An inventory of domestic animated films: company strength and project reserves

Wen 丨 Gu Zhenguan

The summer season kicked off, nearly 70 films entered, in the field of animated films, "Sky City" and "Spider-Man: Across the Universe" were released first, and "Crazy Element City", "Chang'an 30,000 Li", "Tea Ah No. 2 Middle School" and so on are gaining momentum.

In the summer of 2015, "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage" set a box office result of 954 million, playing the music of the rise of national comics in the field of domestic animated films, and eight years later, in the summer file, looking forward to the market performance of new works such as "Chang'an 30,000 Li" and "Tea Ah No. 2 Middle School", we also want to talk about the future direction of domestic animated films.

According to incomplete statistics from Mirror Entertainment, there are nearly 60 animated films to be screened, are in production, and have production plans, and most of them are aiming at mythological themes that have produced blockbusters in the past few years, but when popular themes accelerate involvement, signs of differentiation are also emerging. At the industry level, the imagination opened by the explosion has driven more and more new forces to enter the game, closely following the pace of Light Media and Chasing Light Animation, and companies with the banner of "series" and "universe" are also emerging.

All of the above seems to indicate that domestic animated films are constantly rising, but there are still many hidden worries under the banner of "the rise of national comics". Among the nearly 60 works, there are not a few projects that have been established for about five years, and behind the crazy ticket jumping, production capacity and funds are difficult to solve, and those projects that are expected to land on time can get out of the dilemma of "heavy technology over plot" There is also a question mark.

Accelerate the emergence of differentiation in involution

If the style is slightly different, if the film focuses on original characters and original stories, the phrase "finally not a mythical story" will inevitably appear in the barrage. From this point of view, the status quo seems to be that "the audience has become tired of the aesthetic of mythological themes, but animation companies are still flocking into the field".

Among the more than 20 animated films reserved by Light Media, nearly half are mythological themes, and the specific structure of the "Chinese mythological universe" has not been revealed at present, but if nothing else, such as "The Legend of Ao Bing", "Eight Immortals Across the Sea", "Red Son", "Lei Zhenzi", "Erlang God" and so on should be in the "mythical universe" system.

In the next few years, it is a foregone conclusion that the mythological theme will accelerate its involvement. In the case of the top Monkey King, related animated films include "Journey to the West: The Great Sage Troubles the Heavenly Palace", "The Legend of Wukong", "Journey to the West", "Monkey King's Flame Mountain", "King of the Mixed World: The Rise of the Great Sage" and so on. In addition, after Erlang Shen, Nezha, and Bai Suzhen, Zhu Bajie, Li Jing, Lei Zhenzi, and Red Child also began to become the protagonists of mythological animations.

In the domestic film box office list, in addition to the more family-oriented "Bear Haunted" series, the top-ranked animated films "Nezha: The Devil Child Descends", "Jiang Ziya", "The Return of the Great Sage", "White Snake: Origin", "New God List: Yang Jian" and so on are almost all mythological topics. It is understandable that animation companies decide the direction of content based on box office performance, but public opinion is not without reference value.

High-quality mythological movies can naturally open up the market, but in recent years, the audience has seen more defective products, "Nezha: The Devil Child Descends" won 5 billion box office, following the trend to tell the "Nezha story" is not a few, but most of the word-of-mouth and box office double failure, "Nezha's Decisive Battle Dragon God" box office is only 48,000. The huge audience market and public copyright attributes of mythical IP are the main reasons why it is favored by many animation companies, but obviously, the myth of the head is based on the quality of content.

Therefore, the animated films to be screened are also seeking differentiation as much as possible. The first is to step out of the comfort zones such as Journey to the West, the List of Gods, and the Legend of the White Snake, and further expand the diversity of mythological IPs, such as "Deer Banquet" and "Fusang Island" to focus on the adaptation of the story of the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", while "Zhong Kui", "Liaozhai: Lanruo Temple" and "Running to the Moon" respectively focus on Taoist secular gods, "Liaozhai Zhi Yi", and the ancient myth and legend "Chang'e Rushing to the Moon".

