Why is the online drama 8.2 points and the network is 2.9 points ＂Longling Cave＂ with two poles of reputation？
Special feature of 1905 film network On April 1st, the online drama Longling Cave, adapted from Muye Zhang’s novel, ushered in its online premiere. On April 2, the online movie of the novel with the same name landed on the long video platform. Up to now, the two works have scored 8.2 points and 2.9 points on the Douban platform respectively, achieving the highest and lowest scores in this series of adaptation works.
Behind the huge word-of-mouth gap, it reflects the reality that the copyright ownership of this literary IP adaptation is chaotic. At the same time, this phenomenon once again reminds the upstream practitioners of the film and television industry that content quality is the key factor for the success or failure of literary IP adaptation.
According to the statistics of 1905 Movie Network, there are 11 TV dramas adapted from the series of "Ghost Blowing Lights" and scored with Douban, including 5 online dramas, 3 online movies and 3 cinema movies. Among them, the average score of online drama Douban is 6.3, which is much higher than that of online movies with 3.4 points. This can also explain to a certain extent that the content quality of the former is improving faster than that of the latter in the mainland film and television creation market.
Word of mouth polarization
Popular literary works have been adapted into film and television works, and it has become a commercial practice to further expand the IP realization space. The series "Ghost Blowing Lights" is one of the masterpieces of domestic fictional literature in recent years, and it is naturally a frequent visitor to film adaptation.
"This casting is too much for my heart", "Pan Yueming’s acting skills are really good, and the two roles of Wang Pangzi and Dajinya are highly coincident with the images I imagined in my mind", "Non-original party, obedient, and special effects are not embarrassing" … … Judging from the comments of netizens, most viewers agree with the overall texture of the online drama version of Longling Cave.
Online drama version of Longling CavePartial doubanshort review
"A dime of special effects, zero-intelligence villain" and "nine notes on grave robbery" are worse than the TV series next door.》","The release every other day is just an example "… … The online movie version of the message area has become the scene of the audience’s spit conference, and people’s disappointment is obvious. From the mainstream comments, it is not difficult to see that the audio-visual experience of the latter is completely different from that of the former.
As we all know, the quality of current film and television works has become a watershed of word-of-mouth trend. The attention of well-known literature IP adaptation of film and television dramas is more like a double-edged sword, which accelerates the spread and sinking of word of mouth. Therefore, in a short period of time, it is not difficult to understand the two-level word-of-mouth of the works of Longling Cave with different forms.
Judging from the feedback from netizens mentioned in the previous article, the online starring performance, the casting close to the original image in the audience’s mind, excellent service and compact rhythm have become the key to the success of the online drama version of Longling Cave.
It is still too early to draw a conclusion whether the word-of-mouth of the film can go high and high. In 2019, also adapted from this series of IP, "Angry Sunny Xiangxi" starring Pan Yueming had a bad ending, which led to the rapid decline of Douban score.
Pan Yueming’s "Nuqing Xiangxi" has a low reputation in the later period.
It is worth mentioning that in addition to the concern about the content quality of the two works, the audience also expressed doubts about the release time. In the message area, some "wrong" netizens said that it might be the online movie version or the marketing side for the sake of heat. This kind of confusing behavior, which makes the audience have the illusion, is similar to the common parasitic marketing in the industry.
The concept of parasitic marketing first appeared in sports events, which means that some companies, as informal sponsors, try to associate themselves with specific events to make profits. This phenomenon is not the first time in the film and television industry. Before the cinema film was released in 2019, it was once mistaken by the audience and the media for the fourth "predecessor" series produced by Huayi Brothers. However, the real situation is that there is no connection between the two except that the title of the film is partly the same as that of the starring role.
"Next: Former" was once accused of being "hot"
Whether touching porcelain intentionally or unintentionally, the release at the same time did bring a certain topic and heat to the version. However, the mainstream reputation of the audience has become a "mirror" to distinguish the two works. Content is king, which has become the irreversible golden rule of China’s film and television works.
The pain of copyright decentralization in adaptation
No matter horizontal or vertical contrast, the huge gap has become the adaptation of film and television works of Ghost Blowing Lights.stelaOne of the common qualities. It is an indisputable fact that the content quality is difficult to maintain a high level of output.
In December 2005, Muye Zhang began to write this series of novels and published them in Tianya Community. The novel theme and the style similar to documentary literature made this work quickly popular. After Tianya Forum published 52 chapters, the author moved to qidian to publish the first remaining chapter.
Since then, Muye Zhang has sold all the copyrights of eight novels in his works to qidian. After that, the author has written many new works, such as "Ghost Blows the Lamp in Mu Ye", but the first eight are the most influential ones. In January 2015, Tencent Group took over Shanda Literature for 5 billion yuan and merged it with Tencent Culture to form Reading Group. These include qidian, Tea Fragrance and Xiaoxiang Academy under Shanda.
Before Tencent acquired Shanda Literature, qidian had sold the first and second copyrights of this series of works to Dreamer Film and Wanda Film and Television respectively. Since then, Penguin Pictures, a subsidiary of Tencent, has only obtained the right to adapt the online drama of the series of "Ghost Blowing Lights" through related transactions.
Statistics on the Ownership of Adapting Right of Ghost Blowing Lights Series Novels
On the road of literary film and television, the uneven quality of works caused by the dispersion of copyright often occurs. For example, based on the adaptation of Liu Cixin’s novels, China Film and Beijing Culture dominate the word-of-mouth and box office in Qi Fei, but the series of "Three-body" movies made by Youzu Film Industry in 2014 have been difficult to produce so far. In the future, it is a win-win solution for multi-party cooperation resources to complement each other and jointly develop.
The overall reputation of the five online dramas of Ghost Blowing Lights series is better than that of the three online movies, which can also reflect to some extent that the content quality of the former is improving faster than that of the latter in the domestic creative market.
In terms of the number of episodes and the length of play, domestic online dramas seem to be moving in the direction of "small but beautiful". Both the external environment of the notice of the general limited collection of radio and television some time ago and the audience’s internal demand for high-quality content have become the important reasons to promote this trend.
At the moment when it is becoming normal for a drama to be broadcast simultaneously on the Internet, the overall quality and benefit difference between online movies and cinema movies is still very obvious. It is still an unbreakable truth that whoever can produce high-quality content will be recognized by the audience and the market.
For how to adapt literary works, director Ang Lee’s answer may be a reference. He believes that "the film is not just the visualization of the book, it is a different carrier from the novel, and it often has to be replaced from the lining to the face when it is adapted, focusing on the good-looking film." Isn’t this kind of thinking applicable to the film adaptation of other forms of literary works such as TV dramas and online dramas?