"Let's make a movie, how to get an Oscar? Achieved within a few years. " On August 20 17, on the first day in Alibaba Pictures, Fan Luyuan told Zhang Wei, president of Alibaba Pictures.
The good news is coming. Fan Luyuan updated his circle of friends: The film with Alibaba Pictures is very lucky! A seemingly joking sentence reminds everyone that Alibaba Pictures, who once suffered from word-of-mouth waterloo because of his main promotion of movies, became a promoter of explosions in less than two years.
If it is accidental to participate in Fanghua in June, 20 17, then the explosive movies such as Operation Red Sea's Chinatown Detective 2, Dying for Survival, Xihong's richest man, and One like you in June, 20 18, and then Green Book, The Wandering Earth, who won the Oscar in 20 19.
Until a recent interview, Li Jie, senior vice president of Alibaba Pictures and president of Taobao Pictures, said frankly that after nearly two years of exploration, Alibaba Pictures vaguely grasped some laws.
In 20 14, Alibaba Pictures became the first film and television company controlled by Alibaba Group. For Alibaba Pictures, who was born with a golden spoon, the expectations and doubts from the outside world are very high after entering the entertainment circle. Alibaba Pictures's narrow understanding of what to do in his early days made his exploration not smooth, and his questioning reached its peak after The Ferry Man and to the sky kingdom.
The turning point occurred in the middle of 20 17 years. With Taobao movies as the core product, Alibaba Pictures began to vigorously promote the infrastructure strategy, and advocated that Fan Luyuan, who "turned comparative advantage into absolute advantage", parachuted into Alibaba Pictures and became the chairman and CEO of Alibaba Pictures Board of Directors. In his memory of the media, Li Jie said that Fan Luyuan's attitude in content specialty is extremely low, but his attitude in improving the company's efficiency and implementing strategy is extremely firm and resolute.
Money is not enough.
Turn comparative advantage into absolute advantage. In an interview with Caijing Tianxia, Fan Luyuan once emphasized this. In Alibaba Pictures's early days, the definition of content and the formulation of corporate strategy were more about competing with companies with many years of industry experience with chips such as capital and resources that did not occupy absolute advantages.
"Really good movies, money may not be able to vote. Because really good movies are not short of money. " Li Jie summed up the difficulties faced by Alibaba Pictures in the early days, among which there was no lack of investment and determination. However, the film industry is not so tolerant of an internet company that has become a monk halfway. "So when you only have money, people won't let you vote."
On the other hand, Li Jie also admitted that for a high-risk toC industry like movies, Alibaba Pictures's judgment on the content was not stable before strong user access and data capability were established. Wolf Warriors 2 has set a record in the film history of China, which is of symbolic significance to Alibaba Pictures as a whole.
As the Internet publisher of Wolf Warriors 2, in the summer of 20 17, the share of Taobao movies in the online ticketing market soared to 30.94%, ranking first in the industry. In the same year, Alibaba Pictures launched Taobao Movie Professional APP and developed Phoenix Yun Zhi, which is an open digital cinema management platform. The two products have promoted the digitalization and intelligence of the domestic film and television industry from the propaganda end and the cinema end respectively.
At the beginning of 2065438+2008, at the founding meeting of a group, Li Jie led the team members to put forward the idea of a transparent platform based on film announcement and named it "Lighthouse". "After we finished speaking on the stage, Lao Fan immediately made a decision, so let's set up a team to start work immediately." Li Jie said that the day after the founding of the conference, Li Jie set up the earliest lighthouse team and closed the door at Liangmahe Hotel near Alibaba Pictures's office. "
2065438+April 2008, the one-stop publicity platform "Lighthouse" was officially launched. Visual data-driven, large-scale resource investment, and quantifiable publicity effect, the lighthouse makes the film publicity full of tricks transparent in front of the industry for the first time. At this point, the prototype of "hydropower coal" in Alibaba Pictures, with Taobao movie, Phoenix Yun Zhi and Lighthouse as the core platforms, appeared.
"If a company does not do core highland business, it will definitely do nothing." Li Jie said that the construction of infrastructure has given full play to Alibaba's core users and data advantages, which is also the basis for Alibaba Pictures's increasing hit rate in explosive movies.
Is it luck to win four box office titles?
Winning the Internet release of Wolf Warriors 2 made Alibaba Pictures's infrastructure strategy achieve considerable phased results in a short period of time, and also gave birth to the special style of Alibaba Pictures's investment content.
Fan Luyuan's first public activity after taking office in Alibaba Pictures was a strategic cooperation conference with Beijing Culture, the producer of Wolf Warriors 2. This greatly stimulated and encouraged Fan Luyuan. What's exciting is that the performance of "Wolf Warriors 2" swept the summer file, which made him see the influence of top movies. What encouraged him was that he realized that the film industry was essentially a C-side business, and the audience voted with movie tickets. This business model is both direct and healthy.
After the press conference, Fan Luyuan called the management to hold a three-day "three-axis" meeting in Shunyi. Li Jie recalled that Fan Luyuan made it clear at the meeting that the content must be done. But at the same time, he also redefined the way to do content. "This job was not done before. What I did before was shoot it myself. But Lao Fan is talking about cooperation with first-class companies and cooperative works. " Li Jie explained that since then, Alibaba Pictures's investment in head movies has mostly appeared in the form of co-production.
