Most of China's "big IP" movies have been panned by critics and much of the moviegoing public. But there lies the irony: Even if public reaction is strongly negative, it may still attract tens of millions of eyeballs.
The Lost Tomb became a laughing stock when it premiered on the Web, but the first episode amassed 100 million viewers in the first 24 hours anyway. In that sense, "big IP" titles are criticism-proof.
But that's only half the story. For every Tiny Times, there is The Queens, which was nicknamed the middle-aged version of Tiny Times as it also flaunts beautiful men and women in beautiful costumes, but turned out to be a major financial flop.
Catchy pop tunes have been used for movie titles before, such as Kangding Love Song, and it is doubtful whether a memorable title alone or association with hit music would produce consistency in adaptation.
If you look at Hollywood for reference, it is quite normal to find about half of all films adapted from other sources.
Major properties like the Harry Potter series fetched high prices because they had built a sizable fan base before Warner Bros paid for the rights.
Still, the gold-rush fever in Chinese showbiz is different: It shows an alarming lack of discrimination among investors. The hot money from the high-tech sector has changed the rules of the game: It wants to use science, facilitated by big data, where gut feelings have traditionally ruled.
Fast-food entertainment
This sounds good on paper. In reality, the IP mania has all the trappings of a bubble. The overwhelmingly low quality of online fiction－with each writer coerced to produce 10,000 words a day－implies that much of what's posted online is trash and, given the average level of appreciation, even those that stand out are fast-food entertainment at best. Even in the realm of commercial cinema, they are below mediocre.
Worse, they have the potential to squeeze out better fare. As Yu Fei, a known scriptwriter, laments that the budget for a script is often fixed. Previously, a producer would pay 15 percent of the budget for the adaptation right and the rest to the scriptwriters. Now that ratio is reversed.
Also, with a large section of the limited pool of writing talent wanting to be associated with these hot titles, that leaves fewer people willing to toil away for a work of originality. Some celebrity actors have gone so far so to declare they would not take on a project unless its popularity is pre-tested online by its original novel.
Chinese films may have shortened the cycle from boom to doom to just a few years. The glitter of the business means no shortage of blind followers no matter how hard the current crop of IP chasers fall－but with the stumble will come maturity, and the day when picking a good story is no longer based on the size of the online crowd alone.
