The King of Huayu Science Fiction

Chapter 515

On the one hand, Chen Jingxing wanted to win over Netflix, and on the other hand, because DreamWorks really produced relatively few TV dramas and responded to the concerns of movie fans, so he approved three dramas in one go.

One is the ancient zombie drama "Dynasty".

Under the initial agreement of the screenwriter team, the background was set to the change of the three dynasties of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms: the later Jin, the later Han, and the later Zhou.

Although it has gone through three dynasties, it is actually only three or four years.

When Khitan went south, Du Chongwei, an important minister of the later Jin Dynasty, surrendered to Khitan. Emperor Shi Chonggui was forced to surrender, and his family was captured in Khitan.

Later Jin collapsed.

After the fall of the Later Jin Dynasty, the Jiedu of Hedong envoy Liu Zhiyuan, king of Beiping, proclaimed himself emperor in Taiyuan and established the Later Han Dynasty.

The Later Han lasted only more than three years. The feudal towns rebelled, and Guo Wei conquered them. However, the king was jealous and wanted to kill him. Guo Wei had no choice but to rebel.

In the north there are Khitan invasions and plunders, there are faint and tyrannical kings in the interior, there are also conspiracies in court, rebellions in feudal towns, ambitious people everywhere, people's livelihood is suffering, and the plot of zombies is definitely more exciting than "Li Shi North Korea". Dramatic contradictions.

The other is a sci-fi costume drama, the Huaguo version of "Western World".

The tentative name is "The Indescribable World", which is also the original translation of the previous plane "Western World".

It's a bit like a man-machine interchange version of "The Matrix", except that the "playground" here is in the real world.

Science fiction is the concept of its omnibus crisis, and costumes are due to the fact that the "reality matrix" created by humans in the play to enslave robots and make fun is ancient.

In addition to reflecting each other with "Matrix", the concept that the protagonist who is a bionic robot will cycle in a fixed story line every day is also similar to "Source Code".

This is definitely an alternative, high-concept sci-fi costume drama with a sense of déjà vu.

The last one is "The Beginning", which is also a time loop drama.

DreamWorks has filmed two time-loop works before. The first one is Chen Jingxing's "Source Code", which is now a classic benchmark of this kind of subject matter.

The other is "Edge of Tomorrow" directed by Guo Fan.

Both are sci-fi blockbusters.

Compared with these two time-loop blockbusters, "The Beginning" has another exquisiteness.

First of all, the background is quite lifelike.

"Source Code" and "Edge of Tomorrow" have a high-speed rail, an alien invasion, a protagonist is an air force major, and a soldier who fights aliens.

The sense of science fiction is stronger, and at the same time it is farther away from real life.

The scene of "The Beginning" is a bus, and it includes the male and female protagonists. All the characters are in reality.

This will bring a strong sense of substitution.

It is a perfect story that combines science fiction concepts with life themes.

It is also in line with DreamWorks' high-quality sci-fi drama positioning, and the production cost is not high.

After the approval of the three new drama projects, the news that DreamWorks will make a costume drama also spread like wildfire.

Of course, this is actually a marketing plan that Wang Peng asked DreamWorks' marketing and publicity department to make.

TV dramas need marketing more than movies, especially the current mainstream TV dramas are adaptations of novels, which can borrow the fame of novels and make book fans become spontaneous propagandists. DreamWorks dramas do not have this advantage, so marketing is even more necessary.

DreamWorks' previous film and television dramas have never touched the theme of ancient costumes, but the most popular theme in China is ancient costumes, so this news has indeed made many movie fans and audiences quite curious and looking forward to it.

DreamWorks dramas are basically sci-fi themes, and sci-fi themes default to modern or future genres. Such a sci-fi professional has started to shoot ancient costumes, and even audiences who are not too interested in DreamWorks dramas will be curious.

The curiosity of Zhu Wenjiu, who is the director of Tianrun Pictures, is obviously different from that of ordinary audiences.

Don't look at Dreamworks' rapid momentum in the film industry, and its brutality, which even forced the three major studios to unite to force Chen Jingxing to make concessions in the schedule.

But in fact, the most important part of the domestic film and television industry is always the TV drama industry.

In 2018 alone last year, TV stations across the country spent 258 billion yuan on purchasing TV drama copyrights, and online platforms spent nearly 300 billion yuan purchasing TV dramas. The total market for TV drama copyrights reached 550 billion yuan.

And most of this money is directly available to the producer.

If you add the downstream network platform and TV station advertising investment, peripheral development, the output value of the TV drama industry will exceed 2000 billion.

Although the film market has tens of billions in box office, most of it is in the hands of theaters. If the theaters and distributors are removed, the producers will get a little more than one-third of the account at most.

Moreover, in the box office of the film market, imported films, including approved films and credit cards, account for at least about 40%, and it can be as low as 35%.

The TV drama market and the movie market are not even considered to be of the same size.

In fact, among the so-called traditional five giants in China, apart from China Film, the other four are across the two lines of film and television, and even TV dramas bring more profits than movies.

This is also the reason why DreamWorks can fight with several big giants without breaking. Otherwise, relying on the film market alone, several big companies have already played out their brains, and they will definitely be at odds with DreamWorks.

And DreamWorks has indeed not put much effort into the field of TV dramas.