However, adapting the story of "Classic of Mountains and Seas" is not without precedent, and the "Goodbye Monster of the Classic of Mountains and Seas" released in 2022 is, but the box office is only 38.28 million, and the core of traditional gods and monsters culture is missing, and the slightly cliché inspirational story has not captured the audience. "Deer Ming Banquet" and "Running Moon" have now released an outline, and the story setting of "A girl named Chang'e participating in the selection of ancient astronauts" in "Running to the Moon" is indeed very innovative, but whether the creativity can be transformed into a good story has to be concluded after the release of the film.

The second is to look for possibilities other than mythological themes, among the head players, the light reserves strong stylized works such as "Heavy Rain", "Shuo Feng" and "Dragon House", and earlier also proposed to create a Chinese mythological universe chasing light film industry, now suspended the development of the "New Mythology" series and turned to the "New Culture" series, the beginning of the series is "Chang'an 30,000 Li".

After the release of the "Dragon House" trailer, the mysterious and treacherous painting style is very well received, in the field of national comics, the style innovation of fan dramas is ahead of the movie, "Five Elements of Foggy Mountain" and "Dartman" are representatives, the commercial TO C attribute determines the caution of the style control of animated films, in recent years, there are indeed not many works that have refreshed the audience in audio-visual, from this point of view, "Dragon House" This novel style is expected to become a differentiated fulcrum.

The third is the diversification of IP types, among the nearly 60 films to be screened, "Snow Child" and "The Legend of the Rabbit" are reinterpretations of old animation IPs, and "Dragon House" is adapted from the original picture book "Click! Ghost Train!! "Impala Flying" is adapted from Shen Shixi's novel "Antelope Flying", and "Dragonheart Girl" is adapted from Beiying student's work "Alita's Bedtime Story".

Compared with mythical IP, the proportion of IP genres such as comics and novels is not high, and if the market can hatch explosive models in the above genres, the proportion may be expected to increase in the future.

Everyone has a "cosmic dream"

The second biggest creative trend of nearly 60 animated films to be screened is that serial development is becoming mainstream.

Following the animation universe of Light Media and Chasing Light Pictures, Beijing Wonderful Time Culture Media also brought its own "Chinese Youth Universe". Beijing may be relatively unfamiliar to the wonderful public, it is the main controller of "Lion Boy", while the "Chinese Youth Universe" series is a series derived from "Lion Boy", including "Sword Forging Boy" set in the rivers and lakes of the Song Dynasty and "Day by Day Boy" positioned in the future, as well as three live-action films "Dunhuang Heroes", "Demining Unit" and "Space Spring Festival".

Affected by the controversy over the appearance of the characters, the box office of "Lion Boy" stayed at 249 million, failing to become the dark horse expected by the outside world, but the film's Douban score of 8.3 did accumulate a lot of audience trust for Beijing, and in the Douban short reviews of "Sword Casting Boy" and "Day by Day Boy", some viewers said that the reason they wanted to watch it was that ""Lion Boy" is very good".

The advantage of series development is that the audience trust accumulated in the previous work will be directly transformed into the influence and box office of the new work of the series, which is directly reflected in the series animation of Light Media and Chasing Light Pictures.

In 2019, the new work "Jiang Ziya" that was not released by the light was warmed up in the form of Easter eggs at the end of "Nezha: The Devil Child Descends", and with the blessing of 5 billion level influence, "Jiang Ziya" was popular before it was released, and finally the film still won 1.6 billion box office results under the premise of losing word of mouth and obscure content.

Also in 2019, chasing light animation's "White Snake: Origin" has become a masterpiece of the rise of national comics, benefiting from the influence and brand brand degree accumulated by "White Snake: Origin", after chasing the light, "Green Snake Robbery" and "New God List: Nezha Rebirth" Although the reputation has declined, the box office has exceeded "White Snake: Origin".

At present, the animated film market is still full of variables, in this context, serial development can reduce uncertainty on the one hand, such as "Tea Ah Erzhong", "Snow Child", "Rabbit Legend", "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" and other new IP new interpretations, as well as the sequel development of new IPs such as "Nezha: The Devil Child Descends", "Jiang Ziya", "Big Fish and Begonia" and "The Great Protector", will come out with its own fan base, and naturally will have more market advantages than most new IPs.

