The transformation effect of "Bomb Dismantling Expert" or "anticlimactic Xiaomi Pictures" remains to be tested

As the co-producer of the film, Xiaomi Pictures also ushered in its own film's "debut", and integrated unique high-quality resources in the product channel and the influence of 200 million new media fans to assist in the promotion of the film.

Among the several new films released during the May Day holiday season,"Bomb Removal Expert" stands out as a little black horse, with box office exceeding 260 million yuan in six days after release. As the co-producer of the film, Xiaomi Pictures also ushered in its own film's "debut", and integrated unique high-quality resources in the product channel and the influence of 200 million new media fans to assist in the promotion of the film. However, with the production cost of the film as high as HK$180 million, and the future release of films such as "Guardians of the Galaxy 2" that will divert audiences, it is not known how much revenue "The Bomb Removal Expert" will bring to Xiaomi Pictures.

The first work may

be anticlimactic After the disbandment at the beginning of this year, the film "The Bomb Removal Expert" co-produced by Xiaomi Pictures will be officially released nationwide from April 28. Since the film, on the one hand, belongs to a Hong Kong action police film, it brings together well-known actors including Andy Lau, Jiang Wu, Song Jia, etc., on the other hand, it is also Xiaomi Pictures 'first investment work in the past year since its establishment, so it has attracted the attention of the industry.

Since the early release of "The Bomb Removal Expert" coincided with the May Day holiday, the box office growth rate of the film's first four days was rapid. According to data from the Professional Edition of the Cat's Eye Box Office, from April 28 to May 1, the single-day box office of "The Bomb Removal Expert" basically remained at 50 million to 60 million yuan. Although it still faces fierce competition from "Speed and Passion 8" during this period,"The Bomb Removal Expert" still achieved box office exceeding 200 million yuan on its fourth day of release. Therefore, it is also known as the little black horse in the schedule.

However, it seems difficult for "The Bomb Removal Expert" to continue its good box office performance in the early stage into the later stage. As the holiday ended, the single-day box office of "The Bomb Removal Expert" dropped significantly since its fifth day of release. Among them, on May 2, the single-day box office of "The Bomb Removal Expert" was 24.137 million yuan, which was only half the size of May 1. As of 19:30 on May 3, the box office of "The Bomb Removal Expert" was 14.7 million yuan that day. As of press time, the box office of "Bomb Removal Expert" had totaled 261 million yuan. In addition, starting from this Friday, including "Guardians of the Galaxy 2" and "Wrestling! Films including "Dad" will also be released in China one after another, which will undoubtedly bring a lot of competitive pressure to "The Bomb Removal Expert" and divert a certain number of viewers, especially "Guardians of the Galaxy 2", which has a large fan base., has become a hot topic since it was customized.

It is worth noting that it has been previously revealed that the production cost of "The Bomb Removal Expert" exceeds 180 million Hong Kong dollars, or about 160 million yuan. If the proportion agreed in the industry is followed, it means that the film needs to achieve a box office of 480 million yuan to recover the cost. However, according to predictions from some platforms, the final box office of "The Bomb Removal Expert" will be between 400 million and 500 million yuan. Among them, the Cat Eye Box Office Professional Edition predicts that the total box office of "The Bomb Removal Expert" is expected to be 409 million yuan. Moreover, in this film, Xiaomi Pictures is not the main prosecutor, but just one of several co-producers. From this point of view, it is still unknown how much revenue Xiaomi Pictures can achieve from its "debut".

Transformation effect to be tested

With the development of the domestic film and television industry, it is no longer new for Internet companies to cross the traditional film and television industry. Compared with traditional film and television companies, Internet companies rely more on their own advantages in funds, channels and other advantages to comprehensively enter film and television investment, production and distribution businesses. Xiaomi Pictures, which was officially established in June 2016, is already a latecomer in the field. Only one year after its establishment, Xiaomi Pictures has also experienced many dramatic turns and faded from the field of film and television content production, instead investing in film and television. and implant transformation. It is worth mentioning that Lei Jun, Chairman and CEO of Xiaomi Technology, also said at the annual meeting that in 2017, Xiaomi will mainly focus on the five core strategies of black technology, new retail, internationalization, artificial intelligence and Internet finance. The future development and layout of Xiaomi Pictures has not been mentioned. This also means that in 2017, Xiaomi Technology will still focus on the layout of its own platforms, channels, smart hardware products, etc.

