N ways for film and television dramas to die violently

Author|Weinika

Editor|Li Chunhui

When airborne landing became the norm for drama broadcasts, more and more viewers began to pay attention to the grapevine in order to know the episode scheduling of video websites as soon as possible. For example, the two days have caused heated discussions - "delaying the drama must not be broadcast in the lifetime".

But the grapevine is also inaccurate, after all, the plan is not as fast as the change, and the airborne dramas that are finally broadcast are often unexpected. Just like the original "Carefree Crossing" was rumored to be airborne at the end of the summer, but the final broadcast was "Cloud Feather".

If the news is true, then the withdrawal of "Carefree Crossing" must be influenced by Song Zuer. Although there is no official conclusion on whether Song Zuer evaded taxes or evaded taxes, if her works want to be broadcast, they must also wait for an official statement. It has been reported on the Internet that it is suspected that the staff of "Carefree Du" complained about grinding a sword for 5 years, but ended up with 0 results.

At present, the chaos of the series scheduling can be described as peaking. "Carefree" is no accident. Some time ago, the star drama "Camp with Love" was about to kick in the door, and the news of the producer's corruption was exposed. Whether the series can be broadcast in the future is also confusing.

Nowadays, a film and television project can be successfully broadcast, as if winning the lottery. Before the broadcast, something may happen suddenly. Even if it is already online, it is also difficult to guarantee that something will happen. The masses do not think it is strange that the temporary suspension and removal from the shelves are all "media problems". A drama can be smoothly broadcast, and even after three or five years, it can still be watched, which is already worth the creator and fans secretly rejoicing.

Film and television projects are high-risk, which is already a common problem. But in the past, the risks of the film and television industry still had certain rules, and they could also feel the door to do some risk control. Now the project is in such a state that it seems that there is no control at all. Not to mention that the film and television industry all prays to God and worships Buddha, in addition to metaphysics, what else can you believe?

There are many problems with "risk control" among artists

Before 2018, it was still a small probability event for artists to involve their works. The most well-known example is the drug-related legal Kake Zhendong, which led to the remake of the movie "Monster Hunt" with a loss of hundreds of millions.

After 2018, artists' works suddenly became a high-incidence event. The fuse was the Yin and Yang contract incident that shocked inside and outside the circle in 2018, and Fan Bingbing was fined as much as 880 million.

For the first time, the masses have countless understandings of the sky-high taxes that celebrities escape, and at the same time, they also know for the first time that tax evasion and tax evasion and even projects with people will be blocked. Prior to this, the most well-known tax evasion artist Liu Xiaoqing was fined 20 million yuan in 2000 and imprisoned for more than a year, and then returned to filming to pay off debts, and is still active in front of the screen "Liu Girl".

After the Fan Bingbing incident, everyone in the entertainment industry was in danger, triggering a wave of company deregistration in the tax haven of Khorgos in Xinjiang. After a round of tax self-examination and self-correction and tax supplementation, the taxation of the entertainment industry is much more formal than before. But every year or two, there will always be tax problems of individual celebrities and trigger a group of celebrities to protect themselves.

For example, in 2021, Zheng Shuang was exposed by his ex-boyfriend Zhang Heng during the surrogacy incident when filming "New Qiannu Ghost" (the play also became one of the many works that the other starring Hou Minghao could not broadcast), and because of the 77-day salary of 160 million yuan, the public's perception of sky-high salaries was once again refreshed, making the "daily salary of 2.08 million" popular so far. Now the synonym of domestic entertainment stars has directly become "208w".

After Zheng Shuang was fined 299 million, the entertainment industry once again rose to the tide of star studio cancellations, and #75 first-line artists canceled more than 200 companies# and also appeared on Weibo hot search. In 2022, tax evasion incidents by Deng Lun and Yuan Bingyan have broken out one after another. If nothing else, this Song Zuer incident will trigger another round of cancellations.