So what is the basis of Alibaba Pictures's participation in movies? Fan Luyuan simply answered with "good luck". However, among the top ten films in China box office in 20 18, Alibaba Pictures participated in the first four films of Detective Chinatown 2 by Operation Red Sea and Death of the Richest Man in Xihong City, and Ali Fish, a subsidiary of Alibaba Pictures, which focuses on the development of IP derivatives, won the derivative development cooperation of Catch the Demon 2.
In the year of 20 18, the total box office of China movies was 60.976 billion yuan, and the total box office of the top ten movies in Alibaba Pictures exceeded/kloc-0.4 billion yuan. 20/kloc-China film production in 0/8 years 1082, with 504 films released. Of the 504 films released, it is too far-fetched to choose the top ten films at the box office.
"In fact, we vaguely feel that behind the high hit rate, we feel that we have grasped some rules." Li Jie said frankly, "Including we think that realistic themes and science fiction themes will be popular earlier, so we will vote for" Survival Not "and The Wandering Earth." Although he didn't make the detailed rules behind the rules, there are still some striking similarities in analyzing these films made by Alibaba Pictures. First, Alibaba Pictures's films are concentrated in several head film companies that have made outstanding performances in the film market in recent years, such as Huayi Brothers, Bona and Beijing Culture. Secondly, most of these films focus on several important schedules, such as Spring Festival, Chinese New Year, summer vacation and National Day. Third, most of these films are made by young people or cutting-edge directors. ...
Seemingly simple rules, but without a large amount of data accumulated by the infrastructure platform, the participating films will fall into the problems that Alibaba Pictures faced in the early days: lack of chips to participate in the head film and lack of ability to judge the content.
Ali-flavored content person
"We don't have to be creative and creative with excellent film creation companies." Regarding whether film companies must make their own content, Li Jie said. "Our advantage is that we have large-scale users, resources and data to make movies look better, sell more money and produce more film talents. This is what we should do. "
"When I communicate with the director, I often say that I have read the script, but I just look at it from the perspective of the audience." Li Jie said, "The director should have professional content. What they need is a broader user perspective and data to support decision making. " Alibaba Pictures is absolutely professional in big data and user analysis.
I am awed by the professional content and have absolute confidence and professionalism in the Internet technology empowerment industry that I am good at. This is the most obvious advantage that Li Jie sees from Fan Luyuan. "LaoFan particularly willing to meet customers. He basically meets customers for more than half a week, which is totally a learning attitude. The first sentence of meeting is' I don't understand the content, I am here to study today'. " It is extremely low to put your posture in front of the content person. This is the spirit of "Little Two" that "Old Ali" Fan Luyuan has been carrying around for many years.
This low-key "small two" mentality, Fan Luyuan also implanted Youku. At the end of March, Fan Luyuan held a closed-door communication meeting for the head customers of Youku drama series in Beijing, and invited more than 40 executives of the head production company, including Zhong, Wu Bai, Cao Huayi, Bai Yiqi, Huang Lan, etc.
At the meeting, Fan Luyuan repeatedly stressed that the Ali entertainment team should present it to the partners with a brand-new attitude of "Shop Two". Specifically, in Youku's daily work, including the script review feedback should not exceed one week, and the requirements for contract review and payment approval should be "clear" ... and so on, so as to improve communication and service efficiency as much as possible.
In Li Jie's view, Fan Luyuan is applying Alibaba Pictures's experience to the management of Youku. The controversial punch card system was also Fan Luyuan's first decision in Alibaba Pictures. "You want to make great works, first of all, you have to live better than others. Talking about feelings every day, the company is about to close down, and it is said that punching in is not welcome, and employees can come whenever they want? This is business, not charity. " After the transition period of implementing punch card system in Alibaba Pictures, Li Jie was deeply touched by the improvement of employees' working status and efficiency brought by relevant measures.
Before 20 18, Li Jie's evaluation of himself was "professional", but after more than a year of "self-destruction and reconstruction", Fan Luyuan's evaluation of Li Jie was "Ali is very strong". Fan Luyuan has been in charge of Youku and Daxie Entertainment for nearly half a year, and Daxie Entertainment is also facing a break and reconstruction.
Taking Alibaba Pictures and Youku as examples, the businesses and teams of Alibaba Pictures and Youku movies no longer exist as separate business modules, but are presented as a complete brand "Taobao Movie × Youku Movie". "Maybe after a year or two, Alibaba Pictures and Youku movies will be weaker. What you hear is a complete user platform like Ali Digital Entertainment. " Li Jie said.
The opening of the film business is only the beginning. Publicity, technology and content are facing full openness. Fan Luyuan is tearing down the high wall erected between various businesses in the entertainment circle inch by inch.
Fan Luyuan still doesn't like to talk about strategy in front of the media. In the only interview after taking over Shanda Entertainment, he said that "the most important thing in this industry is people, organization and culture". In his view, when the problems of people, organization and culture are clarified, there will be a strategy.
"Lao Fan often said that the word Alibaba is too expensive. If we make the film well, it will be of great value to Alibaba. " Li Jie said. What Fan Luyuan is doing is to make Ali Entertainment's business contribute to Alibaba's brand value.