This year's Spring Festival stalls not only broke many records such as box office and the number of moviegoers, but also made breakthroughs in animated films: the latest film of the domestic animation IP "Bear Infested" series "Bear Infested: Reversal of Time and Space" (hereinafter referred to as "Reverse Time and Space") received 13The box office of 9.2 billion yuan not only beat Zhang Yimou's "Article 20" to rank third at the Spring Festival box office, but also helped the total box office of the entire "Bear Infested" series reach 7 billion yuan. Coupled with the TV animation version and theme parks all over the country, "Bear Infested", which was born for 12 years, has become one of the largest IPs in the field of Chinese animation.
The picture shows that on July 20, 2023, the animated puppets and main creators of "Bear Infested" appeared on the red carpet of the opening of China (Beijing) Animation Week. (*China News Service).
"Reversing Time and Space" surpassed "Article 20" at the box office
As the "strongest goalkeeper" of the Spring Festival file, the success of "Reversal of Time and Space" has begun to take shape as early as the pre-sale stage, and the Spring Festival file is in need of such a family carnival work. The other two cartoons in the same schedule - "Bajie: Canopy Nether" and "Huang Pi: God of Wealth Cat" did not pose a threat to "Bear Infested" in terms of popularity and level, and were finally withdrawn. As the tenth animated film in the "Bear Infested" series, "Reversal of Time and Space" is quite ambitious in terms of creative pattern, adding a lot of sci-fi elements, focusing on dazzling special effects and feelings. This year, this latest work finally puts Bald Qiang back as the protagonist: it tells the story of him, as an ordinary worker, who often dreams of his identity in another time and space - a little tour guide with two dogs and bears in the big forest. When Bald Qiang accidentally gets a chance to regain his life, he embarks on a new adventure in order to save Xiong Da Xiong Er in the old timeline. The film borrows the concept of "parallel universe" to make the bald head strong and the characters and plots in multiple series linked, which is not simple for an animated film. It is worth mentioning that there are also a large number of sci-fi elements in the film, and even the ** audience is quite shocked, and they can't help but think of Marvel's "Avengers 4", "X-Men", "Ready Player One" and other Hollywood masterpieces, and the final battle scene is even more "exciting".
Under such an idea that is not only suitable for children's tastes but also satisfies the ** mentality, "Reversal of Time and Space" has performed very steadily throughout the Spring Festival, and the film scheduling rate and box office have been maintained in the top three. However, in terms of word-of-mouth, "Reversal of Time and Space" is not as good as the other three blockbuster films in the spring file, and the Douban score is only 69 points, a slight decrease from last year's "Stay with Me "Bear Core", and some viewers think that the sci-fi elements of this film are borrowed too much and too complex, and children may not be able to understand them. At the same time, with the Spring Festival and winter holidays coming to an end, the box office momentum of the film is a little weak, and the single-day box office on the 19th fell to 67.6 million yuan, accounting for only 16% of the film schedule, and the total box office has exceeded 15900 million yuan, Maoyan Professional Edition** Its final harvest is about 2 billion yuan. Of course, this achievement has surpassed last year's Spring Festival file "Bear Infested, Accompany Me "Bear Core" (149.5 billion yuan), not only became the best box office in the series, but also became the highest-grossing cartoon in the history of the Spring Festival, which is inseparable from the accumulation and breakthrough of this IP for more than ten years.
10 years, 10 parts, 7 billion.
For many Chinese "post-00s" and "post-10s", Xiong Da and Xiong.
Second, the bald head is their favorite anime image, and even the parents who accompany them are quite familiar with these three living treasures who play in the big forest. Since its launch in January 2012, the animated TV version of the "Bear Infested" series has quickly occupied the Chinese young animation market with its interesting design and funny plot, and has become a domestic animation IP with the same name as "Pleasant Goat", and the theme song "I'm Still a Little Confused" has also become a "**Divine Comedy". After accumulating a sufficient audience base, the producer took advantage of the situation to launch the first movie version of "Bear Infested: Raiders of the Lost Ark" in 2014A high box office of 4.7 billion yuan. Since then, "Bear Infested" has launched a movie version every year, and the box office has climbed from the level of 200 million yuan to 500 million and 700 million, until "Return to Earth" in 2022 will reach 9700 million yuan, last year's "Stay with Me "Bear Core" was close to 1.5 billion yuan, plus this year's "Reversal of Time and Space", the series has a total box office record of more than 7 billion yuan, and no domestic animated film IP has reached this level before.
While the box office is soaring and its influence is increasing, the "Bear Infested" series is also gradually changing the positioning of the early "low", not only quietly "whitewashing" the bald head, but also the animation production level is becoming more and more sophisticated, and the plot is becoming more and more complex, especially in "Fantasy Space" (2017), "Metamorphosis" (2018), "Return to Earth" (2022) and other films add a large number of adventure, fantasy and science fiction elements, create a large number of special effects scenes, and change the initial impression of the audience.
In fact, domestic animation series such as "Bear Infested" and "Pleasant Goat" have been exploring breakthroughs in recent years, from the initial "low and young" to "youth" and "* to". For example, 2022's "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: The Basket Out of the Future" is already a basketball-themed juvenile hot-blooded animation; Many of the works in the "Bear Infested" series also incorporate themes such as time travel, space wars, and environmental protection, and even touch on the serious aspects of reflecting on reality and human civilization.
Let foreign audiences know about "Chinese bears".
With the great success of the "Bear Infested" animation and film series, the IP owner Huaqiang Fantawild has also been expanding its business territory, not only developing toys and derivatives, but also actively rolling out physical projects and tourism economy, as if there is a momentum to build "China Disney". At the same time, "Bear Infested" has also been actively entering the overseas market, and its English, Russian and other dubbed versions have been successively in Europe, Russia and other countries**, and with the help of Netflix and other international streaming ** platforms to spread the "story of Chinese bears (Boonie Bears)". In May last year, "Bear Infested, Stay with Me 'Bear Core'" was released in the UK and Ireland, and the British newspaper The Guardian commented that the film was "a cute adventure with environmental awareness, and the footage of the robot duel was also exciting".
However, compared with Disney, the leader of Hollywood animation, the number of IPs in Fangte's hands is still too small, and relying on a single "Bear Infested" lacks breadth and depth. Nowadays, although the box office of the movie version of "Bear Infested" is good, the update of the animated TV version that makes it famous is too slow, and the new IP "Zhao Lin's Adventure Diary" that Fantawild tried to develop last year has a mediocre response, and the follow-up will have to see how "bald strong" brings other "little friends" to success. (ENDS).
Written by Luc.
*: Global Times.