On the cusp of heavy penalties for tax evasion and evasion, there are still people who take risks, because there are too many operational financial gray areas in the entertainment industry. The financial complexity and lack of uniform standards for a project provide a lot of room for tax evasion. This is also why in the past, lay capital was keen to enter the entertainment industry, because it can help a lot of money for no reason become "reasonable" expenses, and eventually become their own reasonable income.

After the 2018 entertainment industry tax earthquake, the financial departments of film and television companies in the circle have basically experienced "blood change" and embarked on a regular road. But whether the finances of the star's own studio are formal or not depends on the will and cognition of the star himself. If you leave your finances to your family, it will bury hidden dangers. Judging from the statement of Song Zuer's former company Xitian, Song Zuer's tax evasion problem occurred precisely during the period when Song Zuer's finances were transferred from the company to his family.

It seems that the unprofessionalism of the family workshop will not only affect the future of the artist's star road, but also expose the artist to legal risks. But many artists never understand the truth of "let professional people do professional things", after all, in the entertainment industry, you can also see many "successful cases" of "unprofessional people also doing things".

In addition to the high incidence of tax evasion, there is also a crisis of "blocking" artists' inappropriate remarks. Chunxia and Zhou Junwei were both banned from Weibo for inappropriate remarks, and then their upcoming dramas were not broadcast as scheduled.

In addition, although the rice circle has now been rectified by the "Qinglang Action", the anger is still very heavy, and the culture of reporting without saying a word is prevalent. Especially the fans of banned artists can't wait to pull up the entire circle and sink together. Even if it is not illegal, it is inevitable that artists will lose their personal morality if they make a mistake, and they may force the drama party to be unable to play due to the pressure of public opinion. The supporting role can also be deleted to remedy, if the protagonist is difficult to save back, after all, not every project has money to change faces and reshoot.

There is a shortage of money upstream

There was a large influx of lay capital into the entertainment industry, producing a lot of backlog projects. Most of these projects were put on hold and aborted, mostly because of problems such as financial fraud in upstream capital, and after being investigated or an accident at the top level, no one took over the project. In a word, the troubles of the entertainment industry at that time were the troubles of money. But the trouble now is the worry of not having money.

Recently, Zhang Han and Lin Yun's costume drama "Kunpeng and the Butterfly", which had been on for a month, suddenly stopped filming, and it was rumored that there was a problem with the producer and the crew's capital chain was broken. Hard Candy Jun checked the project's production company, Fujian Xinying Pictures, and has participated in several completely unknown films since 2016. The two major shareholders behind the company, one named Yang Gang is involved in the paper industry, and the other is Chen Wenqing, whose main business is the education and training industry. It seems that this kind of layman's capital to invest in the film and television industry is still available today, but in the past, their projects were usually problems after filming, and rarely had problems as soon as filming started now.

If "Kunpeng and the Butterfly" is still a layman's capital, then "Camped by Love" is unreliable for insiders. Starring Bailu Wang Hedi and adapted from Jinjiang's well-known romance IP "Wrong Flirting", "Camp with Love", the production company Dongyang Agni, has just broadcast a costume drama "Changfengdu" with good investment promotion and broadcast effects in the summer. "Camp with Love" was exposed a while ago that the producer was embezzling and arrears of salaries to the crew, which is strange in your circle.

Hard Candy Jun interviewed Xiao A, a practitioner around her, on this matter, and she believes that this matter should not be simple corruption. Generally speaking, even if the producer is corrupt, there will be no situation of pressing the crew's salary. Producer corruption is usually done in other ways, such as financial fraud or kickbacks from other departments and suppliers.

All in all, the financial situation of the film and television industry has indeed not improved, and this year is not the first time that the project capital chain has been broken. In March this year, a batch of S+ projects suddenly reported the news of suspension and postponement, and the number of Hengdian start-up projects fell by half compared with the same period last year. At that time, just as the Bank of Silicon Valley declared bankruptcy, rumors were circulating that the accounts of China's rich were being pitted. Although many capital bigwigs, such as Meituan founder Wang Xing, came out to refute the rumors.