According to public information, Xiaomi Pictures mainly included three major sectors: investment, production and publicity at the beginning of its establishment. Tang Mu, general manager of Xiaomi Router and Xiaomi VR, served as president of Xiaomi Pictures. But in January this year, Xiaomi Pictures, which had only entered the film and television industry for only a year, reported that the publicity department had been disbanded. Later, Li Wanqiang, co-founder of Xiaomi Technology, also confirmed the news in a circle of friends. Li Wanqiang said,"At present, Xiaomi Pictures is a department of more than a dozen individuals. Its core function is to help the Xiaomi brand. It mainly does investment and implantation work, and does not involve production. In the past six months, we have cooperated on more than 10 films, which have been released one after another this year. It turns out that the publicity and distribution group in the film industry has made adjustments and the work will be handed over to the company's market system, so that the linkage efficiency will be higher. Our publicity and distribution is to dispatch Xiaomi's own internal and new media resources to help the cooperative films reach Xiaomi's nearly 200 million users. Zoom in in the group."

After the transformation,"Bomb Removal Expert" became the first investment project that Xiaomi Pictures participated in. Xiaomi Pictures also relied on the channel advantages of Xiaomi Technology to support the film, such as Xiaomi mobile phones, Xiaomi TVs and boxes, MIUI system resources, Xiaomi Home flagship store, etc. In the eyes of industry insiders, compared with traditional film and television companies, Internet companies lack relevant advantages in core resources such as film and television content, and it is not feasible to blindly produce content. From this perspective, Xiaomi Pictures 'shift to investment is a good layout.

"As the first film invested by Xiaomi Pictures," Bomb Removal Expert "has a good reputation. Overall, it is a good start. But for investment companies in the film industry, if they want to gain a foothold in the industry, they also need good works, well-known directors, and actors to attract cooperation with other companies, which makes the company's past achievements very important, and these all require long-term accumulation of connections, resources and other aspects. Xiaomi Pictures is not a traditional film company, and the accumulation of resources in the industry is still lacking. In addition, since 2017, the domestic film market, especially domestic films, is still at a low stage of development, which also puts Xiaomi Pictures facing certain market risks." Peng Kan, director of R & D and consulting at Lezheng Media, said.

Taking advantage is the key.

According to data, the box office of movies in the first quarter of 2017 totaled 14.25 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 1.7%, compared with last year's box office score of 14.49 billion yuan. This is the first time in five years that the box office of movies has declined in the first quarter. Among the nearly 5 billion yuan in box office revenue in April, nearly half of the box office came from the imported blockbuster "Speed and Furious 8". But even so, hot money continues to flood into the film and television industry, and Internet film and television companies are also expanding their own layout. Recently, Tencent Pictures and Gongfu Pictures reached a strategic cooperation; Youku joined hands with Alibaba Literature and Alibaba Pictures to invest 1 billion yuan in resources to increase the layout of online films.

In March this year, Xiaomi Pictures also announced that it would participate in the investment of Jackie Chan's first science fiction action movie "Blood of the Machine", which will be released on December 22 this year. Judging from the two films currently invested by Xiaomi Pictures, Hong Kong films are still the main ones. The film's stars Jackie Chan and Andy Lau also have high popularity and influence in the mainland. Peng Kan believes that Hong Kong filmmakers have a good foundation in the mainland, and it is a better choice to cooperate with them; and during the publicity process, Xiaomi Pictures will also use its own channels to help promote these films, so as to help them Get a lot of projects, but at present, Xiaomi Pictures has not made publicity an important part of it.

"The advantages of Internet companies lie in publicity, channels and funds. Whether it is for Xiaomi Pictures or BAT, cutting into film and television content without relevant experience and resource accumulation will face many problems. Previously, Alibaba Pictures was in content production. Not very successful. From this perspective, it is better for Internet film and television companies to start from their own advantages and participate more in the investment and distribution of film projects. Take Hollywood Film Companies as an example. Among the current 'Hollywood Six' six major films, the largest film companies are still distribution companies. Although they also participate in the production of content, most film and television content projects are produced by independent film companies, and they buy the film after the film is completed, or participate in the distribution and production of the film to ensure the creative vitality of the content." Peng Kan said.

Liu Deliang, founder of Xinyuan Wenzhi, also said that relying on its advantages in resources, channels, funds, brands and Internet traffic, Xiaomi Pictures can attract many film and television companies to cooperate, and reach strategic cooperative relationships with excellent film and television companies and participate in Investing in excellent projects is one of the future development directions of Xiaomi Pictures, thus obtaining a large amount of content resources. However, this also requires Xiaomi Pictures to have a good investment system and the ability to control risks.

Editor: Nancy