Do you need more “Eternal Dragon Slayer” for the online movie Spring Festival?

Online, also feel the taste of the new year.

Text | Poison Eyes, Author | Liu Nandou, Editor | Zhang Youfa

Louis Koo, Donnie Yen, Lin Feng… When these people get together, can you imagine this is the cast of an online movie?

On New Year’s Eve, starred by the above-mentioned actors and directed by Wang Jing, “The God of Heaven and Dragon Slayer: The Nine Suns” was launched, which opened the curtain of this year’s Spring Festival file of Tencent Video’s online movies. Some netizens said in the comments, “Just chasing these actors, I will not lose if I spend 6 yuan to watch it.”

The large production team + differentiated film types constitute the core features of the online film Spring Festival file in its second year. During the 7-day Spring Festival holiday, Tencent Video broadcasted 12 films every day, among which there are many representative works with remarkable genres such as “Eternal Dragon Slayer”, “Shrinking Man Commando”, “Polar Pursuit” and “Broken Gold”.

Under the continuous trend of “improving quality and reducing quantity” in the online movie industry, the online movie Spring Festival has also changed according to the trend, and it is also continuing to explore how to implement the online schedule. “Everything is difficult at the beginning”, and cinema movies have also experienced a long habit of “going to the theater to watch movies during the Spring Festival”, but now, the baton has been handed over to online movies.

Improve quality and reduce weight

Looking back on the online movie industry in 2021, “improving quality and reducing volume” may be the most important keyword.

According to the “2021 China Online Movie Industry Annual Report”, there will be 551 new online movies in 2021, a year-on-year decrease of 28%. However, the effective playback of all feature films in the Shanghai New Online Film Department reached 13.63 million, a year-on-year increase of 37%, and the proportion of feature films with more than 10 million effective playbacks also increased from 31% in the previous year to 39%.

This year’s online movie Spring Festival also conforms to this trend.

On the one hand, the Spring Festival film list is no longer blindly pursuing quantity. Last year, there were as many as 43 films in the Spring Festival film list jointly produced by the three video platforms. This year, Tencent Video has only 12 films in the Spring Festival film list, of which 4 are theatrical films that were popular in the past year. This is a reflection of the rationality of the Spring Festival stalls returning to the market. After all, the total capacity of the Spring Festival holiday is 7 days, but in fact it cannot accommodate too many films. Blind pursuit of huge momentum will harm the interests of a single film.

On the other hand, with the reduction in volume, the genre is equally rich and the overall quality has improved. Action, comedy, suspense, sci-fi, martial arts, etc. This year’s Spring Festival file covers not only popular genres common in online movies, but also innovative genres that are still forging ahead. In contrast, during the same period of the Spring Festival last year, although there were more, sci-fi, martial arts and other genres were not involved.

This is a major manifestation of the evolution of schedule awareness. In mature and large schedules, various types of films of different types are often required to meet the differentiated needs of different audiences, thus supporting the overall market. Outside it is.

In particular, genre innovation itself is also an important way for online movies to gain incremental gains over the past year. For example, last year’s box office champion “The Legend of Xing’an Mountains Hunter” developed the theme of monsters; “Survivor 1937” developed the theme of historical warfare; “Restart the Earth” challenged the difficult theme of “science fiction disaster”, and also gained more than 2,000 million box office.

According to the user survey in the “2021 Online Movie Market Data Insights” released by Maoyan Research Institute, the diversification of themes and genres is the most recognized item by audiences for the development trend of online movies in 2021.

In this year’s Spring Festival stalls, there are also types of innovative works. For example, “Shrunk Man Commando” starring Fan Ming and Zhang Zidong, tried the sci-fi comedy genre, telling the story of a scientist’s adventure in the human world after accidentally becoming small. Comedy is the mainstream theme in online movies. Through the combination of “comedy + sci-fi”, it not only takes into account the market demand, but also tries new types of elements.

“Broken Gold” starring Wu Yue is a combination of suspense and action, telling the story of a pair of twin brothers who were born and died overseas and desperately escaped under the dual pursuit of the police and the underworld. Action movies are also a common type of online movies, but “Broken Gold” tries to add more narrative elements to the action elements. As the two brothers gradually approach the truth, they reflect on the meaning of money to life.

In addition, the large-scale production team is also an essential element of the Spring Festival film. In the festive atmosphere, the lively visual effect blockbuster is more timely. For example, “Eternal Dragon Slayer: Jiuyang Magic”, adapted from Jin Yong’s famous martial arts IP, is the sequel directed by Wang Jing after “Eternal Dragon Slayer: Demon Sect Leader” in 1993. According to data released by Maoyan, 60% of online movie audiences are over 25 years old. This type of IP-oriented + nostalgic-oriented films are attractive to mainstream online film consumers. Coupled with the luxurious cast at the cinema level, it has become the top film in the Spring Festival gear that can meet the audience’s expectations.
“The Legend of Heaven and Slaying the Dragon: Jiuyang Divine Art”

“Polar Pursuit”, directed by Han Guanhua, a famous martial arts instructor in the marriage class, and starring Li Zhiting, Clara and others, strengthens the action type to the extreme. Different from action blockbusters in the traditional sense, the film is set in the background of future technology, and the fights between characters have a stronger cyberpunk style.

