Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Author | Li Hezi

Open the "three-body" broadcast page on Tencent Video's mobile end, and a strong commercial atmosphere is coming.

I thought the feature film had already started to broadcast, but it was found a few seconds later that it was an exquisite Chery car "three-body style" customized advertisement; the number and density of advertisements were also very large, with an average of six ads per episode, covering more than a dozen brands, including mobile phones, televisions, food and medicines. Even the entire mysterious black theme color broadcast page is specially tailor-made for the "three-body", in which you can find the purchase entrance of the goods around the "three-body", as well as various official documentaries and two-creation videos. Tencent Video also opened the long-lost "advance screening" …...

Photo Source: Tencent Video screenshot needless to say other episodes shown in the same period, such a "grand occasion" is not often seen in many TV series in the past.

This kind of commercial atmosphere used to be offensive to the audience, but this time the "three-body" has become an exception. Some viewers found that on the day of the advance release of "three-body" on February 3, the official Douban "three-body" group, which gathered nearly 80,000 people, was unprecedentedly active, with a new post every few seconds, almost all lamenting that the last 10 episodes of "three-body" exceeded expectations. On the day after the screening, the Douban score of "three-body" also rose from 8.1 to 8.2.

All the signs show that the trisomy is one step closer to the super IP it wants to be.

IP, which does not talk about business, is not a good IP "three-body" to become a super IP's "dream". It has been buried since the establishment of its main operating body, three-body Universe.

In May 2021, Zhao Jilong, who had just taken over as trisomy CEO, said in an interview.

"the core vision of the three-body universe is to be a good preacher of the 'three-body' culture.... what we look forward to is not only a breakthrough in content and good works, but also to let the cultural attributes of the 'three-body' be passed on from generation to generation to form a business empire, so that everyone thinks that the 'three-body' is a real parallel universe."

At that time, he made it clear to the outside world that the two core businesses of the three-body universe were the content development and commercialization of the "three-body".

It can be said that almost from the moment "three-body" was identified as an IP development, its commercialization was considered as important as the content product. This is in sharp contrast to many other IP development paths of "content first, then business".

Lynch, the late chairman of Trisolaran Pictures, the predecessor of the three-body universe, is quite prescient about the development of the "three-body" IP. He began to acquire and sort out all kinds of copyright and use rights of the "three-body" in 2014, which was finally completed in 2019. "Lynch went to Hollywood and asked six major film and television companies for the logic of IP. He planned a lot of the future for the three-body, including games, movies, animations, virtual idols and QR," the website said in its article "remembering Lynch: ambitious teenagers."

"commercialization is also an important business that Lynch planned before his death." Zhao Jilong recalled. Before Lynch died, the team had reached a preliminary direction for the development of the "three-body" IP-- in addition to laying a good foundation for content, the possibility of cooperation and collision with a series of other industries, thus allowing the three-body universe to continue to expand.

The "three bodies" do have the capital to put commercialization on the agenda "in advance".

"Capital" not only refers to the halo of Hugo Award and its wide audience, but also comes from the commercial potential of the original work itself. The rich imagination contained in science fiction works can already provide visual space, such as the various celestial bodies and space vehicles mentioned in it can provide inspiration for the design of theme parks around and even in the future.

The three-body Universe published the three-body worldview in October 2022, which includes 351 entries in 16 categories and 43 official original illustrations in 36 scenes from nine ages. (photo Source: the cover of "three-body worldview") and "three-body" also greatly complements the type of "science fiction" that has been lacking in Chinese literary works. For example, it has been commented that the drama version "three-body" has added a new type of drama to the Chinese screen-- hard fantasy dramas. In contrast, among the 398 TV dramas shot and produced by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television from January to October 2022, there are only 8 contemporary science fiction themes, accounting for about 2%. In the fourth quarter of 2022, there was only one contemporary sci-fi series licensed for public release, accounting for only 0.65% of the total number of TV dramas approved for distribution.

Rare types, rich elements, coupled with the large audience of the original work itself, make the "three-body" a great possibility of commercialization.

I can feel that as the main body of the operation of the "three-body" IP, the three-body universe really wants to do a good job in the commercialization of the "three-body". For example, the ad placement in the play version "three-body" seldom chooses the customized way of deeply combining the content, which not only makes the advertisement more "good-looking", but also increases the "advanced sense" of the "three-body" IP and the audience's memory of this IP.

At the operational level, the three-body universe is also trying to make the commercial attributes of the "three-body" IP more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, such as timely linking the information of the surrounding goods to the show page. Compared with another popular animation, "fantastic Tam of China," which was shown in the same period, although many viewers clearly expressed their willingness to buy the surrounding goods, they could only manually open the Tmall flagship store on Meiying to complete the purchase.

The partners for the development of surrounding goods are also the result of the careful selection of the three-body universe.

The official license for the development of merchandise around the "three-body" is Saifan Science Fiction Space, and the brand's recently better-known "work" is crowdfunding for a series of official peripheral derivatives of "wandering Earth 2". From the beginning of the earliest idea to the completion of the final product, Saifan sci-fi space has been working very deeply with the three-body universe.

Saifan sci-fi space Taobao store three-body official authorized perimeter (photo source: Taobao screenshot) "which parts of a movie produce derivatives need to be standardized. Disney has more than 300 designers around the world to do style design guidelines for it, which actually does not exist in China.... we also hope to play a guiding role." What Sun Yue, founder of Saifan sci-fi space, said is exactly what the three-body universe is looking forward to achieving.

