Behind "Railway Flying Tiger","Battle" and "Ferry Man" is the "secret battle" between Tencent and Ali

on December 23rd, during the entertainment consumption period of New Year's Day's double arrival this Christmas, "the Railway Flying Tiger" starring Jackie Chan and a group of fresh meat such as Wang Kai, Wang mainland and Huang Zitao, and "the Ferry Man" starring Liang Chaowei and Takeshi Kaneshiro, who have not seen the big screen for a long time, were released on the same day. Maybe the answer doesn't matter. Because, Tencent and Ali, who are behind the two films, have been fighting in secret for a long time in the layout of big entertainment.

original title: behind Jackie Chan's "War" Liang Chaowei is the "Dark War" between Tencent and Ali

on December 23, during the entertainment consumption stall of New Year's Day this Christmas, "the Railway Flying Tiger" starring Jackie Chan, Wang mainland, Huang Zitao and others, and "the Ferry Man" led by Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro, who have not seen the big screen for a long time, were released on the same day.

in this year's movie box office "not as expected", it is worth looking forward to which Jackie Chan or Tony Leung will be the "savior" at the box office at the end of the year and who will win!

and in addition to the box office attention of "eating melons", the astonishing consistency of the release dates of the two films not only makes people wonder, do they meet unexpectedly, or do they do it deliberately?

maybe this answer is not important. Because, Tencent and Ali, who are behind the two films, have been fighting in secret for a long time in the layout of big entertainment.

strong > Film publicity has its own positions: Guevara, Entertainment tickets and Taobaopiao / strong >

the main investor of "Railway Flying Tiger" is Yaolai Film and Television. According to the "Film guarantee Distribution contract" signed between Yaolai Film and Television and Weiying era, the Weiying era made a box office guarantee of 1 billion yuan for "Railway Flying Tiger".

under such a bad situation at the box office this year, Weiying still dared to guarantee the bottom of "Railway Flying Tiger" as high as 1 billion yuan. On the one hand, he valued Jackie Chan's strong box office appeal. On the other hand, it also comes from the relationship between the era of Weiying and Yaolai Film and Television.

as early as 2015, Wentou Holdings, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Yaolai Cinema, contributed 150 million yuan to subscribe for a 2.19% stake in Weiying era. In addition, Gao Haitao, director, deputy general manager and secretary of the board of directors, who is the controlling shareholder of Yaolai Film and Television, is a director of the Weiying era.

in the era of Weiying, who is also a member of his own family, it is not surprising to guarantee the release of the "Railway Flying Tiger" controlled by Yaolai Film and Television, given that it has powerful online publicity resources.

as we all know, the Weiying era, which was born in the Tencent empire, is naturally an important jigsaw puzzle in Tencent's entertainment layout.

on December 23rd, the online ticketing platform Guevara and entertainment tickets of the Weiying era focused on "Railway Flying Tiger" in the form of starting the client, that is, full-screen pop-up, and the star Wang Kai pulled fans for the film on the pop-up window.

compared with the tough promotion of "Railway Flying Tiger" by Guevara and Entertainment tickets, Ali's "Taobaopiao" can really add feelings to the promotion of the film. Not only started a special offer of 15.8 yuan to watch "Ferry Man", but also played an emotional tune. I don't know how much real money the SLOGEN of "a glass of warm wine in winter" can bring to "Ferry Man".

"Ferry Man", as the first master film in the two years since the establishment of Ali Pictures, has placed too many expectations on Ali Pictures. Although Taobaopiao has been losing money, the promotion of Alibaba Pictures' own film and television industry chain is at hand, and the temporary waste of money is to be able to operate the whole industry chain on films such as "Ferry Man" in the future.

however, reality is always bony. Just look at Douban's rating of the "ferryman".

strong > Competition for high-quality content / strong >

maybe the popularity of domestic movies will not surprise such industry leaders. Because, the core of the film itself is still a creative industry. Although companies such as Weiying era, Penguin Pictures, Tencent Pictures and Ali Pictures have the support of powerful Internet giants like Tencent and Ali in terms of capital, big data's analytical technology, payment channels, film and television publicity, IP resources and other resources, these are not sufficient conditions for the output of excellent film and television quality content.

also see their own deficiencies in content output, in order to compete for and produce excellent head film and television content, Tencent and Ali stepped up horse racing enclosure.

in China, there are only a handful of companies that can produce excellent film and television works. Huayi Brothers, Boehner Pictures and Light Media are undoubtedly the most representative producers of high-quality content.

Tencent and Ali are rivals in the competition for these traditional film and television companies. As early as 2014, Tencent and Ali took the opportunity of Huayi Brothers' 3.6 billion yuan increase to successfully inject capital into Huayi Brothers. Interestingly, the amount of investment received by the two is also quite uniform.

according to the announcement of Huayi Brothers in August 2015, the company has completed 3.6 billion yuan of fund-raising, including Ali Venture Capital, Tencent computer and so on.

after raising 3.6 billion yuan, the shareholding structure of Huayi Brothers

after the completion of the fund-raising, Tencent's shareholding has increased to 8.06%, making it the second largest shareholder. Ali Venture Capital holds 4.47%, making it the fourth largest shareholder. Alibaba Ma Yun is the fifth largest shareholder. If the shares of Jack Ma and Ali Venture Capital are regarded as a whole, the overall shareholding ratio is 8.06%, which is the same as that of Tencent.

it can be seen that it is no exaggeration to describe Alibaba and Tencent as tit for tat in the competition for high-quality content.

similarly, it happens to Boehner Pictures.

