Wang Zhonglei: "Running Man" is not crude and shoddy. Huayi's brokerage model is iterative

Wang Zhonglei believes that the country has always lacked the ability to respond quickly and promote the industry after the explosion of influence, and this "running man" has undoubtedly given Wang Zhonglei and Huayi an attempt to train troops in this regard.

400 million yuan at the box office, this is "Run! The big movie "Brother"(hereinafter referred to as "Running Man") is currently contributing to the opening of 2015 for Huayi Brothers. Paradoxically, Huayi's top director Feng Xiaogang was very angry about this, and then ignited a New Year's Eve battle in the public opinion field in just a week.

"My basic views are the same as Director Xiao Gang. The conversion of variety shows into movies is unique and will definitely not become a mainstream." In a recent exclusive interview with Hu Smell, Wang Zhonglei said,"To me,'Running Man' is more of a supplement and attempt. Two days ago, there was a film exchange event in the United States or the United Kingdom. An investor representative of "Running Man" happened to be a participant in that event. He asked us if we could show this film at the event, but later I refused-this movie does not represent a China movie."

"We are still quite rigorous in the development of this IP."

Feng Xiaogang and other directors are worried about the "shoddy production" of variety films."A movie, filmed in 5 or 10 days, earns hundreds of millions of dollars, making investors confused. They will only grab such projects, and no longer invest in movies that take months or even years to complete. This makes the movie feel cold. Will anyone still make a good movie in the future? This kind of money is very abnormal." Feng Xiaogang expressed his indignation in an interview.

In all fairness, Feng Xiaogang's worries are indeed reasonable. The direction of capital has always been blind. With the sold well of "Where Are We Going, Dad" and "Running Man", if we assume that the two "Dad" films during this year's Spring Festival can also achieve box office success, then a large amount of capital will surely flock to more variety film projects in 2015, and the corresponding capital left for other film projects will be reduced-traditional films are being squeezed into a more narrow living space by competition from variety films.

However, Wang Zhonglei does not think that "Running Man" is really "shoddy".

"Huayi is still quite rigorous in developing this IP." Wang Zhonglei told Hu Smell in detail the development story of the "Running Man" IP from variety shows to movies to subsequent derivatives.

After Zhejiang Satellite TV purchased the copyright to the variety show "Running Man", during the project development process, Xia Chen 'an, then director of Zhejiang Satellite TV,"entrusted" the homework of selecting artists to Wang Zhonglei-because Wang Zhonglei was participating in Zhejiang Satellite TV's "Dad is Back" reality show, so Huayi Brothers became one of the IP developers of the China version of "Running Man"-when Wang Zhonglei incorporated this IP into Huayi's big entertainment platform, The development of "Running Man" is no longer just focused on a TV program.

"At the beginning of the program, the personality descriptions of all the leading actors were just like our movie creations. Everyone would have a biography of their characters." Using the laws of film creation to develop variety columns, Wang Zhonglei is actually laying the groundwork for the development of future film projects, but he is still very cautious about whether this project can be made into a movie, as he is well versed in the laws of film creation.

On the one hand, Huayi and Zhejiang Satellite TV pay close attention to the tracking of ratings."By the time of the second issue, the ratings have exceeded 2 (Note: 2%), and from a single perspective, there is already the possibility of IP development. Later, we decided to watch another issue, and we would see that it would be okay in the third issue." However, ratings do not determine the success of the film itself. The creation rules of the film are correlated with the popularity of variety shows. However, for correlation to become the inevitability of the film's success, the transition in the middle depends on the filmmaker's sincerity and respect for the film. "We decided to film it after we recorded all the last episode, because at this time, the integrity of each artist's character in this program will be considered complete." This kind of completion comes not only from the setting of the variety script and the actors 'execution of the script, but also from the addition or even improvement of the characters' images formed by audience interaction."For example, the so-called Friday lovers between Zheng Kai and Angelababy are actually not set by us, but generated by audience interaction. For example, you saw Zheng Kai's fart pants outside just now. These are all due to the interactive topics of the program."

Therefore, in addition to tracking and observing ratings, the other hand is the collection of topics and the observation of audiences. Huayi Brothers made an unexpected discovery. "For example, the audience we define is probably born in the 1990s, which is a group of young people who like sports and collective behavior. We suddenly discovered that the audience group had dropped to the post-00s generation and became younger children. This gave us more confidence in developing the movie, because we originally set it for the winter vacation, and students were the most important part of the winter vacation."

In addition, in order to ensure a seamless connection between the release date of the movie (January 30) and the last issue of the variety show (January 16), so as to avoid audience expectations dissipating, Huayi Brothers and Zhejiang Satellite TV added a special edition of the "Running Man" concert on January 23.

"Running Man" also has a unique advantage in its entertainment coverage-TV itself has no age difference in its dissemination in the living room, which cannot be achieved in many movies. Even if there is no grading system in my country, many movies actually have obvious differences in viewing abilities such as age and education-so the success of variety shows coupled with the cautious and lean development of film projects, Only then was the movie "Running Man" able to "easily" cut more than 400 million yuan in box office at the end of the Lunar New Year break-the runner-up in the national box office since the beginning of 2015, second only to "The Hobbit 3".

