The output far exceeds that of cinemas and online movies have rushed from the grass to the "anti-monster upgrade"

The industry predicts that the market size of online movies will reach 3 billion yuan in 2017. As the market payment ecosystem matures, traditional film and television companies join in one after another, and production costs and regulatory thresholds gradually increase, online films, which are advancing through the wilderness, are striving to leapfrog from "quantitative change" accumulation to "qualitative change".

The original title of online movie: From the wild to the "monster fighting and upgrading",

four northeastern rural "mountain cannons" broke into Beijing and encountered various embarrassing incidents. A young man in the suburbs of Jilin was involved in "gang chaos" because of love. During the Anti-Japanese War, famous opera actors fought with wisdom and Japanese soldiers transferred overseas treasures. A mermaid from the Republic of China landed in return for a century to pursue love...

These movie plots that did not appear on the big screen are from the online movies "Mountain Cannon Entering the City 2","Siping Youth's Big Brother Battle against the Young Men"," February Blooming Flowers Blooming" and" Goodbye Mermaid", and they are all" blockbusters" and" topic works" of Chinese online movies in 2016.

In 2016, an average of nearly 7 new films of this kind of feature film-length films released on the Internet were launched every day. The output has far exceeded that of theater films, and the maximum number of views per film reaches 260 million. In 2016, when China's movie box office suffered the lowest growth rate in nearly a decade, online movies sprang up, and the number of films and market size showed explosive growth.

Films that have short cycles, low costs, fast returns, fast and

low risks attract capital to compete

for online distribution, have a duration of more than 60 minutes, comply with film narrative rules and relevant national policies and regulations, and are distributed on a pay-on-demand basis-2014,"Internet Big Movies" The concept and standards of "were proposed by iQiyi. Since then, online movies, referred to as "NetDa", have experienced explosive development.

Data from iQiyi shows that in 2014, 450 online movies were launched online in my country, reaching about 700 in 2015, and the number soared to about 2500 in 2016. On this basis, the number of online movie broadcasts has also increased. Data provided by Tencent Video shows that the overall traffic of online movies on its platform is showing an increasing trend. In 2016, the total traffic of online movies reached 8.7 billion times."Goodbye Mermaid", which was the most clicked on a single piece, has the total number of plays on the upper and lower parts. It reached 260 million times.

"In the context of the explosion of mobile Internet, improvements in the payment environment, network bandwidth and technology for mobile payment, as well as the platform providing a good movie-watching experience, have become the reasons why NetU is favored." said Ge Xufeng, deputy general manager of iQiyi's member business division.

The prosperity of the market at both sides of the supply and demand of online movies has quickly made it a new blue ocean in the film and television industry. In 2016, the box office share of iQiyi's 20 most-watched online movies reached 198 million yuan, 33 times that of two years ago. The 78 self-marketed online movies on the platform received a total of 30 million yuan in advertising revenue. Among the online movies broadcast by iQiyi in 2016, the highest-grossing online movie was "Mountain Pao Entering the City 2", with a revenue of 18.3 million yuan. Data from the entertainment industry data platform Een China shows that the market size of online movies reached 1 billion yuan in 2016 and is expected to be 3 billion yuan in 2017.

A theater film requires investment before it starts, and it takes at least one to two years to be released. Every step of review and application for a public release license can cause the film to "difficult production".

In addition, for investors, after the film is released, it also has to go through the box office division process of theaters, issuers, main investors, follow-up investors, etc., with a period of 6 to 12 months, with risks being involved step by step. Compared with theater films, online films have not been reviewed before filming for a long time. They only need to be self-reviewed by the screening platform to go online. Moreover, their box office accounting links only involve the platform, issuer/film, and investors, and the investment risk is greatly reduced.

In addition, with the characteristics of short production cycle, low cost, and fast payment back. In addition, if the platform buys out the film, it can be paid back before it goes online. Online movies attract a large amount of capital and young actors, directors, producers, etc. who are eager for film project opportunities. Have invested in it. Yu Wenchao, partner of the Zhejiang Cultural Industry Growth Fund, said that in the early days of online film development, many "grassroots" teams developed freely, and the filming income was also good. Many films 'investment and shared income could reach a ratio of 1:3 to 1:4.

Yien's data shows that as of June 2016, there were 843 online film production companies, 2.1 times that of theater film production companies.

In the three years since the payment ecosystem of the "National VIP Era"

has gradually matured

, the online movie market has advanced by leaps and bounds, and online video has also entered the "National VIP Era" amid huge audience demand. In this process, the paid ecosystem of online movies has gradually matured.

Ge Xufeng said that NetU's payment behavior models mainly include membership model and advertising model. "At the beginning of the establishment of the website, our profits adopted an advertising model, which means providing free content but advertising before broadcasting, and a membership model, which means value-added services. Developing the membership model is relatively difficult. In order to attract users, it is necessary to purchase content in large quantities and the cost is high. But in the future, the membership model will become the main business model with huge growth potential."

In 2016, the payment market for video platforms broke out in an all-round way. In terms of the number of paid members, iQiyi exceeded 20 million, Youku exceeded 30 million, and LeEco announced that the total paid members across the ecosystem reached 50 million.

