Text |Eye entertainment.The "Bear Infested" series of movies has gone through 10 yearsAfter becoming the biggest dark horse of the Spring Festival movies in 2023, the 10th big movie in the "Bear Infested" series, "Bear Infested: Reversing Time and Space", will arrive as scheduled in the Spring Festival in 2024.
Another surprise in the animated film market in 2024 is the return of the "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf" series, and the new movie "Guardian" will hit the big screen in 2024.
The two most influential animation IPs in China will face each other again, focusing not only on who can win a higher box office between "Reversal of Time and Space" and "Guardian".It's more about the bear infested and the pleasant goat, who can promote the development of the domestic animation IP industry chainto create China's Disney
In fact, Bear Infested and Pleasant Goat had a head-to-head confrontation in the 2022 Spring Festival.
On the first day of the Lunar New Year in 2022, Bear Infested launched the eighth big movie "Return to Earth", and Pleasant Goat returned to the big screen after seven years and came out with "Basket Out of the Future", which made the entire film market look forward to it.
However, the imaginary-for-tat and two-man battle for hegemony did not appear, and the box office of "Return to Earth" was as high as 97.7 billion, and "Basket Out of the Future" was not popular, and only gained 1600 million box office, unfortunately lost.
Of course, the box office does not fully reflect the quality of a work, but to some extent it can represent the commercial value of the film, as it turns outBear infestation has become the largest IP in the domestic animated film market, and Pleasant Goat is more of a sentiment for the audience and the market
In fact, the result of this confrontation is not unexpectedBecause the bear infestation and the peak of the Pleasant Goat happen to be staggered.
In August 2005, Guangdong original power culture launched "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf" officially launched, after a great success, in 2009, the first big movie of the Pleasant Goat series "Bull Spirit" was released, with an investment of only 6 million yuan but won a box office of 100 million, creating a box office miracle of domestic animated films.
After tasting the sweetness, the Pleasant Goat series will launch a New Year's film every Spring Festival to create the "Zodiac" series, until 2014, the box office of "Pegasus Adventure" fell below 100 million for the first time, and the 2015 "Year of the Goat" Pleasant Goat only left 60 million yuan.
Due to the continuous box office, due to cost and revenue considerations, the production of the Pleasant Goat series of movies was suspended, and the bear infested took this opportunity to seize the animated film market.
In 2014, Bear Infested launched the first big movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark", and won 24.7 billion box office, this is a height that the Pleasant Goat series of movies has never reached.
Maintaining the update frequency of one a year, the box office of the bear infested series of big movies has been rising, and in 2023, it will exceed 1 billion yuan for the first time, and the cumulative box office has exceeded 5 billion yuan, becoming a typical example of the film market.
And what the two major animation IPs have in common is thatThe targeting is very clear, and the target audience is children
The traditional successful animated film "Nezha's Demon Boy Descends to the World" and "The Return of the Great Sage", this kind of ** audience is more **, and has higher requirements for the quality of the film, while the bear infested and Pleasant Goat for children do not have high requirements for the movie itself, although there may be a series of problems such as flat plot and lack of connotation, but as long as it can attract children, it will be successful.
Relatively speaking,The Bear Infested and Pleasant Goat series of films are cheaper and less difficult to make, and the production model is easier to replicate, so this kind of movie can maintain the update frequency of one a year, and exchange high income for a very low cost.
The industry will not think of bears and pleasant goats when shouting "The rise of Guoman",But in fact,From the content production、IP development、Profit model and other aspects,Bear infestation and Pleasant Goat are the closest to Disney
From cartoons to movies to theme parks, Bear Infested and Pleasant Goat have a set of IP operation models similar to Disney.
Referring to Disney's business model, you will find outThe end of animation IP monetization is theme parksSince the birth of the image of Mickey Mouse in 1928, Disney has gone through nearly a hundred years and built a fairly large IP empire, but from the perspective of revenue, in the entire Disney IP industry chain, the most profitable is actually the theme park.
According to Walt Disney's financial report for the first half of 2023, the company's total revenue is 453$2.7 billion, an increase of 1037%, of which the revenue of the business segment in which Disneyland is located is about 165$1.2 billion, in simple termsOnly six Disney parks in the world contribute one-third of Disney's revenue
When Disneyland landed in China, Shanghai Disneyland is the world's most profitable Disneyland, and the Shanghai International Tourism Resort where it is located has generated more than 61.5 billion yuan in tourism revenue since its opening and operation seven years ago.
Compared with film and television revenue, theme parks are the bulk of animation IP's revenue, so in the end, animation IP is a theme park, and bear infested and Pleasant Goat are no exception.
The bear-infested production company, Huaqiang Fangte, itself is a profitable company with "theme park + cultural content products", and the concept of the Pleasant Goat theme park won the Best Business Model of the Year award in 2009.
Through the promotion of IP through cartoons and animated films, and then relying on the creation of IP theme parks for monetization, Huaqiang Fantawild has opened Bear Paradise all over the country, and the Pleasant Goat Theme Park has also settled in Shanghai.
