This year’s Shanghai Film Festival’s “Film List War” officially begins today!

In the afternoon, LeTV Pictures finally handed over 12 new film lists, including Zhang Yimou's "Shadow", Guo Jingming's "Grand Trail 2", Li Rengang's "Assassination"... This should have been the opening of this year's Shanghai International Film Festival. The largest film list to date has been unveiled.

But this record was quickly broken by Wanda, who released the film list that night.

In tonight's "Wanda Night", Wanda released a slate of 36 projects, including 9 TV series and 27 movies.

However, Xiaoyu took a closer look and found that 9 of the film projects were "cold rice" released at the Shanghai International Film Festival last year. I don't know if they will be released next year or whether they will still dominate the film list.

With so many film lists released, are they reliable? Which ones can be turned on, and which ones can only be PPT?

Recently, Entertainment Capital calculated the completion rate of more than 200 films announced during last year's Shanghai Film Festival. Even including those in development, it was only about 40%.

Not only that, the prominent "Korean restriction order" has also seriously affected the completion rate of the Shanghai Film Festival's film list, with more than 20 projects encountering policy "difficulty".

In last year’s report, Entertainment Capital scanned the Shanghai International Film Festival’s film list (click on the blue text to review). At that time, trends such as science fiction movies, adult-oriented animated movies, and the rise of new companies seemed to have become a cloud.

It is worth noting that although LeTV Pictures has encountered the financial crisis of its parent company LeTV Holdings, this company is actually one of the rare and reliable entertainment companies that are full of bullshit. In 2016, the box office of the 11 movies invested in it all exceeded 100 million. "The Great Wall" and "Tomb Raiders" exceeded 1 billion, and the project completion rate was as high as 94%.

Next, Xiaoyu will list for you the top 10 films that completed the film festival last year, as well as (what you may be looking forward to more) the countdown list.

For companies that love to push film lists but don’t have actual output ratios, Xiaoyu can only borrow director Feng Xiaogang’s famous saying: “Today you say you got this IP, tomorrow you say you got that IP, it’s all P!”

(Note: The following statistical project completion status is based on the announcement of start-up information, and projects that have not announced start-up are considered unfinished)

With the impact of the Korean order, more than 20 projects have been "disappeared"

Last year, the Shanghai Film Festival announced a series of Sino-South Korean co-productions, but they were stifled by the sudden THAAD dispute between the two countries.

Speaking of companies severely affected by the Korean ban, CJ E&M, which announced 15 projects in one go last year, bore the brunt. The Sino-Korean co-productions "Safe Island" and "MasterChefs" that have been completed cannot be released. "Kung Fu Robot", the Chinese version of "Veteran" and "Longevity Chamber of Commerce" have no sequels. Only "Battleship Island" has been successfully completed. Can it be released? The release in China is still unknown.

Image source: Yien.com

Equally sad is Paige Media. 5 of the 16 projects are co-productions between China and South Korea. Now there is no news. However, it is flourishing in the Internet field and has successively invested in "The Ruffian King", "Siping Youth" and "School Beauty". "The Rukawa Maple Next Door" and a series of popular online broadcasts.

Various other companies have also been affected, including the movie channel "Shut Up!" "Love Me" Huace Pictures' "I Love Cats" and Ningmeng Pictures' "Dear Archimedes" and other completed projects cannot be released. The film version of Wanda's "Break the Sky" seems to have Korean director Jiang Digui. There has been no further development, and Upward Pictures' "Ghost Racer" stars Bigbang member T.O.P Choi Seung-hyun, who is deeply involved in drug abuse scandals, and is probably going to die.

"Movie list culture": the facade is greater than the actual development speed

When Hollywood releases a film list, it usually announces its release a year in advance. But in China, many projects often don’t even develop scripts. They just buy the IP and add it to the film list. Every time I watch the release of the film list, I have an incomprehensible feeling. Chinese and foreign co-productions, big IP, big fantasy, and top-notch production. In the end, I found that it is more reliable to only release 3 or 4 films at once, and it is also in line with the development rhythm (End Several companies with a 100% film rate have only announced less than 5 film lists). If you publish more than 10 movies at a time, you won't be able to do it for three to five years.

Moreover, the rule of pulling the list is that regardless of whether it is the main investor or the control, even if it is assisting in distribution, it must be counted in the own list. So we will see a project become the focus of the film list of 4 or 5 companies. If it is developed, it will be fine. If it is not developed, the completion rate of domestic films will drop significantly, which is also intoxicating.

The "rise of Chinese science fiction" is far from coming

Last year, the Shanghai International Film Festival announced more than ten science fiction blockbusters and more than 20 fantasy blockbusters. However, it seems that we are still far away from the "heavy industrialization" process of film that people expect.

