets rank first in the mobile phone accessories list of station B, and the key chain made by the image of the little boar out of the circle has also ranked first in the list of small pendants. With such a situation, it is not difficult to see that the popularity of the work after it comes out of the circle has really translated into derivative sales.
Nowadays, the outside world is highly optimistic about the future development of the domestic derivatives market, which is inseparable from the market performance of the above-mentioned IP derivatives, especially "The Wandering Earth 2", the completion rate of 117931% has brought a lot of shock to the industry and outside, and many people have begun to predict that the growth of IP licensing profits in the Chinese film market will enter an explosive period. But in fact, the development of the domestic derivatives market in recent years has been in the middle of an upward period.
In 2015, the total sales of eye masks, watches, masks, headphones, pendants and other peripherals derived from "The Return of the Great Saint" exceeded 300 million yuan; In 2021, many peripherals of "Time Agent" were sold out of stock, and later purchased their own independent partition in B station members.
The second is fantasy works in the field of dramas. In 2017, the box office of the movie "Three Lives and Three Lives and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms" was not ideal, but the sales of derivatives were overwhelming, and the estimated sales of derivatives reached 300 million on the third day of the movie's launch; In the field of dramas, "Chen Qingling" is the most typical, in 2019, Wei Wuxian and Lan Yuji's Q version of acrylic pendants sold 30,000 pieces within 20 days of their launch, and the official IP store is still generating new transactions like the "Time Agent" section.
Nowadays, IP derivation has become the standard for popular film and television works, and the first hit "Crazy" after the opening year has also launched a keychain with the theme of Sun Tzu's Art of War, Strong PHS, Pig's Foot Noodles, etc.
Doing peripherals is also a discipline
However, as far as the development process of the domestic derivative market is concerned, doing peripheral is also a discipline. In the past few years, there have been many film and television IPs in the nugget derivative market, some have made a lot of money, there are frequent breaks, there are explosive items, and there are unpopular items.
What kind of IP is suitable for developing derivatives? How to develop? How are items priced? How to weigh the cost performance is a problem that film and television companies need to consider.
In this year's Spring Festival, "Manjiang Red" also joined the derivatives development team, but eventually removed the peripheral crowdfunding activities, the reason is that the peripheral products have not been recognized by the market, derivatives such as aromatherapy tokens, creative hourglasses, creative bookmarks and other derivatives lack recognition, and the relevance to the content of the film is also limited. But in the end, it is still limited by the type of film, and a suspense film with a historical theme such as "Manjiang Red" really does not have an advantage in the development of derivatives.
This problem has also appeared in "I Am Not the God of Medicine" before, when the film developed a series of derivatives, such as capsule headphones, medicine bottle power bank, baseball cap, health capsule cup, capsule healing bear, etc., although many products look very beautiful, but the market sales are generally sluggish. "I Am Not the God of Medicine" focuses on heavier social topics and value cores, which are very competitive at the box office, but the development of derivatives may not be liked by the public.
Science fiction films, anime themes, fantasy works in the development of derivatives more smoothly, mainly because they are more imaginative, creative elements and artistic characters, more detached from reality, for the development of derivatives to bring more possibilities of imagination, which can be seen from the top 10 films in the global derivatives revenue, "Star Wars", "Cars", "Toy Story", "Harry Potter", "Frozen" and other types of IP.
Taking the "Star Wars" series of films as an example, from the first film in 1977 to 2020, the global box office of the released films totaled $10.291 billion, and its licensed merchandise revenue has reached $42.217 billion, four times the box office.
Therefore, more realistic works need to be more restrained in the development of derivatives, and they also need to be more in line with the content tonality, taking the route of less and more refined, such as when "Operation Red Sea" was released, only soldiers and knives were launched with a high degree of content fit.
Of course, in recent years, there are also some film and television works, although the theme itself does not occupy an advantage, but through category selection and product design in the derivatives market incubated explosive items, "Country Love" is one of the representatives, IP derivative blind box around the rage, the first batch of blind boxes online six hours sold out, Xie Guangkun, Zhao Si and other characters Tuchao image design, let it strongly circle a lot of young people.
In addition to the type of subject matter, the pricing and cost performance of single products also affect the market performance of major derivatives. To talk about the poor sales caused by high pricing, you have to look at the detective series Fugu umbrella launched by "Detective Chinatown 2" at that time, this umbrella price is as high as 500 yuan, and the sales are very low in the film's derivatives thermos cups, rice wine, biscuits, tableware, and mobile phone cases. As a high-end fashion umbrella, Fugu does not match the background color of the film, and the high price of 500 yuan is a threshold for dissuading most people in the derivatives market.
This can also be seen from the peripheral sales of "The Wandering Earth 2", taking the crazy mechanical dog stupid as an example, although the fineness and texture of the finished version are better, but because of the higher price, the sales volume is less than the assembled version of about 200 yuan, and the final sales of the assembled version reached 190,000. In addition, from the sales volume of Chen Qingling's flagship store since 2019, it is more likely to have explosive items with sales of more than 10,000 yuan in the ranks of about 100 yuan, while the sales volume of more than 500 yuan is not very optimistic.