The taste is stronger

As early as 2018, the concept of online movie Spring Festival stalls has already begun to take shape. The film “The Return of the Hero of Jigong” was launched on the first day of the Chinese New Year, and finally accumulated a box office score of over 20 million. In 2020, due to the impact of the epidemic, nearly 30 online movies were screened online during the Spring Festival, and many of the movies finally accumulated a total of over 10 million at the box office.

After three years of exploration, the online movie Spring Festival file finally became the industry consensus last year. On February 5, 2021, under the guidance of the Online Audio-Visual Program Management Department of the State Administration of Radio and Television, the Online Film Working Committee of the China Film Association, together with iQiyi, Tencent Video, and Youku, formally proposed the concept of online movie Spring Festival files at the press conference.

The concept is qualitative, which is an important staged achievement. Therefore, in the next stage, there are more questions about how to do it. In the movie viewing behavior in theaters, people gather consumption during holidays not only to meet entertainment needs, but also to meet social needs, so it is easy to form a schedule effect during long holidays, but this is difficult to achieve online movie viewing.

Therefore, how can we make online movies, a relatively free online entertainment form, also form a habit of watching movies on schedule?

In contrast, the answer sheets handed over by Tencent Video’s Spring Festival file this year are more in line with the Spring Festival atmosphere than last year, and the schedule attribute has also been strengthened.

First of all, from the perspective of film selection, the overall selection of this year’s films is in line with the audience’s family viewing needs during the Spring Festival.

Looking back at the key films that brought theatrical films to the public during the Spring Festival, it is not difficult to find that big IP, big scenes and comedy are important labels. For example, “Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons” released in 2013 was an important symbol of the rise of theatrical films during the Spring Festival, breaking more than 20 box office records. In 2016, “The Mermaid” swept the box office of 3.393 billion yuan, raising the box office ceiling of the Spring Festival again. In 2018, “Operation Red Sea” opened low and walked high, confirming the gold-absorbing power of pure big action scenes in the Spring Festival.

This is exactly in line with the important direction of Tencent Video’s Spring Festival selection this year. There are the “Eternal Sky and Dragon Slayer” series adapted from big IP, “Polar Pursuit” and “Broken Gold” which mainly focus on action scenes, and “Shrunk Man Commando” which is a comedy. Not every genre is suitable for watching movies during the Spring Festival. Finding out what the audience likes to watch during the Spring Festival is the cornerstone of the Spring Festival stalls becoming the schedule.

“Shrunk Man Commando”

Secondly, from the presentation of the film list, Tencent Video is scheduled to be broadcast on a daily basis during the Spring Festival, and the sense of ceremony is heavier. Compared with watching movies in theaters, online movies are easier to watch, so a stronger sense of ritual is needed to promote the audience’s movie viewing decisions and save the cost of movie selection and thinking.

As the head film “Eternal Dragon Slayer” series, it has adopted the way of arranging the upper and lower parts successively, so that it can exert a greater schedule potential. After “Eternal Dragon Slayer: Jiuyang Magical Art” was launched on New Year’s Eve, its lower part “Ei Tian Slayer: Sacred Fire Heroes” will be launched on the third day of the new year. The novel attempts launched at the same time in the upper and lower parts, on the one hand, help the online movie IP to form its own IP effect, and on the other hand, it can also continue the popularity of the entire Spring Festival file, so as not to be “top-heavy”.

Finally, in terms of the form of interaction, more live broadcast interactions of the main creators played the effect of online roadshows, and there were more interactive gameplays during the viewing process, and the sense of atmosphere was heavier. During the whole Spring Festival, the main creators of each film will have a conversation with senior film critic Lian Mai, so that the audience can learn more about the stories behind the films. In the process of watching a movie or watching a live movie on the Tencent Video client, red envelopes will also be given out, making the Spring Festival file more “New Year’s taste”.

At a time when the epidemic is normalizing, there are dense crowds during the Spring Festival, and going out to watch movies has become a risky movie-viewing decision. Therefore, when the viewing experience and festival viewing atmosphere of online movies can gradually become closer to offline festival viewing, the development space of online movies will be opened up.

However, the emergence of head-banging models is still the key to determining the vitality of a schedule. Looking forward to the “Journey to the West Conquering the Demons”, which belongs to the Spring Festival file of the online movie, will arrive as soon as possible.