Among science fiction movies, only "Tomorrow's War" and "Blood of the Machine" are about to be released. "The Three-Body Problem" with multiple participations has not yet been released. The "Supernova Era" series, which was also adapted from Liu Cixin's work, is also gone. According to news, there has been no real progress in the co-production of "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" by Xiyi Pictures since it was reported in June that the director would come to China to cast the film.

New companies mostly pay tuition fees

At the last film festival, Entertainment Capital wrote an article exploring whether new companies + new film lists + new directors can change the future of Chinese films. However, this year, among the companies with lower project completion rates, most of them were newly established within one or two years. It can be seen that the On the road to film investment and production, newcomers always have to pay tuition. The few "new recruits" that have a stable track record are often startups run by former executives.

Although slow work leads to meticulous work, companies with low or even zero development rates may want to consider whether there is a problem with the pace of project development, or they are too greedy and have taken too big a step into the film and television industry. In fact, what can't be developed can still be replaced. For example, "Hot Pot Heroes" originally in the hands of Lighting became a Huayi production, and Huayi abandoned "Kung Fu Yoga" and switched to "Journey to the West: Conquering Monsters". The experience of large companies Tell us: In fact, instead of developing multiple projects, it is better to choose the one that suits you best.

"Animation Big Year" turns into "Animation Little Year"?

Last year, the Shanghai Film Festival also announced more than ten animations, and there were obviously more themes focusing on the youth market. However, this year it seems that only "Ten Cold 2" will be released as scheduled. Sky City Pictures, the producer of "The Return of the Great Sage", released last year's "Zodiac", "Legend of Strange Heroes" and "Four Monkeys", which are said to be released this year. The film will be announced during the festival.

"The post-90s and post-95s who grew up watching cartoons are still inseparable from animation when they grow up. This wave of audiences determines the inevitable trend of the rise of Chinese animation. But I don’t like to use the word 'rise'. I think it is still the There are a lot of bubbles, and everyone is telling stories about it," said Liu Kuo, chief animation director of "Bad Guys".

Huayi Optoelectronics Huace Tencent, traditional film industry or cross-border film industry, who is more reliable?

The above are just the film lists of 20 film and television companies, so what is the situation of other large companies?

Companies such as Huayi and Enlight did not release their film lists at the Shanghai Film Festival, but chose to announce them at the beginning of the year. Among the Huayi H Project's fifth season film list, 8 of the 2016 films have been completed, while 40% of the 15 films in 2017, including "The Lawyer and the Killer", "Tian Lingling" and "The Young Master", have not yet started filming. Perhaps for this reason, this year's Shanghai Film Festival's Huayi Night was much more low-key, and only one new project, "First Kiss," was announced.

Half of the 16 projects of Enlight Pictures in 2016-2017 have not yet started production. In the past few years, Raytheon has been famous for its youth romance films, but it may not be good at developing Jin Yong classic projects such as "Dragon", "Swordsman" and "The Deer and the Cauldron". There is also "Eastern Palace", which was listed in Raytheon's 2015 annual report. It was said that it would be launched the following year, but now it is the second half of 2017 and there is still no news.

Huace Pictures announced the "Dream + 1" plan after last year's Shanghai International Film Festival. Among the 29 projects, 17 of them, including "The Boy Here", "The Last Life", "House of Flying Daggers" and "Memory Cloud", have not yet started shooting. The rate is 42%. It seems that having too many IP reserves is both a blessing and a curse.

Tencent Pictures, which released 21 projects in September last year, may have a completion rate of only 30% due to the short preparation time. 12 projects including "God of War", "General", "National Assault" and "Dinosaur Express" have not yet started filming. . Among the completed projects, "Youth", which is the main producer, did not perform well. This summer's "Ten Cold 2" and "The Master", which were invested in this summer, may be expected to break Tencent's embarrassing situation of being able to only ride on the popularity of Hollywood blockbusters.

"If you don't release a single film list, will it affect business advancement? Don't you think there are too few exaggerated things to watch, and you are still missing?" Faced with the impetuous mentality of film practitioners, Wang Changtian, chairman of Enlight Media, couldn't help but Make complaints. It’s not that there are no honest people. Alibaba Pictures CEO Yu Yongfu admitted that “some projects in Alibaba’s film list for the Shanghai International Film Festival last year were turned into PPTs,” so Alibaba Pictures did not hold a “×× Night” this year.

However, one phenomenon that may be thankful for is that there are many fewer companies soliciting orders this year. So far, only Huayi, Yongle Culture, Times Influence Pictures, etc. have released film lists, and the number is carefully controlled in single digits. More companies choose to hold launch or final release conferences for individual projects.

Only through accumulation can you gain success. I hope that film practitioners can calm down and paint a big picture for the Chinese film industry. It is better to provide more real and good films to the audience.