However, many projects on the market do have a trend of budget tightening, and many first-line actors have not been in the group for a long time. For example, it is rumored that Gong Jun's "Flying Elephant" and Chen Xiao's "Pifu Youze" have stopped, and both of them did not join the group for 4 months at that time, and it was not until May that the two entered the new projects "Wind Passing Traces" and "Little Days".

However, in this batch of projects that stopped shooting in March, there are also those that have already started after postponing. For example, Liu Yifei's "Rose Story", Liu Yifei did not join the group for a year and a half before taking over this play. In other words, others may have withdrawn early, and it can only be said that Liu Yifei is the type who is willing to sacrifice time costs for a good book.

Last year, fans were also keen to count the "window period" table of actors who did not enter the group, and this year found that not entering the group has become the norm in the entertainment industry, and they laughed at each other.

Even 95 Flower Zhao Lusi, who once entered the group seamlessly, has not entered the group for nearly half a year. And many first-line students and flowers not only haven't filmed for a long time, but they don't even have two in stock. Xiao Zhan no longer has any works to be broadcast except for Tsui Hark's film "The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Great Heroes"; Wang Yibo has no other works except for the backlog of the movie "Peacekeeping Riot Squad" and the drama "Golden Journey" that has just been filmed.

In general, although the scheduling situation is endless, the number of industry dramas far exceeds the number of filming, and the speed of broadcasting dramas exceeds the speed of filming. Now the situation of tight upstream funds in the industry is clear at a glance.

The public opinion environment is changing too fast

The industry is short of money, and to add insult to injury, the public opinion environment changes too quickly, increasing the risk of many episodes being broadcast.

For example, when the circle was keen to remake Japanese IP in the past two years, how could I have expected that now due to the nuclear sewage incident, the masses are shouting at Japanese elements. Costume dramas are even more dangerous for everyone, and they must self-examine and self-correct the problem of "boojiao".

The current public opinion environment is quite a bit of a sense of being a soldier. Many film parties are also uncertain about the extent to which public opinion has been influenced. For some artists and creators who have not been officially reported, but some netizens have reported their words and deeds, the drama party does not know how to deal with it.

For example, last year, the second actress of a popular drama was reported for her remarks "Jing Ri", and she was removed from the drama announcement, but the scene was not completely deleted, nor did it trigger a greater public opinion crisis. But when the subsequent episodes wanted to be concocted in the same way, it didn't seem to work.

A film and television project, from preparation to start-up, to broadcast, the fastest cycle is at least half a year. Who could have predicted that half a year later, there would be a new crisis of public opinion. For the film and television industry, in the past, "airborne" broadcasting was a last resort, and now "airborne" is a kind of self-protection to avoid being overly concerned in the early stage and causing an uncontrollable public opinion crisis.

For example, the drama party who bet on 95 Hua Wang Churan could not have imagined that "My Human Fireworks" broadcast in the summer was obviously Wang Churan's must-explode, but it failed to soar and caught up with word of mouth. Many dramas to be broadcast that originally wanted to rub the heat have pressed the schedule because of the wind of public opinion.

Of course, there are also people who catch up with the hot spots of public opinion and become the chosen sons. For example, the summer box office champion "All or Nothing". An industry insider revealed that last year Bad Monkey took the share of "All or Nothing" to talk to many investors, but few people were interested. But who knows, two months before the film's release, the fraud incident in northern Myanmar suddenly became popular on short videos, and the film took advantage of this shareholder wind, marketing data soared, and finally helped the movie sell 3.6 billion votes

Every project has its own life, and no one can copy anyone. But in general, film and television projects are early or late, and no one can guarantee that the next public opinion environment will be beneficial or disadvantageous to themselves. This may be why the speed of "lifting the drama" is so fast now, presumably the drama party and the platform naturally understand the truth of "long nights and dreams".