On the other hand, series development is also a great choice for animation companies to endorse themselves. In 2015, when the creation of "The King of the Mixed World: The Rise of the Great Sage" began, Sky City Pictures proposed to create a "Great Sage Metaverse", involving the four monkeys of the mixed world, the seven saints, etc., in 2016, when the "Fusang Island" project was launched, Chengdu Zifei Filmmaker Technology announced that "Fusang Island" would be the opening work of the company's "Legend of Mountains and Seas" IP series.

After announcing the series development strategy, both companies have received great attention from the outside world. However, compared with the IP universe that Light Media and Chasing Light Pictures have gradually landed, the "Legend of Mountains and Seas" series and the "Great Sage Metaverse", which are still in the ticket skipping stage, have returned to silence after a short period of time.

Among the many series of works, the Monkey King series of Shanghai Art Film Studio is also worth paying attention to. When the official announcement of the animated film "Monkey King's Flame Mountain" was officially launched, Shanghai Beauty Factory also said that this will be the beginning of the "Monkey King" series, and in the next 8 to 10 years, teams inside and outside the United Nations will create 5 to 8 animated films with the image of Monkey King as the protagonist.

Shangmei Factory, which has created classic works such as "Trouble in the Heavenly Palace", "Tianshu Qitan" and "Little Tadpole Looking for Mother", and brought the explosive "China Qitan" in 2023, is known as the "light of national comics" in the last century, and has also proved its strength in the new era. It is also for this reason that the outside world has high expectations for the Monkey King series, but after the competition in the Westward Journey theme is highly intense, it is still unknown whether this long-term IP can successfully land and stand out in the market.

The ambitions and dilemmas of new and old players

Shanghai Beauty Factory's efforts to develop cinema animation films represent the third major trend presented by the animation works to be screened, that is, the diversification of entry forces.

There are many old faces familiar to the audience behind the producers behind the nearly 60 works, such as Color Stripe House and Chasing Light Pictures, such as the good transmission animation behind "Yesterday's Blue Sky" and "The Great Protector", the cocoa bean animation and October culture behind "Nezha: The Devil Child Descends", Sky City Film and Television behind "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage", etc., these companies that have successfully hatched masterpieces basically have new works to be released.

The number one player among the old faces is now adjusting its industrial layout with the pace of industry development. In 2022, Light Media established a new animation film label Light Animation in addition to the original animation film label Color Stripe House, and in the past few years, Color Stripe House has acquired and invested in nearly half of the animation companies in the market, including Tian Xiaopeng's October Culture, Dumpling's Cocoa Bean Animation, and Shangyou's Haochuan Animation.

Compared with the investment-based color bar house, Light Animation is mainly responsible for producing Light's own animated films. In the 2022 financial report, Light Media said that the main task of Light Animation in the early stage was to develop the Chinese mythological universe system that the company took two years to sort out and build, and at present, the first work of Light Animation "Xiaoqian" is in production. To create a huge mythical universe, the establishment of its own label unified trading is indeed a better choice for light.

Oriental DreamWorks, Qingqingshu Animation, Yinghe Film and Television, Shanghai Hundred Thousand Arms Culture Media, Streaming Color Animation, Mysterious Tan Animation, Huanyu Star Comics, etc. are all new faces. Among the above-mentioned companies, Shanghai Baiqian Arm Culture Media, Yinghe Film and Television are in the initial stage, "Running to the Moon" and "Deer Ming Banquet" are the first feature-length animated films they produced, but Niu Xiao, the COO of Yinghe Film and Television, has worked in Chasing Light Animation and also participated in the creation of "Little Door God".

In contrast, Streaming Animation, Enigma Animation, Huanyu Star Comics, etc. have been established for a long time, but they were not called content labels before. The streaming animation behind "Bai Suzhen" mainly focuses on three-dimensional animation production, mainly providing services for domestic film companies and animation companies, and has participated in projects such as "Nezha: The Devil Child Descends" and "Jiang Ziya"; "Mountains and Seas" produced by Fang Mystery Tan Animation, formerly known as 8082 Audio Studio, is mainly engaged in the audio production of games, animations, advertisements, etc.; In the past, Fang Huanyu Xingman, the producer of "Bajie: Canopy Nether", focused on animation planning creativity, animation 3D production, animation derivatives development and other fields.