Looking at the cost performance, the final sales of "The Wandering Earth 2" peripheral crowdfunding is second only to the stupid, is the customized version of the digital life card, which is largely due to the fact that the product integrates the functions of card reader and U disk, which has both peripheral attributes and practical value, and is very cost-effective. The peripheral sales of "Three Lives and Three Lives and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms" in 2017 are also of the same logic, pendants, stud earrings, loose powder, cotton pads and other derivatives are all existences with high practical attributes.
From this point of view, in the derivative market, blindly pursuing scale and type diversity is far less important than prioritizing adaptability and cost performance, which is the basis for the success of derivatives.
Post-development will remain mainstream
The popularity of derivatives related to "The Wandering Earth 2" may make many people in the outside world and some film and television companies in the industry too optimistic about the derivative market, objectively speaking, the domestic derivative market has continued to rise in the past few years, although the market has made progress, but still faces many unresolved problems.
If we talk about progress, the improvement of derivative product quality cannot be ignored. In 2019, the derivative "Ao Bing: Spirit Pearl Incarnation" launched by Suena Studio "Nezha: The Devil Child Descends" overturned due to the large gap between the actual object and the rendering, and the physical material was different from the sample, which triggered a wave of refunds. This is also the epitome of the quality problems of domestic derivatives at that time, as far as animation derivatives are concerned, shoddy images, poor printing quality, and wrong goods are the norm.
Nowadays, among the derivatives officially authorized by major IPs, it is rare to overturn due to quality, and after the opening year, the quality of derivatives of IP such as "The Wandering Earth 2", "Deep Sea" and "China Qitan" has a good reputation. Especially "The Wandering Earth 2", in terms of stupid related peripherals, whether it is Saifan's finished version, sheep's large remote control intelligent version, 52TOYS' universal box, the unboxing style is very high, and several products have also been differentiated in design.
If we talk about problems, repeated prohibitions of piracy and imperfect industrial chains are all clichés, but the most critical thing is the limitations brought about by lagging development.
When "The Wandering Earth 2" was released, major authorized partners successively launched related products, from this point of view, the preparation of the film in the development of derivatives is relatively sufficient, considering the complexity of the production of sci-fi models, in 2022, the derivative authorization of "The Wandering Earth 2" will begin.
For example, as early as when "The Wandering Earth 2" was still in the production stage, 52TOYS reached a cooperation with "The Wandering Earth 2", based on the multi-functional all-terrain intelligent transportation platform "stupid" around Tu Hengyu in the film, and designed 25 deformation processes for it through the deformation characteristics of BEASTBOX, highly restoring the stupid shape, expression and demeanor in the film.
Before the release of "Deep Sea", Light Media publicly stated that it had authorized the development of derivative products in various categories such as figures, toys, and publications.
In contrast, the development of derivatives of "Manjiang Hong" is obviously lagging behind, whether it is insufficient creativity or design controversy, it is inseparable from the hasty launch. Today, lagging development of IP still accounts for the majority, like "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Deep Sea" and so on are not many, they can develop derivatives in front, but also have their own confidence, the former has the influence accumulation of the previous work, and the latter has more advantages in the industry chain.
In recent years, Light Media has continued to strengthen the layout of film derivatives business and established an independent derivative development department, but even so, the road of light derivatives is still not smooth. After learning the lesson of the lag in the derivative development of "Nezha", the light greatly fronted the derivative development of "Jiang Ziya", but unfortunately lost the bet, so this time the light is conservative in the number and type of the derivative layout of "Deep Sea". Old film and television companies are still like this, and small and medium-sized companies can be imagined.
When China talks about the mature derivatives industry chain and how to operate the derivatives business efficiently, it is basically impossible to bypass Disney, but the reason why Disney can layout the movie peripherals 18 to 24 months in advance is that the stability of its content output is relatively high, and there are many long-term IPs, so it can rest assured to layout the development of derivatives, in contrast, the content output in the domestic market is not stable, and the box office predictability is still very lacking, so naturally dare not bet rashly on derivatives.
First, the current more popular sales model in the domestic derivative market is the crowdfunding pre-sale model, which is the best choice to rationally arrange production and reduce inventory risks, but the "shipment" time of several months of crowdfunding pre-sale system undoubtedly strengthens the lag of derivative products again; Second, depending on the content performance to determine the derivative development plan, short-term production of products are more limited, such as "China Qitan", the latter entry is a more secure choice, that is, mobile phone holders, key chains and other conventional categories.
At present, there are still very few IP and film and television companies that form content stability, so it is difficult to achieve large-scale front-loading in the planning and production of derivatives. Until the content foundation is established, post-development such as "China Qitan" may still be the mainstream.