Another masterpiece of Wong Kar-wai has caused a market frenzy.
At the beginning of 2023, a period drama "Flowers" directed by Wong Kar-wai and starring powerful actors such as Hu Ge, You Benchang, Ma Yili, Tang Yan, and Xin Zhilei caused a huge sensation. The play successfully touched the hearts of the audience by depicting the Shanghai style at the end of the last century and showing the ups and downs of the fate of ordinary people in the big era.
In the play, the financial predator "Mr. Bao" played by Hu Ge has changed back to the ordinary person "Bao", making the show one of the biggest hits at the beginning of 2024. The audience was immersed in the plot and became interested in the Shanghai style at the end of the last century. Even in reality, the play pushed the Peace Hotel's "British Flower Suite"** soared to a sky-high price of 18,888 yuan per night.
The success of "Flowers" is not only due to its fascinating plot, but also inseparable from the ingenuity of the team behind the scenes. This drama is jointly produced by **TV Station, Shanghai Film Group, Shanghai Tencent Penguin Film and Television Culture Communication, and Shanghai Fanhuali Enterprise Development***. In this strong production team, Wong Kar-wai played a key role.
Wong Kar-wai acquired the film and television adaptation rights of ** "Flowers" as early as November 2013, but the actual filming did not start until 2017. He spent a lot of time researching materials, rewriting scripts, looking for actors, and preparing for the shooting. In addition to the TV series, Wong Kar-wai also holds the film adaptation rights of "Flowers".
In the lineup of the producer, Shanghai Fanhuali is considered to be Wong Kar-wai's "vest", and his affiliated company, Shanghai Zedong Consulting***, shares the same registered address and contact**. Tencent and Shanghai Film Group entered around 2019 and 2020 respectively. This means that from the establishment of the project to the broadcast, the preparation of this series has taken five or six years.
The production costs of the series are huge, and one of the obvious expenditures is the location. Shanghai Film Group invested 500 million yuan to acquire Wong Kar-wai's only fancy Haopu Film and Television Base around Shanghai. This base not only has a large studio of more than 5,000 square meters, but also is equipped with a high-standard professional underwater photography pool.
In accordance with Wong Kar-wai's requirements, Shanghai Film Group has created the main story stage of "Flowers" with a 50-year architectural standard and a ratio of 1:1 in Chedun Film and Television Base. This provides a sense of realism for the series, as well as a location for other future film and television productions.
In addition, the ** copyright fee of the episode is also a huge part. Wong Kar-wai chose a large number of classic Chinese** and paid a huge fee for it. Music critic Lu Shiwei estimated that the copyright fee of "Flowers" is about 10 million yuan.
In terms of ad placement, the show set a record for the number of advertisements. Audience statistics show that there are 9 to 10 ads in an average episode of "Flowers", and the maximum is 11, with a total of 286 ad placements. Advertisers include 40 brands such as Chunzhen, Dove, Pepsi, Weilong, Meituan, and vivo.
The success of the series is not only due to the audience's love, but also to a series of commercial effects. The popularity of the show on major ** platforms continues to rise, becoming the fourth TV series with a popularity value of more than 30,000 in Tencent, and entering the "hot club".
The audience's input has also significantly boosted the platform's commercial monetization. Although Tencent** did not disclose specific statistics, the conversion of the audience is not negligible.