Text | Eye entertainment
Following the "manga fever" sweeping the drama market, the film market has also begun to gear up.
The martial arts comic drama "Young White Horse Drunk Spring Breeze", which bears Youku's summer KPI, was launched on July 19, and as the plot gradually improved, word of mouth gradually fermented, and Youku's "Shaoge Universe" was further broadened to continue the boom in manga dramas.
And after the drama market bet on the comic track, the film market also followed. Whether it is "Under the Alien", which has been scheduled for July 26, or "Dartman", which is about to start on the same day, it shows that the live-action comic has begun to sweep the film industry.
With the continuous increase in the drama market and the film market, the manga track has ushered in an all-round upgrade at both the production level and the market level, and the "manga fever" of the film and television industry in 2024 has been pushed to a new peak.
However, under the surging live-action manga, the poor market performance and lack of popular models have also become a significant symbol of this track, pouring cold water on the hot manga track.
A new round of manga is coming
Live-action manga is indeed one of the hottest tracks in the film and television industry in 2024. This kind of enthusiasm is not only manifested in the market level, but also in the content production level, which is moving towards the mainstream and is favored by more leading film and television companies.
According to Guduo Network Film and Television data, a total of five comic dramas were broadcast in the first half of this year, which may not be much compared to the number of episodes in other tracks, but compared with the three in the same period last year, there has been a significant increase.
In addition to the increase in quantity, another obvious change in mangai works is that they are getting closer and closer to the head drama, in addition to station B's "Time Agent", Tencent's "My name is Bai Xiaofei", iQiyi broadcast "Fox Demon Little Red Lady· Moon Red Chapter", "Flame", "Dali Temple Shaoqing Tour" The three manga dramas are all "head film and television company + head actor + head IP" configuration, and the advantages in content production have also promoted manga dramas to receive more market attention.
Entering the second half of 2024, the film and television industry has ushered in a new round of comic reform.
On the one hand, more comic dramas are emerging. According to Guduo's statistics, there are 16 manga projects currently in preparation and production, and the number has been greatly improved, and the head video platform has also begun to differentiate differentiated content in the production of manga dramas.
Youku has 6 comic reform projects in preparation, mainly based on the adaptation of classic Chinese comic IPs such as "Spirit Cage", "Dart Man", and "Town Soul Street", mostly focusing on the theme of hot-blooded male frequency; iQIYI is the head platform with the most manga projects,There are 7 manga dramas,The adaptation of the original work is half of the Japanese comic and the national comic,The theme is mainly romance and female frequency。
Compared with the continuous efforts of love and excellent in the manga track, although Tencent has the IP resource library of Tencent Animation, it is obviously more cautious about the production of manga dramas, and the only manga projects currently under development are "Nana" and "Super Battle Real Person". And station B, which also has a large number of animation IPs, only has one "Feng Ling Jade Show" in the film and television list, and live-action film and television production itself is not the advantage of station B, and it is normal to be more cautious in the development of live-action manga.
On the other hand, manga has moved from the drama market to the film market, and live-action manga has begun to impact the big screen.
Last year, the director of "Fengshen Part 1" and "Fengshen" Wu Ershan brought his new work to fight again this summer, and the live-action manga movie "Under the Alien" has been screened, and the current reputation is acceptable; The film version of "Dart Man" is directed by Yuan Heping and starring Wu Jing, which can be said to be one of the most popular film projects in recent years.
The biggest difference between movies and TV series is that the former fights for real money, and the market's preferences can get clear feedback from the box office results.
Whether it is a small screen or a big screen, there will be more and more live-action comic works in the future, but contrary to the favor of the film and television industry, the market feedback of manga works is often unsatisfactory, and the flowery manga track is actually deep in anxiety and hidden worries.
Waiting for the popular manga track
An unavoidable fact is that the entire manga track has not yet given birth to a phenomenal hit.
The best results of domestic manga dramas can be traced back to 2019, Xu Kai and Zhang Rongrong starred in "Once Upon a Time There Was a Spirit Sword Mountain", Douban 7 points, and the average episode exceeded 100 million yuan in the manga track is already quite eye-catching, but a series of controversies such as adding dramas and unfinished scenes have led to a decline in word-of-mouth and popularity in the later stage.