Chang Bin, head of Penguin Pictures, a subsidiary of Tencent Video, said that Tencent Video's paid membership has nearly tripled in one year, exceeding 20 million. It has opened a "member + single point" parallel payment model for online movies, among which more solo projects are set to be viewable only by members. Based on the effective pay-on-demand payment of 5 yuan/time, the paid split is divided into multiple modes ranging from buyout broadcast or guaranteed share, and the partner's share of 50% to 70%.

After the uproar of explosive development in the past year, the entry of traditional film and television companies and professional talents, the increase in production costs and the pursuit of high-quality content, policy supervision and the improvement of platform thresholds have brought online movies to a turning point. intersection.

The "regular army" of film and television-Huayi Chuangxing, Huace Entertainment Technology, Yixing Bona and other first-line traditional film companies have successively tested the "Netda" market. In 2016, Zhongnan Pictures reached a strategic cooperation with Fang Qishu Youyu, the publisher of "NetDa", releasing 19 super films and 7 top films, including "The Pacific Robbery" directed by famous director Gao Qunshu; The "Mountain Cannon Entering the City" series was jointly produced by Benshan Media and Huayi Brothers. Famous directors Wang Jing and Zhang Guoli, star team Zheng Kai Studio, Cui Yongyuan Young Directors Project, and popular artists Bao Beier and Zhang Yixing all entered the game.

High-cost, high-quality production is becoming the general trend of online movies. Iqiyi data shows that in 2014, the investment in online movies was less than 300,000 yuan, but works with current investments between 1 million yuan and 3 million yuan have emerged one after another, and many tens of millions of investment works have appeared. In order to promote the shooting of high-quality online movies, iQiyi has jointly developed an online movie project with Sony, one of the six major Hollywood film companies, and invited Oscar winners to produce the homemade film "Life and Death". The average cost of online movies launched by Tencent Video in 2016 was nearly 1 million yuan. Its "One Hundred Online Movies Exclusive Broadcast Plan" reserves high-quality online movies through participation in shares or buyouts. Chang Bin said that the move aims to discover high-quality teams and advocate high-quality strategies.

Ge Xufeng said that the filming and production of "NetUniversity" are becoming more and more serious. As the aesthetics and cognition of market users improve, online movies are increasingly respecting users and the market. There are cases where a book is carefully polished 20 times before shooting. He predicts that the investment in films that perform well in 2017 will be more than 5 million yuan, and the investment in films with soft science fiction themes will reach 10 million yuan due to the high demand for special effects.

Policy supervision and platform thresholds are also tightening. At the end of 2016, relevant national departments stepped up efforts to rectify Internet video programs, added "registration" requirements on the basis of the "platform self-examination" of online movies, and required the removal of a number of online movies. At the same time, iQiyi and Sohu Video have successively released "nine bottom lines" and "seven bans" for online movies, completely blocking three vulgar content such as IP abuse and soft pornography, and promoting high-quality works with healthy content and positive values.

Low reputation,"slots" and many

noises, waiting

to be upgraded. With the advancement of high-quality products, the strengthening of industry norms, and the intensification of competition, many industry insiders predict that the growth of the number of online movies will slow down and the industry needs to be further upgraded. In this process, problems such as single online movie themes and lack of connotation, centralized playback platforms, lack of third-party data verification, and pending formation of an art evaluation system need to be solved urgently.

In Douban movies, the four popular "Internet University","Mountain Cannon Entering the City 2","Siping Youth's Heroes War the Young Men's Heroes","Old Nine Men's Farewell to February Flowers" and "Goodbye Mermaid" received scores from netizens respectively. They were 3.9, 5.1, 5.0 and 3.1, and the reputation is not high. The "bad points" mainly focus on the "super cliché" plot, lackluster acting skills and special effects.

Although the proportion of online movies that are scary, thrilling and pornographic has dropped significantly, Chang Bin believes that there are still a large number of works in online movies that aim to attract attention and lack ideological connotations. Many "Internet majors" only pay attention to the first 6 minutes that can be previewed for free and ignore the integrity of the story. They have problems such as piled up edge ball elements, delayed plots or unclear reasons.

According to reports, some fantasy films that can satisfy users 'curiosity and differentiate themselves from theater works are more popular. The four main genres of thriller, love, drama, and comedy account for 91.2% of online movies, and the concentration is even higher than that of theater movies. This can be seen from the fact that films such as "Goodbye Mermaid","Male Fox Liaozhai" and "Dangerous Villa" occupy Tencent Video was among the top in the number of broadcasts last year.

In addition, Yu Wenchao believes that since the "big players" in the industry are currently concentrated on several platforms such as iQiyi, Tencent, Sohu, Youku, and LeTV, as the number of online movies increases, the resources released by the platform to a single online movie have decreased. In this context, each platform has different statistical methods on core information such as effective clicks. Currently, there is a lack of professional "third-party organizations" in the industry to verify data, which is not conducive to the transparent and healthy development of the industry.

In July 2016, the online movie "The Scarecrow" was launched on major video websites, with nearly 30,000 views in one day. The film won the "Best Screenwriter Award" at the Peking University Academy of Film Arts Award in one fell swoop, becoming the first "Internet University" to receive an academic award. Fan Zhizhong, executive director of the International Film and Television Development Research Institute of Zhejiang University, believes that traditional film and television should incorporate online films into their artistic evaluation system to promote the promotion of more high-quality online films and form a benchmark for the industry.

Editor: yvette