It is not difficult to see that after animated films show their imagination, companies in the major chains of the animation industry are actively entering the game and focusing on the content track.

Strictly speaking, Oriental DreamWorks and Qingqingshu Anime are not new faces. As a joint venture established by Chinese Culture, Shanghai Culture Radio, Film and Television Group and DreamWorks Animation, Oriental DreamWorks has always taken an international route, and has participated in overseas animation works such as "Kung Fu Panda 3", "Crazy Primitives" and "Crazy Aliens", and officially announced that "Naihe", "Polar Shore" and "Star Wish", which are three animation projects with strong national atmosphere, which means that while adhering to the international route, Oriental DreamWorks will also begin to focus on the local market.

Before the growth of cutting-edge animation companies such as October Culture and Haochuan Animation, Qingqingshu Animation, founded in 1992, was still quite impressive in the animation industry, and around 2014, Qingqingshu Animation launched two high-reputation animated films "Kuiba no vs. Yuanyang Realm" and "Kuiba III: God of War Rising" cooperated with Bona Film and Wanda Film and Television.

Among the key brands identified by Qingqingshu Animation around the millennium, "Journey to the West", "Future Mecha", "Jizo", etc. are continuing to be difficult to produce, although the two movies of the "Kuiba" series have a high reputation but the box office is not ideal, after that, the production of "Kuiba 4" was also delayed for a while, and it was not restarted until the color stripe house entered the game. Whether "Jizo" and "Journey to the West" can be successfully released may depend on the box office results of "The Last Quiba".

The bumpy experience of Qingqingshu Animation shows the cruel side of the industry. "Rabbit Legend 3: Heavenly Demon Soldiers" released a pilot trailer at the 2016 Shanghai Film Festival, which has not yet come out; "Lanling King Entry Song" was launched in Hangzhou in 2016, but it has not yet come out, and it has been planned for 9 years before it started; Also in 2016, "Fuso Island" released a 7-minute film, which has not yet come out. A group of works are crazy to jump tickets, in the end there is still a lack of money.

In 2016, Chengdu Zifei Film Technology held a grand press conference for "Fusang Island", which was essentially an investment conference, at that time, Sichuan Daily Newspaper Group Investment Company, Shenzhen Tongyuan Hetai Capital Management Company, Shenzhen Taizhi Film and Television Communication Investment Fund Management Company, Yunnan Cultural and Creative Industries, etc. all appeared at the press conference.

At that time, less than a year after "The Return of the Great Saint" sounded the clarion call for the rise of national comics, it was a period when investment institutions re-examined the value of the animation industry, but why the story did not follow up after that, the outside world did not know. In recent years, there has been news of Chengdu Zifei Filmmaker Technology, which is to participate in the special effects production of film and television dramas such as "The Legend of Ruyi", "The Legend of the Curious People in the Early Minchu", and "The Nine Songs of Tianxing: The Driving of Ding Jiuzhou".

"Storytelling" and "Living"

The types of domestic animated films are more diverse, the content development is more systematic, and there are more players entering the game, which is good news for the market, but at this stage, hope and hidden dangers are the same.

Among the nearly 60 works to be screened, in addition to the scheduled "Tea Ah No. 2 Middle School" and "Chang'an 30,000 Li", many films to be finalized have also released trailers, such as "Deer Banquet" and "Running Moon", but most of the trailers have a commonality, that is, the technical level is top-notch, and even can be called dazzling, but there are few presentations about the plot. In this regard, the audience who is inevitably worried can only leave a sentence of expectation and blessing of "hope that the plot is stable".

In 2016, "Big Fish and Begonia" brought a visual feast to the audience, at the same time, the film's poor plot quality was in stark contrast to the top art level, at that time, "Big Fish and Begonia" was still a case of "heavy technology and light plot", and after seven years, "plot drag" became a common problem for most domestic animated films.

