It's another year of summer vacation, and a few families are happy and a few are sad. Last year, Wu Ershan's "Fengshen", relying on the fans' "tap water" Jedi counterattack, finally won the box office of 2.6 billion, but unfortunately this year he failed to reproduce this kind of good luck, after the release of "Under the Alien", the polarization of word-of-mouth is particularly serious, many fans question the original spirit and character design embodied in the film have different degrees of deviation and "magic change", at present, it seems that it is unknown whether the box office can exceed 200 million, Its Douban score of 6.1 is far lower than the online drama version launched last year, which caused many original fans to complain that "it seems that the gold content of the drama version will continue to increase".
Why are popular IP movies and dramas "dual-track" parallel, and they can't always "mirror each other and be wonderful in their own way", today, let's take this opportunity to analyze it in depth.
Two-hour restoration of "big" IP is doomed to be cramped, and it is difficult for vertical content to gain universal resonance
The picture below is the movie version of the "One Fish and Two Eats" IP that has been launched in the past six months, and compared with the score of the previous drama version, it can be found that in addition to the two versions of "The Three Teams", there is a very obvious gap between the other IPs and the film version compared with the drama version.
Why has "not the same IP" become a "curse"? The reason behind this is worth digging deeper, and the mystery may be hidden in various details.
First, the IPs mentioned above are basically types with huge plots and many characters, and the length of the TV series has the opportunity to restore the content as completely and wonderfully as possible, and the movie is relatively cramped with only 130 minutes in length.
In the film version of "Under the Inhuman", Wu Ershan is actually very efficient in the construction of a complex world view, but due to the volume of the movie, the story cannot accommodate the most exciting part of the original "Luo Tian Dajiao" (Inhuman Conference), so the lack of highlights in the overall viewing experience is also expected. At the same time, as a movie, it must have a complete structure of "starting, bearing, turning, and combining", and it is impossible to stop abruptly, so the film version has added the scenes and core battle scenes of "all sexually four-horned", and Shen Chong played by Feng Shaofeng has become the ultimate boss of the first part.
In this way, the combat power system of the original work was completely disrupted, the heroine Feng Baobao was seriously weakened, and the male protagonist Wang Chulan opened all the way, which completely triggered the criticism of the original fans, and the questions about "magic change" and "character OOC" were endless, which greatly affected the reputation of the movie.
There are also film versions of "Trident" and "I Don't Want to Be Friends with You", these two works are also "deformed" caused by the problem of "operating space". "Trident" is overconfident that "everyone should have understood the relationship between the characters and the plot in the drama version, so we won't start filming", resulting in a fragmented narrative and no logic, and the audience can see it in a fog. "I Don't Want to Be Friends with You" deleted important characters in the drama version in order to streamline the plot, which made the fans who came to the drama very disappointed.
Second, looking at these "one fish and two eats" IPs, the works that meet the audience first will generally have more advantages, especially the IP of the drama "first", the long-term audio-visual bombardment gives the audience the opportunity to establish a deep emotional connection with the characters, "preconceived", even if the later film version of the actor's interpretation is also remarkable, it will make the audience feel that something is missing.
For example, in the hearts of the audience, the image of "Xiao Gu" is already equivalent to Zhao Liying, and Chen Duling, a "beauty in ancient costume" who has been popular in the past two years, cannot cover the beauty of the beginning. The same is true for the casting of the film version of "Under the Alien", Zhuyu is in front, even if Li Wanda and Hu Xianxu's portrayal of the characters is basically in line with the original work, everyone will inevitably have the feeling of "there is a gap when there is a comparison".
Third, it is worth noting that the audiences of movies and dramas do not completely overlap, and the audiences of dramas, especially online dramas, are more vertical, and if a movie wants to achieve a relatively good result, it is definitely not enough to rely on the vertical market alone, and the content must be able to resonate with the vast majority of people, especially the sinking market.
The reason why the film versions of these IPs above did not perform well has a lot to do with the "drag" of the subject matter. Take "Under the Alien" as an example, although its original work "Under One Man" is known as the pinnacle of Chinese comics, with more than 30 billion hits, but this kind of "two-dimensional" content always belongs to the niche in the film field, and the brain-opening modern fantasy stories are also difficult to be recognized in the older movie-watching groups, and it is reasonable for the box office to lose to the more universal "Catching Dolls".
Not all IPs are suitable for "dual-track" development, and precise selection and refinement are key
Seeing that the TV series that have been verified by the market not only have word-of-mouth and traffic, but also have strong enough exposure and popularity, I feel that the launch of the film version will be full of glory, but I forgot to scrutinize the content carefully. Looking at the above cases, except for the film version of "The Three Teams" and the film version of "Under the Alien", the remaining works with less than 6 points are suspected of consuming fan feelings and cutting fan leeks.
So, in the lessons of "hitting the streets" again and again, what risk avoidance guidelines can we summarize about the "one fish and two eats" of IP?
First of all, the content volume of the movie is destined to be shorter than that of the TV series, so the creator must be more precise and in place in the selection and refinement of the content, and truly "remove the dross and take the essence". At this point, the film version of "Under the Alien" is obviously not as good as the drama version. The original IP is a typical male-oriented comic, in order to attract male fans, there are some content full of male evil taste in the early serials, which may be harmless in the vertical field of comics, but when used in film and television works, if you don't make adjustments, it is easy to be criticized by the current female audience.
The drama version cleverly eliminated this kind of bad content, and in the film version, Wu Ershan's way of shooting female characters caused a huge controversy, and judging from the audience's feedback, there were too many shots full of "male condensation", which also became a major factor in the film's score loss.
Secondly, whether an IP is suitable for "dual-track" development, creators should carefully choose and consider. In addition to the above, the IP of "one fish and two eats" must not only have a wonderful story and universal theme, but also have the right length of content and room for "industrialized" packaging.
For example, the original work of "The Three Teams" is just a short documentary novel of less than 10,000 words, which matches the volume of the movie very well, and for the creation of the TV series version, as long as the screenwriter's business ability is not limited, it is far easier to inject water and expand the content according to the main story line than to reduce the "tome" to less than two hours.
From "The Wandering Earth" to "Fengshen", "industrialization" has always been the main theme of domestic films in recent years, after all, they have already spent money into the cinema, and what they are pursuing is a different audio-visual experience from the TV series, so even if the film version of "Under the Alien" is criticized again, the audience will admit that the special effects are indeed visible to the naked eye compared to the drama version.
In addition, the film drama is operated by the same producer and developed simultaneously, which may also be a good way to ensure that the film and drama are exciting, and the two versions of "The Three Teams" with less than a week apart from the online time are a ready-made case. First, since the development is synchronized, the creator will not have the luck mentality of cutting leeks and selling feelings. Second, compared with having two completely independent companies develop separately, the same producer will definitely converge in terms of aesthetic style, and the quality control will be more average and stable, and there will be no shocking polarization of perception.
In general, releasing sincerity, meticulous crafting, and creating high-quality works are the keys to the success of film and drama linkage. In the future, the domestic entertainment market will continue to usher in a wave of popular IP "one fish and two eats", such as the movie version of "Son-in-law" and "Hurricane", as well as "Flowers" developed simultaneously by dramas and films, etc., who can take the lead in hitting the audience's aesthetic "nerves"? Let's wait and see.