From the perspective of revenue, according to Huaqiang Fantawild 2022 financial report, the company's total annual revenue reached 4.5 billion yuan, of which the revenue of theme parks reached 349.5 billion yuan, accounting for 77% of the company's total revenue.
Although special films and digital animations have greater influence and wider dissemination, the revenue of such cultural content products is only 1 billion yuan, and the ability to attract money is far less than that of theme parks, which further proves itTheme park is the best business model for animation IP monetization
But the problem is that although Bear Infested and Pleasant Goat refer to the Disneyland model in IP operation, there is still a certain gap between them and Disney in terms of commercialization.
On the one hand, Disneyland is not built on a single IPIn 2023, Disney accounts for half of the 10 most profitable IPs in the world, but whether it is Huaqiang Fangte, which belongs to the bear infested IP, or Aofei Entertainment, which belongs to the Pleasant Goat IP, they are far from Disney in terms of IP reserves.
On the other hand, IP operation is always the development of content in the final analysis, and Disney's advantage lies in having rich content ideasAnimation, movies, and theme parks can endure, and this is what the bears and pleasant goats that are frequently required to rectify their content are lacking.
Disney's business model can be replicated, but it's not that easy to become the next Disney.
Whether it is Huaqiang Fantawild or Alpha Entertainment, there is a Chinese Disney dream, but there are always "shortcomings".
Disney's success is driven by the two-way drive of "cultural content products + theme parks".The rich content products provide a steady stream of classic IP for the theme park, and the theme park provides a monetization channel for the IP, building a complete IP industry chain.
In terms of cultural products, in addition to its own Mickey, Winnie the Pooh, and Princess series, Disney acquired Pixar for $7.4 billion in 2006, that is, the animation company that created "Toy Story", and later successively acquired Marvel, Lucas, and 21st Century Fox, building a huge IP empire.
In terms of monetization, the construction of theme parks is not as easy as imagined, first, the cost is too high, whether it is the construction cost in the early stage, the operating expenses in the medium term, or the continuous investment in the later stage, it requires huge financial support;The second is that theme parks need rich content products to fill, and if Disney only has one Mickey, it can't become a popular park all over the world.
So while the benefits of theme parks are considerable, there are only six Disney parks in the world.
The "shortcoming" of Huaqiang Fantawild and Alpha Entertainment lies in the fact that in this IP industry chainIt is not possible to have rich IP and IP monetization capabilities at the same time
Huaqiang Fantawild has more than 30 theme parks across the country, breaking the concept that theme parks must be distributed in first-tier cities, but going to second- and third-tier cities to seize users in the sinking market, this unique operation concept allows Huaqiang Fantawild to have more than 50 million visitors, ranking among the top five in the world for four consecutive years.
Although there is already a mature theme park operation model, butThe "shortcoming" of Huaqiang Fantawild is that it does not have rich IPTheme parks are all over the country, but the content products are only infested with bears, just like Disneyland only has Mickey.
It is difficult for a single IP to support a theme parkTherefore, although the majority of Huaqiang Fantawild profits are in the theme park, on the whole, the revenue of the theme park is still in a state of decline year after year, and in 2022, the operating income is only enough to cover the operating costs, although the box office of the bear-infested movie in 2022 is nearly 1 billion, but Huaqiang Fantawild still has a net loss of more than 60 million yuan throughout the year.
In fact, Huaqiang Fantawild is not unaware of the shortage of IP resources, and has invested 300 million yuan to create an ancient style animated film, which finally ended dismal with a box office of 50 million, and spent a lot of money to introduce the "Miracle Girl" series and the "Space Mouse Family" series from abroad, but the response was mediocre, and the only name that the public could call was the bear.
The situation of Aofei Entertainment is just the opposite of Huaqiang FangteIt has a series of well-known IPs for all ages, but it has always been a chess piece in terms of IP operation and monetization
Since 2012, Aofei Entertainment has incarnated as an "acquisition madman", spending 5bought "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf" for 400 million yuan, and successively spent nearly 2 billion yuan to acquire more than ten companies, including Super Wings, 100,000 Bad Jokes, Balala Little Demon Fairy and other IPs, and built a theme park with reference to Disney.
But the problem is that Alpha Entertainment is eager to monetize through theme parks after acquiring IPThere is no ability to develop and operate high-quality IP, has been over-consuming the value of the IP itself.
The final result is also obvious, it has a rich IP but cannot be realized, the film and television content is getting worse and worse, the former national IP Pleasant Goat was overtaken by bears, and the theme park has not been done, Aofei Entertainment's 2021 financial report shows that the park's revenue can exceed 30 million.
To this day, Huaqiang Fangte and Aofei Entertainment have failed to realize the Disney dream, but they do provide a part of the sample for the development of the animation IP industry chain, no matter who can win a higher box office in 2024, there is still a long way to go to create an IP industry chain similar to Disney, which can be described in sixteen words:The road is long and resistant, and the line is coming;The future is promising