Since its release on the first day of the Lunar New Year to February 7, the 7-day cumulative box office of "Bears Return to Earth" has reached 619 million yuan, ranking fourth in the Spring Festival category.

After the box office failure of "City of Figurines" last summer, Huaqiang Fangte once again proved its strength with the stable performance of "Bear Infestation".

However, a single IP is also a shortcoming of Huaqiang Fangte.

How long will it take for Huaqiang Fangte to create another "bear haunt"?

"Bear Haunting" reappears in the Spring Festival stalls, with a box office of 600 million in 7 days

　　Recently, a group of sci-fi blockbuster-style animation screenshots accompanied by the sigh of "This is actually a bear haunt" has caused heated discussions among netizens.

The animation in the screenshot is the animated film "Bears Return to Earth", which was released on the first day of the Chinese New Year on February 1. This is also the eighth major movie of the "Bears" series nearly ten years after its launch.

According to the data of Maoyan Professional Edition, as of February 7, the cumulative box office of "Bear Infested Return to Earth" has reached 619 million yuan in 7 days of release, ranking fourth in the Spring Festival category.

　　Director Lin Huida revealed that "Bear Infested Return to Earth" was conceived from 2019 to 2020, and the creation lasted for nearly two years.

Producer Wang Qiang introduced that there are more than 2,000 shots in "The Bears Return to Earth", the number of special effects accounts for 80%, and the number of characters and scenes exceeds 300.

　　A parent who finished watching the movie told the Beijing News Shell Finance reporter that although the plot of the movie was relatively simple for adults, the children were very happy to watch it.

Some parents said that taking their children to the cinema to watch "Bear Haunts" has become a Spring Festival tradition in recent years.

"It's good to have a movie that the whole family can watch together during the Chinese New Year. It has a sense of ritual. I plan to see that the children are not interested until the time when the bear is infested."

　　Fangte Animation, the first producer of "The Bears Return to Earth", is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Huaqiang Fangte Culture and Technology Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Huaqiang Fangte").

Through the combination of cultural content and theme parks, Huaqiang Fantawild has become a unique domestic closed-loop cultural enterprise covering not only film and television animation content, cultural derivatives industries, but also theme parks. is its representative IP.

　　Except for the cancellation of the release in 2020 due to the epidemic, the "Bear Infested" series of films continued to be released steadily at the rate of one film per year, all aiming at the Spring Festival stalls and becoming "New Year's Goods" films.

Statistics show that the total box office of the first seven films of the "Bears Infested" series has exceeded 3.2 billion.

According to Maoyan Professional Edition data, since the launch of the first animated film in 2014, the box office of the "Bear Infested" series has always maintained an upward trend.

Although "Bear Infested Wild Continent", which was postponed for a year in the 2021 Spring Festival, was affected by the epidemic and other factors, the total box office of 62 days after its release was 594 million yuan, but this year's Spring Festival "Bear Infested: Return to Earth" was released in 7 days. The box office of 619 million yuan once again proved the strength of the "Bear Infested" IP.

　　Huaqiang Fangte, as the first producer, production unit and co-issuer of the "Bear Infested" series of films, has increased its box office performance year by year.

According to previously disclosed data, from 2016 to 2018, Huaqiang Fangte's distribution revenue from the "Bear Haunted" movie was 41.6063 million yuan, 64.5811 million yuan and 76.0605 million yuan, respectively, and the corresponding box office of the three films was 288 million yuan. yuan, 521 million yuan and 606 million yuan.

From 2017 to 2019, Huaqiang Fangte's digital animation business revenue also maintained growth. In the first half of 2021, the business revenue increased by 160.3% year-on-year to 207 million yuan.

"City of Figurines" "lost" at the box office, it is not easy to impress adult audiences

　　As of May last year, Fantawild Huaqiang had a total of 27 theme parks, and the number of theme park brands has now reached 8.

With the further development of the "Bears" IP, Huaqiang Fantawild is also gradually enriching its theme park projects and improving the park experience by highlighting "Bears".

Now, in Tianjin Fangte Happy World, tourists can fight with animated characters in the project "The Adventures of Bears"; in Ningbo Fangte Oriental God Painting, they can join the animal protection acrobatic troupe with Xiong Da and Xiong Er; in Zhuzhou Fantawild Dream Kingdom, where visitors can experience the story of protecting the forest cedar...

　　However, under the dazzling achievements of the "Bear Infested" series, Huaqiang Fangte has not yet succeeded in creating the second "Bear Infested".

　　In 2019, "Nezha's Devil Child Comes into the World" refreshed the domestic audience's perception of domestic animation films with a total box office of 5 billion yuan, and also demonstrated the imagination of high-quality domestic animation films that have stepped out of the "comfort zone" of children's audiences. .

In the same year, the box office of "Bear Infested Primitive Times" was 714 million yuan.

　　In fact, in addition to "Bear Haunting", Huaqiang Fangte has also been continuously creating new IPs such as "Chicken is not easy to mess with", "Little Bugs have great wisdom" and "Bear Haunting" derivative IPs such as "Bears Paradise".

But after sorting it out, it is not difficult to find that among the members of the "Fantawild Family", only the audience of the zodiac legend series is teenagers aged 8-16 years old, "Let's Go!"

Other members such as "Lu Qi", "Bearing Paradise", "Little Bugs Have Great Wisdom", "Chicken is not easy to mess with", etc., are aimed at children under 12 years old.