That is, the earliest "Signal" was sold to Mango TV, and the ratings were very popular, which made other companies somewhat feel a sense of crisis.

But then I was relieved.

"Black Mirror", "Person of Interest", and "The Walking Dead" are all online dramas, the number of episodes is getting shorter and shorter, and the themes are becoming more and more serious.

Not to mention animated series, which is also a niche subject matter.

Obviously, Dreamworks did not want to be a spoiler in the domestic TV drama market, but began to rely on Netflix to output drama series.

That's two tracks.

However, although the Huaguo TV drama market has its own characteristics and style, it has a thick enough firewall.

DreamWorks’s niche-themed high-quality short dramas imitating American dramas can be exported abroad with the help of Netflix, but there is no way to reach mainstream audiences in China, that is, to attract some young netizens.

Even without mentioning the length of the episodes, the mainstream features of domestic TV dramas are idols, urban emotions, life, and palace fights.

Usually only one with at least one of these four elements has the possibility of a big explosion.

Especially ancient puppets, which are the most popular type for audiences today. Nine out of ten of the S and S+ dramas positioned by major video platforms are ancient puppets.

But after all, DreamWorks has enviable creative ability. If he really enters this market, it will be dreadful with his excellent film and television production ability.

Although Zhu Wenjiu was not particularly worried, he did want to find out more information.

After all, the signal of ancient costumes is indeed a bit dangerous, and this is the most popular TV drama theme nowadays.

Chen Jingxing understood Zhu Wenjiu's worry and gave him a reassurance.

"Don't worry, Mr. Zhu, these two costume dramas are not considered idol dramas, and Netflix will also invest in them, so they can be regarded as joint productions of the two."

In Chen Jingxing's definition of an idol drama, apart from handsome men and beautiful women, the most important thing is that the story is based on the love line.

And "Dynasty" and "The Indescribable World" are obviously not such.

He also doesn't think "The Beginning" belongs to the category of idol dramas.

As for other things, he didn't intend to disclose too much information, and he didn't say that two of the costume dramas are actually costume zombie dramas and costume science fiction dramas.

Only by maintaining a certain sense of mystery can fans be surprised.

However, Chen Jingxing's words also made Zhu Wenjiu's heart drop, and his smile became brighter.

It's not an idol drama, half of my heart falls to the ground.

Netflix participated in the investment, and the other half of the heart also landed.

Obviously, this is another kind of tense, novelty-hunting short series, although he still can't think of how to be novelty-hunting in costume themes.

Overseas streaming media users like this kind of drama very much, but it is difficult to cause too much trouble in China. Even if it is a drama with a hot topic like "The Walking Dead", its broadcast volume is not small compared with popular puppet dramas. distance.

Of course, no one is not greedy for the IP created by "The Walking Dead", but this is also based on its popularity in overseas streaming media.

"DreamWorks' dramas have always been very popular among young people, and they are also pioneers in overseas film and television output. Other domestic production companies, including our Tianrun, have to learn from DreamWorks."

"Mr. Zhu has won the award. Tianrun's recently produced "Dongfeng Blows the Stars Like Rain" is also very popular overseas. Idol dramas are also the main force of domestic film and television output."

"Star Like Rain" is a popular ancient puppet recently. It was jointly produced by Tianrun and Penguin Video. It was also introduced by South Korea, South Vietnam and other countries. It received good ratings and response.

It even attracted Netflix to buy overseas broadcast rights.

With the popularity of "Signal", "Suspect Tracker", "Black Mirror" and other dramas on Netflix, especially after "The Walking Dead" became popular all over the world, Huaguo's TV dramas other than those produced by DreamWorks are actually becoming more and more popular abroad. audience attention.

In fact, the influence of Chinese dramas in Southeast Asia is still good, especially idol dramas and puppet themes, which are very popular in East and Southeast Asia.

Although domestic audiences complain from time to time, in fact, the production level of domestic ancient puppets is top-notch in East Asia.

In Zhu Wenjiu's view, although the "The Walking Dead" dramas produced by DreamWorks are eye-catching, they are also a win-win situation for domestic drama production companies.

As a pioneer, DreamWorks has made the name of Huaguo TV dramas, and the domestic TV drama industry has actually benefited.

So Zhu Wenjiu's compliments after he was relieved were not all polite.

He wished that DreamWorks would keep producing short series like this.

Chen Jingxing was also happy to see the success. This was what he wanted to see. Rather than letting South Korea export film and television dramas through streaming media, it would be better to let Hua Guo take a share of the pie.

Although South Korea's TV drama production industry is generally more mature, Huaguo is not without good TV dramas.

However, it is indeed easier to export dramas above the Korean standard than domestic dramas, and it is much easier.

The smell of wine is also afraid of deep alleys. It can make Huaguo TV series more famous and have a better impression, which is good for the output of Huaguo TV series.

I'm not afraid of exporting too many bad dramas, it's embarrassing. Netflix and TV stations from other countries don't refuse all comers. It must be an advantage to be able to buy Netflix or other national TV stations, even if it seems mediocre to domestic audiences.

Let domestic dramas, especially good dramas, be seen more, which is valuable in itself. It’s not that foreign audiences are nobler than domestic audiences, but that stealing culture in a certain country is a habitual offender. You can’t do without stealing some things. .

(End of this chapter)