"Nezha: The Devil Child Comes into the World" aims to reach 4 billion yuan at the box office, but the rise of Chinese animation still needs to wait

"Deng Chao can't save this summer season, but Nezha can." This comment was highly praised in the Douban movie reviews of Nezha: The Devil Child Comes into the World. If anyone had predicted which movie would be the most popular during this period, no one would have thought that a domestic animated film would take the top spot.

Domestic animation had a glorious past. A series of works such as "Havoc in Heaven", "The Magic Book of Heaven", and "Little Tadpole Looking for Mom" ​​were engraved in the memories of the post-80s and post-90s generations. However, the subsequent development seemed to be quiet. Although works such as "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf" and "Boonie Bears" were popular among children, they were not accepted by older animation fans. "I'm glad that my childhood was not Pleasant Goat" can often be seen in the barrage of B station and other discussions related to domestic animation.

Overall, the domestic animation industry has been developing and new works are continuously launched, but what is lacking are excellent works that can be widely recognized.

Four years ago, "The Monkey King: Hero is Back" sparked a discussion about the rise of domestic animation, followed by "Big Fish and Begonia", "The Guardian" and "White Snake: Origin" released earlier this year. Now, "Nezha" has grossed over 2 billion yuan at the box office and scored 8.6 on Douban with over 500,000 reviews.

After repeatedly discussing the topic of the "rise of Chinese animation", the domestic animation industry seems to have entered a new stage, and more high-quality original works seem to be coming soon. However, it is still too early to talk about the "rise" of Chinese animation as a whole.

There is a necessity behind Nezha

According to Maoyan data, the first-day box office of Nezha was close to 140 million yuan, and the first-week box office exceeded 650 million yuan. On the evening of August 3, the official Weibo account of the film announced that as of 21:36:52 on the same day, its total box office exceeded 2 billion yuan, setting a new record for the highest single-day box office for an animated film.

There is no doubt that Nezha is a huge hit. Related topics have appeared on the hot search list on Weibo, Tik Tok, and Douban.

According to Maoyan's prediction, the box office of "Nezha" will reach more than 4 billion yuan. According to many reviews, this animated film has become a milestone in domestic original animation works. Although criticism is inevitable, overall, the performance of this animated film is both popular and well-received.

There is no need to discuss where the final box office performance of "Nezha" will be. Putting aside the specific works, what is more worthy of attention is whether works like "Nezha" will become the norm? In the view of Dai Bin, deputy general manager of Tencent Interactive Entertainment Market Platform Department, the emergence of "Nezha" is not accidental.

"All industry phenomena, including the emergence of hits, are not accidental; everything is inevitable," Dai Bin said. "When the entire industry develops to a certain level of maturity, whether it is animation, comics, strip comics, four-frame comics or animated films, there will be higher-level works. It may be Nezha, Yang Jian or the Monkey King. This is the law of development."

Last year, the capital winter spread, and the animation industry also had a "cold winter". At the UP2019 Tencent New Cultural and Creative Ecosystem Conference in March this year, Zou Zhengyu, general manager of the animation business department of Tencent PCG (Platform and Content Group), declined to comment on the "cold winter" when he was interviewed by Sina Technology and other media, but he said that he was very optimistic about the adjustment of the emerging content industry.

The iResearch Consulting report pointed out that since 2015, with the rise of two-dimensional users and the removal of a large number of pirated works, animation industry companies have begun to attract a lot of attention from capital.

In 2016, the investment and financing activities of the animation industry reached a historical peak, with 125 investment and financing events in the industry that year. Then it entered a short adjustment period, capital continued to pay attention to the animation industry, but investment tended to be calm, and bad projects and bad companies were cleared out of the market.

The massive influx of capital has created a bubble, but it is also a support for the industry. In addition, since the release of the "Specific Measures on Promoting the Development of Animation Creation in my country" in 2005, there have been continuous policies introduced to promote the development and improvement of the domestic animation industry.

According to iResearch Consulting's statistics and analysis, the total output value of my country's animation industry has been steadily increasing since 2013, reaching 153.6 billion yuan in 2017.

At the same time, the scale of China's online animation content market has continued to expand rapidly since 2013. In 2012, the scale of China's online animation content market was only 680 million yuan, but by 2017, it had climbed to 9.25 billion yuan. The report predicts that the market scale will reach 14.16 billion yuan in 2018.

The popularity of "Nezha" is the result of the patient polishing of director Jiaozi and the production team, and is also inseparable from the changes in the overall industry environment.

Let’s not talk about the rise of Chinese comics first

Once a domestic animation work receives widespread acclaim, there will always be voices discussing the "rise of domestic animation." According to Douban data, the current score of "Nezha: The Devil Child Comes into the World" is better than 88% of animations and better than 97% of comedies. However, it is still too early to talk about the overall rise of domestic animation.

Looking back at the domestic animation market in recent years, excellent original works have been rising. In addition to "Nezha", there are also some domestic animated films that have caused heated discussions.