　　"The audience of a single IP is relatively narrow and limited, and it is difficult to support the long-term development of a large company." Zhou Mingqi, founder of Jingjian Think Tank, said, "At present, the audience of Huaqiang Fangte's "Bear Infested" series is mainly young children. , which not only limits the schedule and schedule of big movies, but also limits the subsequent expansion of IP, such as peripherals that can only be sold to young children, which are relatively cheap.”

　　Huaqiang Fangte also admitted that although it already owns animation brands with certain market influence such as "Bear Haunted", the number is relatively small, and there is still a big gap between the IP reserves and the top international companies.

　　Against this background, Fantawild Animation's five-year-old Chinese ancient-style animated film "The City of Figurines" is aimed at a wider audience of 14-30-year-olds.

The film director Ding Liang is the senior vice president of Huaqiang Fangte, known as the "father of bears"; director Lin Yongchang is a "veteran" in the field of digital animation.

　　Inspired by the Terracotta Warriors, "City of Terracotta Warriors" tells the story of a young man's adventures and growth, good and evil and his choices.

Although it is a brand new attempt, Huaqiang Fangte did not choose a safer approach, such as adapting existing characters such as Monkey King, or choosing works based on the original work.

In this way, an original "City of Figurines" was "highly hoped" by Huaqiang Fangte.

In the previously disclosed prospectus, one of the purposes of Huaqiangfang's fundraising is to obtain the production cost of "City of Figurines".

　　However, the final performance of "City of Figurines" is hard to describe.

According to the plan, "City of Figurines" was originally supposed to be released in the second half of 2019, but it was finally postponed to July last year.

After its release, the market response to "City of Figurines" was not very strong. The total box office of the 38-day release was only 69.854 million yuan, far less than the box office of the "Bear Infested" series. Bears infested" series.

The domestic animated film "White Snake 2: Green Snake Robbery", which was also in the summer, had a total box office of 557 million yuan when it was released for 38 days.

In addition, in the audience evaluation of "City of Figurines", keywords such as "rough narrative" and "old-fashioned story" are not uncommon.

　　According to the project plan disclosed by Huaqiang Fangte in 2019, "City of Figurines" will launch the second and third films in 2021 and 2022 respectively, and the same as the "Bear Infested" series, one per year; the total of the two films The investment is 120 million yuan and 150 million yuan respectively, of which Huaqiang Fangte invested 60 million yuan and 82.5 million yuan. The total investment and the company's investment are also comparable to the seventh and eighth parts of "Bear Infestation".

With the postponement of "City of Figurines" to 2021, it is also unknown how the launch time of the subsequent two films will change.

　　In addition, if the investment amount disclosed in the plan is used as a standard analogy, whether "City of Figurines", which has a separate box office of 62.928 million yuan, can be profitable, also has a question mark.

The Beijing News Shell Finance reporter called Huaqiang Fangte about related issues, but the call was never answered.

Can Huaqiang Fangte create another "bear haunt"?

　　After a long-term targeting of children's audiences, the attempt of "City of Figurines" did not bring Huaqiang Fangte a blockbuster and successful transformation.

When referring to the shortcomings of its own IP reserves, Huaqiang Fangte described the reason as "short development time".

According to industry insiders, Huaqiang Fantawild still has a long way to go on the road of creating IP.

　　"Animation is the top creative product in the cultural industry. Not only is the positioning of the consumer market very important, but also a 'take-all' and an income model with an industrial chain structure. Of course, most domestically choose one direction, such as making children's animation, looking for Children's market and children's industry." Chen Shaofeng, deputy dean of Peking University's Cultural Industry Research Institute, said, "If you only want to make children's animation movies, you have to start with children's animation TV series first, and it will cost a lot of money to lay the groundwork."

　　According to incomplete statistics from the Beijing News Shell Finance reporter, Huaqiang Fangte has released at least 10 animated series and 8 movies in the nearly ten years since the birth of the "Bear Infested" series, with more than 500 animated episodes.

In order to ensure the IP popularity of continuous operation, the release of a new movie every year has also become a "required course" for Huaqiang Fangte.

　　"In addition, the content of children's animation must be liked by both parents and children, otherwise parents will not take their children to buy toys, etc." Chen Shaofeng said, "As far as the mainstream consumers of movies are concerned, it is best to make animation movies with Young people are the mainstream film consumers, of course, it is better to be a 'take-all' type."

　　In addition, the accumulation of time alone is not enough for a successful IP.

"Cultivating a successful IP requires capital cost and opportunity cost in addition to time cost. The 'preservation' of film and television image IP needs to continuously inject new content and continue to attract audiences. Even if the top IPs in Hollywood, such as Marvel, DC, Star Wars, etc. are like this, then large capital and good business interests are needed to support such continuous large investment." Zhou Mingqi said, "In addition, opportunity costs are also required. High investment It may not really pay off. Even the same team and the same group of people may not be able to replicate it successfully. If the positioning of large investment and large production is inaccurate, there may also be a situation of "floating". There are many other influencing factors. Even the epidemic."

　　However, in the eyes of industry insiders, Huaqiang Fangte still needs a long time to improve its IP system as the only cultural and tourism enterprise in China that has realized the closed loop of "own IP + theme park".

Zhou Mingqi said that it is a big challenge for Huaqiang Fangte to build a comprehensive IP system that includes multiple age groups and different positioning.

"At present, there is no adult-oriented IP in the field of domestic film and television animation. One of the advantages of Huaqiang Fangte is that it has achieved a breakthrough from 0 to 1. Similar companies such as OCT and Sunac are using ' The +real estate' business model is a theme park, but it doesn't put much effort into making IP and content. The film and television animation companies that produce IP rarely have the strength to make theme parks, or have the perseverance to continue to develop IP."

　　Beijing News Shell Finance reporter Zheng Yijia