How far is it to Super IP? "three-body" on the way to become a super IP, content and commerce are indispensable. And until the play version of "three-body" was broadcast, "three-body" seemed to be a long way from becoming a "universe"--

It has not yet produced a report card satisfactory enough for both content and business.

The choice of the IP development path of "both content and commerce" in the three-body universe is obviously based on great confidence in the "three-body". However, it still cannot violate the premise that commercialization also needs to be based on the fact that the content itself is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

Only one novel can not support the commercialization of the "three-body".

The premise of commercial development is to have enough content that can be used, and rely on it to attract new audiences. Although before the launch of the play version of "three-body", the three-body Universe has already launched "three-body" radio dramas, stage plays, simultaneous animation, books and animated versions of "three-body" and other content products, but most of its influence is very limited. it is far from being out of the loop, and the animated version of "three-body" launched at the end of last year even attracted a lot of bad reviews.

Film and television adaptation is generally regarded as one of the most important ways to expand the influence of IP, but it was not until 14 years after the publication of the first three-body novel and four years after the establishment of the three-body universe that the first successful film and television adaptation came late (compared with the foreign classic Harry Potter, it took only four years from the first Harry Potter novel to the release of the first film).

Photo Source: the official stills of "trisomy" as of press time, the Douban score of "trisomy" has risen from 8.0 to 8.3. Both the content itself and commercialization have achieved unprecedented eye-catching performance.

So, does this mean that the trisomy universe has found the master key that became the super IP?

Maybe not yet.

As far as the content itself is concerned, although Zhao Jilong's goal for the "three-body" is to "make everyone think that the three-body is a real parallel universe," the drama version of the "three-body" is obviously still a long way from reaching "everyone." For example, in the barrage of the play, there are still many netizens saying that they do not understand or are bored.

Returning to the original narrative is the direction agreed by the creators of the play "three-body", which surprised a large number of book fans at the high degree of reduction of the play to the original work (a considerable part of this surprise also comes from the animated version of "three-body"). In fact, it also automatically screens out a group of audiences who have not read the original work-many of them will think that there is a threshold in the understanding of many words in the play. And a large number of facial close-ups, shakes and empty mirrors designed to fit the original are not friendly to viewers who come into contact with "three-body" stories through TV dramas.

This leads to the embarrassment of "opening high and going low" in the play version of "three-body". Before the broadcast began on January 15, the number of users who marked "want to see" on the home page of Douban drama version "three-body" reached as high as 93000, while the number of people who wanted to see the previous day's "Storm" was only 35000. But until the end, the number of people who have seen "Storm" on Douban (491000) is more than twice that of "trisomy" (188000). According to Kuyun Real time, the audience rating of "three-body" on CCTV-8 has also dropped to 1% from 1.3% at the beginning of the broadcast.

How many audiences "trisomy" can attract determines the extent to which it can be commercialized. If you compare the official crowdfunding record of more than 100 million yuan set by its sister film and another science fiction adaptation of Liu Cixin's "wandering Earth 2" at the beginning of the year, you can see the gap between the drama version of "three-body".

Picture source: Taobao screenshot on the other hand, it is difficult to say that a successful experience of cooperation between three-body Universe and Tencent Video can be 100% copied to cooperation with other platforms.

In 2018, Tencent Video won the TV series copyright of "three-body" as Penguin Film and Television. At the beginning of the cooperation, the two companies had the meaning of taking what they needed. Three-body Universe is the copyright holder, just like it defines itself as the "preacher of three-body" culture, its task is to find people who are suitable to help develop the "three-body" IP, which itself does not have the ability to shoot independently; Penguin Film and Television relies on Tencent Video's platform resources, is more involved in content production, and does not have the IP whole industry chain route like Tencent Pictures under Tencent's big system.

However, in 2019, with the continuous adjustment of the video section of Tencent platform and content Enterprise Group (PCG), Penguin Pictures, which originally belonged to PCG, was withdrawn from Tencent as a content production department-although Tencent said it was only a change in the title of administrative organization, it was once interpreted as Penguin Movie was abolished because of poor performance.

After a series of adjustments, in July 2020, the play version of "three-body" officially started shooting, was killed at the end of 2020, lasted for more than 150 days, and then entered a long post-production.

It is understood that Sun Zhonghuai, vice president of Tencent (former Tencent Video CEO), serves as the CEO of online video BU in Tencent, and the former Penguin Film and Television is also integrated into this structure and becomes one of the departments.

We don't know what kind of drifting "three-body" has experienced in Tencent Video, but from the timeline that announced cooperation in 2018 and started shooting in 2020, the shooting cycle of "three-body" has still been affected.

Although there are internal adjustments, but according to the "three-body" creative feedback, Tencent Video still gave the greatest degree of support during the shooting process. Especially in 2023, Tencent Video urgently needs a big play at the beginning of the year to sweep its haze in 2022, so the "three-body" has become the one with the most tilted platform resources.

Therefore, behind the seemingly successful cooperation between the three-body universe and Tencent Video, it is also full of many accidental and uncertain factors.

This also exposes the potential problems with the existing IP development model of the three-body universe, which has been emphasizing "cooperation", "using content products to work with the best artists and leaders in various industries, and expanding the scope of (three-body IP) with their vision and perspective"-- this model seems flexible, but increases the risk in the IP development process. The rollover of the animated version of "three-body" is a typical negative case.

Of course, the play version of "three-body" can achieve good results, in any case should be happy. Although it has just crossed the passing line and is still a long way from the full score of the Super IP, fortunately, 14 years later, it has finally taken the first step towards becoming a "universe".

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:pinwancool, author: Li Hezi

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