Among the theatrical animated films released in the past three years, such as "Jiang Ziya", "Green Snake Robbery", "New God List: Yang Jian", "Deep Sea", "Lion Boy" and so on, except for "Lion Boy", all others have not escaped the plot controversy. Nowadays, "please a good screenwriter" has become a daily complaint of national comic fans, but the common pain points of the industry can not be solved by two or three screenwriters, because the quality of the plot actually points to the ability to industrialize.

The successful "Return of the Great Sage" and "Nezha: The Devil Child Descends" in the past few years are actually "author films" in the final analysis, and their plot quality has nothing to do with the overall level of storytelling in the industry, and the same as the ups and downs of the narrative level of the same director/screenwriter in different works. In "White Snake: Origin", Wang Wei, the founder of Chasing Light Animation, can tell a popular story, but in "New God List: Yang Jian", the story becomes obscure and difficult to be empathized.

"New God List: Yang Jian" and "Deep Sea" both have a good story foundation and creativity, but the word of mouth presented to the market is extremely polarized, the key to the problem is not that the expression is too niche, or the film is aimed at special groups, after all, Tian Xiaopeng has also said that the theme of "Deep Sea" is suitable for everyone, and the problem may be that "the method of storytelling is not particularly easy to be accepted by the audience".

This is precisely the problem of "author film", success or failure is too dependent on a single director/screenwriter, while in the mature animation market, "telling a good story" can be achieved by relying on the industrial system.

Pixar's animation creation has a very classic process, that is, "think tank meetings". "Toy Story 3" screenwriter Michael Arndt has publicly talked about how he and Pixar's creative team collaborated: writing the script first; After making a rough sample print; Samples are screened and tested, and creative team members watch and express their opinions; The writer selectively absorbed input and iterated the script, and the process continued until the creative team approved, and the script for Toy Story 3 was iterated seven times.

The creative team that cooperated with Michael Arndt included Pixar founder Ed Catmull, "The Incredibles" director and screenwriter Brad Bird, "Coco" producer Dara Anderson, "Finding Nemo" director and screenwriter Andrew Stanton and 11 others. From the script level alone, this is the key to Pixar's continuous output of excellent works: script creation under a highly collaborative process ensures the novelty of creativity, the accuracy of expression, and the universality of narrative to the greatest extent.

For domestic animated films, this industrialization process is worth learning. Although some people think that Pixar's process will erase the personality of creators to a certain extent, but only in terms of the current environment, the domestic animation market needs more popular works to the public, because it is related to whether domestic animated films and animation companies can truly achieve internal circulation.

From the standpoint of an ordinary audience, we naturally hope that the animation industry can bloom in a variety of flowers, and both public and niche works can gain living space, but box office and profitability are gravity that is difficult to get rid of, and the experience of the "Kuiba" series and Qingqingshu animation is enough to show the problem.

When talking about the development of the domestic animation industry, some practitioners have said such a sentence: "It is no exaggeration to say that the life of many fan drama animation companies is tied to the video platform", which is simple and rude but unreasonable, and is also applicable in the field of animation films.

In the past few years, large companies represented by Light Media have indeed brought opportunities to a large number of start-up animation companies, but outside the big ship of Light, there are many independent animation companies, and now they are still facing the problem of whether the work can come out, and if the box office is not satisfactory after it comes out, whether the company can continue to operate.

The slogan of the rise of national comics has been shouted for many years, but the fact is that national comics are still throwing stones to ask the way, and the Chinese stories pointed to by those creators are indeed very beautiful, but there is still no standard answer to how to tell these stories well, and ensure their own internal circulation on the basis of telling good stories, and survive to create more stories.

What is more worrying is that many practitioners have even fallen into a misunderstanding, in recent years there are not a few animation companies that talk about technology, and it is naturally good to improve technology, but blindly rolling technology is to some extent constantly rolling up costs, if there is no good story or strong capital support, once the failure results can be imagined. On the other hand, cost involution will also increase the entry threshold and entry risk of new players.

In the past few years, the persistence of many national comic practitioners has given hope to the industry and audiences, and now, on the road of continuing to adhere to hope, it is time to put the industrialization of narrative and the industrialization of technology on an equal footing.

Mirror Entertainment (ID: jingxiangyuler) original

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