on December 20th this year, Boehner Pictures announced the completion of series A financing with a total size of 2.5 billion yuan after privatization. The financing was led by Ali Pictures and Tencent, which had previously participated in the privatization and return of Bona Pictures. Although the amount of the two contributions in the 2.5 billion yuan has not been disclosed, however, from this time Ali Pictures and Tencent both led the investment, we can see that the two sides have not been "modest" in the competition for Boehner, a company focused on content production.

according to public information, after Bona Pictures was privatized, Alibaba Pictures indirectly owned about 8.94% of Bona Pictures (about 8.29% on a fully diluted basis). And this time to add weight to Bona Pictures, Ali Pictures' new chairman and CEO Yu Yongfu said that it is precisely the professional advantages of Bona's high-quality content production: this time our strategic investment in Bona Pictures is based on Bona's sustainable profitability, professional vision in the film layout and the recognition of the spirit of being able to make the industry solid and thorough.

and according to data circulated in the market, Tencent owns 5.80% of Boehner's shares after it was privatized.

with regard to Boehner, Tencent Investment Management partner Lim Hai-Feng said that compared with Yu Yongfu, "We will deepen cooperation with Bona Film Group and make efforts in the film industry chain. To seek the largest range of win-win and all-round breakthroughs."

as a party to this fundraising and determined to be the most film-focused Chinese entrepreneur, Yu Dong really needs to "take into account the interests of all parties", because neither Tencent nor Ali is "easy to mess with". Although the latest equity information of Boehner Pictures is not yet available, it is believed that the gap between Ali and Tencent will not be too large.

for Light Media, Ali has the upper hand, taking a stake of 2.4 billion yuan in 2015. According to the third quarterly report of Light Media, Ali Venture Capital holds 8.78% of the shares of Light Media, ranking the second largest shareholder of Light Media.

in the competition for traditional high-quality content production companies, Ali seems to have won the first opportunity, while Tencent is slightly inferior.

strong > A new way to play film and television: who is the leader of Tencent Ali? / strong >

while laying out traditional excellent content production companies, the film and television layouts of Tencent and Ali are also being carried out one after another.

in terms of film and television layout, Ali Pictures should precede Tencent Pictures. As early as June 2014, Alibaba completed the acquisition of a 59.32% stake in Hong Kong-listed company Culture China for HK $6.244 billion and renamed it Alibaba Pictures.

through this acquisition, Alibaba Pictures has not only inherited some film and television projects in Cultural China, such as "Ferry Man", but more importantly, Alibaba Pictures listed independently and completed independent capital operations. it provides conditions for clear capital operation in the future.

after the establishment of Ali Pictures, Ali injected a series of film and television related assets into Ali Pictures.

Ali Pictures has acquired and is waiting to acquire film and television assets

May 2016, Taobao Film received 1.7 billion yuan in round A financing and renamed Taobao tickets.

with the acquisition, Ali Pictures is becoming a comprehensive film and television "platform" across film and television production, film and television investment and financing, film and television publicity, cinema big data system, and downstream physical cinema lines. "Alibaba Pictures hopes to become a platform for connecting various resources and operating this platform based on Internet technology and mode, so as to make film research and production more efficient and less risky." Zhang Qiang, co-president of Ali Pictures, once said.

such a "platform" of the whole industry chain seems to be achieved only in the form of investment mergers and acquisitions.

Yu Yongfu is a staunch supporter of this M & A method: "after years of barbaric development, the domestic film and television industry is entering a cycle of elimination and upgrading, and a large number of film and television enterprises will withdraw actively and passively next year. This is a challenge to players and an opportunity for industrialists."

although Ali is still losing money in front of the opportunity, however, in the general direction of development, the temporary loss is nothing, and the "ferry man" is only an "experiment" in the great strategic development of Ali Pictures.

in addition to "Ferry Man", Ali Pictures'IP "ammunition Depot" includes "Journey", "Gu Jian Qitan 2", "Peach Blossom 2", "Shushan War 2", as well as "Asura" special effects blockbusters and "fantastic Journey" and "Qinghe Men's High" for young audiences.

for the sake of excellent content, Alibaba's acquisition is still moving forward. Not long ago, it was reported that Alibaba Pictures is expected to participate in the capital increase of Shan Ying shares as a strategic investor. Shan Ying is the producer of high-quality hit dramas such as "No War in Peiping", "camouflage", "Nirvana in Fire" and "Ode to Joy".

unlike Ali's strategic way of building a major film and television platform through acquisition, Tencent realizes the layout of film and television entertainment by setting up a film company internally.

compared with Ali, Tencent's film and television layout is a little later. Tencent's film and television companies include Tencent Pictures and Penguin Pictures.

Tencent Pictures was founded on September 17, 2015. Cheng Wu, vice president and CEO of Tencent Pictures, Tencent Group, said that Tencent Pictures "does not make movies in isolation", but regards movies as an important part of the pan-entertainment ecology, fully linked with Tencent's animation, literature, games and other businesses. Penguin Pictures is mainly responsible for online drama, film investment, artist brokerage business.

at present, Tencent Pictures has set up three studios with different emphasis: big Dream Movie, boldface, and Evolutionary Entertainment. Big Dream movies are responsible for new theme films; blackbody studios try film and drama linkage projects; and Evolutionary Entertainment creates original animated films.

in the film list released by Tencent in September, the online article IP projects include "Tibetan password" and "Heaven Choice", and the game IP projects include "God of War" and "National assault", as well as King Kong: skull Island, which cooperates with legendary Pictures.

and Penguin's online drama list in June is also rich in themes, including science fiction theme "three bodies", as well as online articles such as "Qingyunzhi 2", "Tomb robbing Notes Yunding Heavenly Palace" and "inadvertent Master 2".

Tencent's IP strategy is indeed a major advantage of Tencent's future film and television entertainment.

Edit: yvette