After "Once Upon a Time There Was a Spirit Sword Mountain", the comic dramas that can be regarded as popular can be counted on one hand, and the Douban scores of "Chess Soul", "Youth Song Xing" and "Under the Alien" with a good reputation are all above 8 points, but the average number of episodes is hovering around 20 million, and the audience is still concentrated in a specific circle, but because it is a small-cost drama, such results are not bad.
In 2024, the advent of the manga reform tide and the blowout of the head project have not led to the improvement of the broadcast performance, and the five manga dramas broadcast in H1 can be described as "annihilated", and the broadcast results of the head works are far less than expected.
iQIYI manga trilogy "Dali Temple Shaoqing Tour", "Flame", "Fox Demon Little Red Lady· Moon Red Chapter" Yunhe broadcast volume set is less than 20 million, according to the actor cast, production cost, market publicity and other configurations of the head work, judging from the broadcast results, there is actually no objection to hitting the street. As for "Time Agent" and "My Name is Bai Xiaofei", no one cares.
The manga track is facing an embarrassing situation, as the manga fever swept the film and television industry, the content quality of mangai works has not been improved accordingly, mainly because the film and television company has entered a misunderstanding in the content production of live-action manga.
In fact, the long-term dilemma encountered by the live-action manga track is that it is difficult to get out of the circle, even if comic dramas like "Chess Soul", "Youth Song Xing", and "Under the Inhuman", which are recognized as having a good reputation, still failed to set off a wide range of discussions, there are always barriers between the second and third dimensions, and the comic dramas are relatively niche.
How to solve the problem of difficulty in getting out of the circle has become the key to whether the manga drama can have more room for development. The film and television producers tried to break the circle with more well-known IP, stronger casts, and richer special effects technology, and continued to increase the production, but ignored the script that had the greatest impact on the content quality of the comic drama, which affected the presentation of the whole drama.
The key to live-action manga is actually how to present the highly imaginative and creative content in the two-dimensional world in a way that is closer to the three-dimensional reality, break the barriers between dimensions, and attract a wider range of users, so as to successfully get out of the circle. But obviously, most of the head manga dramas broadcast in the first half of this year focused on strong visual effects, and did not really upgrade at the content level.
If the previous manga dramas were just not popular and difficult to get out of the circle, and they were able to maintain their reputation, now they can't keep their reputation and popularity, and they are getting farther and farther away from popular masterpieces.
Manga still needs to be "slow reform"
Objectively speaking, the current predicament encountered by live-action comics cannot be attributed to individual film and television producers, but the problems that appear under the impetuousness of the entire track.
It is not only an important part of the whole IP industry chain, but also an important driving force for the aggregation of two-dimensional young consumer groups. iQIYI's chief content officer stated when he launched the animation IP incubation plan "Sky Plan": Animation is the future, it is naturally full of imagination, and its lasting youthfulness, vitality and commercial realization are the strongest. We need to see a young user base and serve young people.
What's more, compared with other film and television genres, live-action comics are still in the early stage of development, and the competition on the track is not large, and they have a large space to play, which means that film and television producers can eat the most dividends, which has led to the arrival of the comic reform tide.
In order to be the first to eat the most dividends, film and television companies urgently need to launch the first hit, which has also caused the occurrence of the phenomenon of "rushing to the doctor", when the urgency of creating a hit is higher than creating a good work, it will naturally go into a misunderstanding in production, trying to achieve a hit through shortcuts such as IP and casting. Several manga works broadcast in the first half of this year are typical examples, but S+'s manga project has not been rewarded by S+, iQiyi also produced the "Fox Demon Little Red Lady Trilogy", which makes people sweat.
To solve the dilemma that it is difficult to produce word-of-mouth hits in the manga track, we must first cool down the film and television producers, and rush to the manga track, piling up various popular elements to create a popular manga work, which obviously does not work.
In fact, even if the live-action manga is superimposed with animation elements, in the final analysis, it is also a film and television work, and in terms of production, it is still necessary to start with the quality of the content, but there is one more step of the two-dimensional world and the spiritual core, and this is also the most difficult part to be presented, and more thinking is needed in content production.
deliberately pursuing popular models will only get farther and farther away from popular models, and the manga track also needs to be "slowed down".