"The Monkey King: Hero is Back", which was released in July 2015, has been rated by over 480,000 people on Douban, with a score of 8.3, which is better than 81% of animated films and 90% of fantasy films;

The Guardian, released in July 2017, received 258,000 ratings and scored 7.8, which is better than 61% of animated films and 77% of fantasy films;

"White Snake: Origin", which was released earlier in 2019, received ratings from over 370,000 people and scored 7.9, which is better than 65% of cartoons and 83% of romance films.

In addition to the above-mentioned animated films, other popular animated series include "The Legend of Qin", "Fox Spirit Matchmaker", "Assassin Five Six Seven" and other series.

It seems that there are indeed more and more excellent Chinese comics. However, some industry insiders said that it is too early to talk about the "rise of Chinese comics".

In his opinion, whether Chinese animation can rise depends largely on whether the audience supports it and whether they are willing to let the film company make money. "Nezha" is popular, but the question is, "If his company makes a profitable film, can other companies also make profitable works?"

Because of the explosive popularity of "Nezha", many people will discuss how Chinese animation will be in the future, which makes the above-mentioned industry insiders think of the chaos in the industry. "I have seen many animation companies calling for quick investment, (saying) we also have projects. By then, there will be a bunch of scammers trying to take advantage of the popularity."

The iResearch Consulting report summarizes the current development status of the animation industry's business model, pointing out that "the ideal is beautiful, but the reality is very bleak."

Specifically, in terms of the industrial environment, the overseas animation markets in Japan, Europe and the United States developed early, have mature industrial chains, and have occupied the domestic animation market with their first-mover advantage; in terms of enterprises, it is difficult for animation companies to be self-sufficient and they mainly rely on external capital injections. The production costs of animation works are high, and it is difficult to recover costs at this stage.

In terms of works, domestic animation lacks innovation and quality, making it difficult to achieve sustainable monetization for companies and works; in terms of users, the user payment market is still in its infancy, and domestic animation still needs to consider diversified profit models.

Talking about the popular animated films in recent years, the above-mentioned industry insider revealed that "White Snake: Origin" and other films can only be said to have made a small profit or broke even, "The direct way to rise is to make money. Everyone is losing money. How can they rise if one movie makes money?" Talking about animated series, he also said that almost all of them are losing money.

Can the Internet give birth to the next "Nezha"?

The rise of Chinese animation as a whole still needs time, and it is hard to say when the next "Nezha" will come. However, this popular work surprised the industry and gave practitioners confidence. In the eyes of the above-mentioned industry insiders, "Nezha" is a successful case. Together with "The Return of the Great Sage", they proved a truth: if the production quality is good and the publicity resources are invested, it is possible to make money. In the future, perhaps more people will follow this model. As for how to promote the development of the domestic animation industry, he said that investors should be more knowledgeable and not spend money indiscriminately, so that good groups can continue to thrive.

There is no doubt that the domestic animation industry has had a glorious past. The iResearch Consulting Report divides the development of China's animation industry into five stages: 1926 to 1978 was the golden period, the "Wan Brothers" opened the prelude to Chinese animation, and the Shanghai Animation Film Studio became the earliest pioneer of China's animation industry. Nationalization is the biggest feature, and classic works have emerged, with great influence worldwide.

After that, there was a decline period from 1979 to 2000, a cultivation period from 2001 to 2012, a growth period from 2013 to 2017, and a period of rapid development after 2018. It is worth noting that the rapid development of mobile Internet and the rise of video platforms have boosted the development of the animation industry.

Zhang Xiaoming, deputy director of the Center for Chinese Cultural Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and head of the International Digital Creativity Report, said that in 2012 Tencent officially announced its entry into the comics field, which shows that the revival of Chinese comics is related to Internet platform companies.

According to him, the threshold for practitioners on the Internet platform is very low. They can become professional cartoonists with simple tools. They can work during the day and draw cartoons at home at night. If the paintings become popular, they can earn enough and then quit their jobs. This is very easy to achieve. If the cartoons become popular, they can also make animations, games, and movies. In short, "it is different to have a platform company or not."

Huang Bin, director of the domestic think tank of the Institute of New Structural Economics at Peking University, pointed out directly that the rise of Chinese animation is entirely dependent on the Internet. In his view, China has long been a complete industrial chain for high-level foreign comics and animation companies. This industrial chain is not nurtured by traditional animation companies, but by Internet platform companies.

The iResearch Consulting report concluded that the current active investors in the animation industry market are mainly platform companies such as Tencent, iQiyi, NetEase, and Bilibili, as well as film and television companies such as Light Media and Wanda Media.

Among them, Bilibili and Tencent have become important players in animation industry investment, and have invested in or acquired shares in many companies with IP production capabilities or animation production capabilities.

Zhang Xiaoming pointed out, "With the billion-level consumer Internet, we can form a brand new business model in this space. Compared with the previous animation and film and television products with relatively high risks, we can greatly reduce the risks and form a clustered development trend."

The next "Nezha" may not come for a long time, but with the intervention of various Internet forces and the new market environment, the birth of more excellent domestic animation works is worth looking forward to.