A training exercise for the iteration of Huayi's brokerage model: Two-way incubation and multi-directional extension of artist IP

In the first season, in addition to Wang Zulan, other members of the "Running Man" were either Huayi Brothers 'current contracted artists (Angelababy, Li Chen, Chen He, Zheng Kai), or artists who were once Huayi Brothers (Deng Chao, Wang Baoqiang)-not only had their own cards, but also could borrow other people's cards. This may be why Xia Chen' an took a fancy to Huayi. As Wang Zhonglei said,"I still have the ability to combine this resource."

But Wang Zhonglei's calculations go beyond that.

Huayi Brothers 'advantage in a large entertainment platform is that it can do such a training exercise. Starting from the brokerage department, exporting artists to the outside world, and artists connecting TV and movies-this is a relatively classical artist brokerage business model. However, the reality show nature of the variety show itself and the seasonal broadcast characteristics of "Running Man" have created the function of quickly cultivating/reshaping artists in terms of the continuity of time and the continuity of the "plot"-usually cultivating traditional artists. In terms of trial and error in constant works and real entertainment ecology, we need to find a suitable star personality. Take Zheng Kai as an example. After many years of his career, even if he was the second male lead in 2013's "Private Custom", he was far from becoming popular. However, an unexpected fart in "Running Man" and his "Friday Lover" plot with Angelaby quickly sent Zheng Kai to the "value" of a popular chicken.

The two-way incubation between artist IP and variety IP is the result of the "running man" from Huayi Brokerage's training. Wang Zhonglei also cited Angelababy as an example,"Her previous image in the public was that of a particularly beautiful girl who did not eat the fireworks of the world and even thought that she was a vase. But when we usually meet, she is the female man shown in the program, extremely challenging and adaptable. But to reshape its perception of the public's image, it can only be successful by relying on an hour-and-a-half-hour program and continuous accumulation."

In addition, after artist IPs have been cultivated and incubated by variety IPs, more IPs can be quickly incubated on Huayi Brothers 'big entertainment platform to form a multi-directional extension. For example, the new "Raiders" series by director Tian Yusheng, which will be launched in April, will be led by Zheng Kai-the last "Previous Raiders" was led by Han Geng. It can be imagined that both Tian Yusheng and Wang Zhonglei now believe in Zheng Kai's box office appeal. There are also Li Chen and Chen He. The TV series "Three Dads" that has just started is led by these two "mother and son" from "Running Man".

When the outside world criticizes Huayi Brothers for having no older brother or sister after its big star left the nest, Huayi Brothers is using another way to explore new ways to develop brokerage business, using IP to connect internal big entertainment platforms, and cooperating with external Various IP exports cooperate to incubate artist IP in both directions.

There is indeed no other artist agency company in China other than Huayi Brothers that has such internal incubation capabilities and external docking capabilities. Wang Zhonglei is also quite confident about this,"Huayi Brokering's change again is really not comparable. I think maybe Huayi Brokering is a part that everyone will continue to observe and discuss in the field of brokerage in the next five or six years."

Big stars are hard to hold, and the brokerage ecosystem is changing. However, Huayi Brothers

has made major adjustments to its internal structure based on its business strategy shift in recent years. The old troika model of film, TV series, and artist brokerage has been upgraded to the film and television entertainment business group (Wang Zhonglei), brand licensing and real-life entertainment business group (Wang Zhongjun), and Internet entertainment business group (Hu Ming). It seems that artist agencies have been "compressed". Coupled with the fact that Huang Xiaoming, Li Bingbing, and Zhou Xun left their nests one after another, there are no artists of the same magnitude stationed in, which makes public opinion generally believe that Huayi Brothers 'artist agencies are no longer in power, and even the days are dying.

"The discussion about Huayi has not stopped since the establishment of Huayi Brokerage Company. I can say that there is no other brokerage company worthy of discussion by the media because there is no comparability." Wang Zhonglei leaned back in the chair, confident and indifferent. From Wang Jinghua's earthquake-like escape in his early years to Fan Bingbing's unexpected solo flight, and then Zhou Xun, Huang Xiaoming, and Li Bingbing's individual development, each time shocked the industry, but it did not seem to fundamentally change the status of Huayi Brothers 'artist agents.

Wang Zhonglei talked about the "brothers and sisters" who left,"Look at the superstar who came out of Huayi, now doing it in an independent studio, and he has not signed with another agency." Wang Zhonglei's implication is: After these stars leave, there is no better brokerage platform that can provide better growth space than Huayi, and participating in Huayi's production is still an important guarantee for their money and stars, such as "The Best Life for a Coquettish Woman"(Zhou Xun, Huang Xiaoming).

"In terms of performance, Huayi Brokerage's performance is actually a very stable sector. It's just because Huayi's layout has changed in recent years, which has caused its proportion in the entire KPI to become relatively small, but it does not mean that its importance has decreased.

"I told my colleagues in the company that maybe five or six years later, the ecosystem of brokerage companies may disappear, but I hope Huayi Brokerage is the only long-standing flag because we have a good system and a good experience. Serve the industry." In Wang Zhonglei's view, Huayi Brothers does not have to cling to big stars forever. The incubation and extension capabilities of the platform are necessary to breed and "reproduce" stars. As long as entertainment products such as movies, TV series, and variety shows still need real stars, then Huayi Brothers 'brokers still have market demand, and the model change Wang Zhonglei and others are making is necessary and can create a future.