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Black and White Entertainment/Article Barcode/text Although the overall box office performance of the Dragon Boat Festival that just passed was not good, the new content-oriented dynamics that emerged intensively still attracted our attention. The Dragon Boat Festival released "Sweeping Black and Never Give Up" (hereinafter referred to as "Sweeping Black") and "I Don't Want to Be Friends with You" (hereinafter referred to as "Friends"), the former follows the basic settings of the TV series "Sweeping Black Storm", while the latter is derived from the TV series of the same name, still telling the hot and lively fun between the girl Li Jinbu and her mother Li Qingtong. It is not difficult to find that there is a certain commonality between these two films, that is, they are not completely new works, but rely on the TV series of the same name or the same series, and carry out project development and creation on this basis.

Going back further, this year's New Year's Eve blockbuster "Twinkle, Twinkle Star" comes from the same "system" as these two movies. Drama IPs that have commercial value and great commercial potential enter the film market and are adapted into theatrical movies for release, which is becoming a new possibility for content creation. At present, the box office of "Sweeping Black" and "Friends" have both exceeded 100 million yuan. Despite the recent sluggish film market, the two films have both topped the list among a number of films, which seems to prove that the market and audiences have a good reception to the new possibility of "drama adaptation". The underlying logic behind this wave is also more worthy of attention.

How to show new possibilities when drama develops into film

In fact, in the film market in recent years, "adapting dramas into movies" is not an instantaneous phenomenon, but has gradually formed a new trend in the form of a "spark".

For example, the Taiwanese science fiction and romance series "Want to See You" was a huge success in the TV series. Three years later, the film version was released in mainland China at the end of 2022. Although the reputation of the TV series has declined a lot compared to the TV series, the enthusiasm of fans is still there, and the topic has not diminished. In the end, the box office exceeded 400 million. Coincidentally, the TV series "Love is Delicious" directed by Chen Zhengdao at the end of 2020, after receiving a good response, it soon launched a film version.

This trend has even exploded this year. In addition to the aforementioned Twinkle Twinkle Star, the film version of The Journey of Flower starring Chen Duling was also released on January 20 this year. The film versions of Home With Children, A Step into the Past, and Hello, Old Time, which is rumored to be directed by Zhang Xincheng, are expected to appear in the cinema market in the coming period.

As for this type of "drama-to-film" work, we can't help but have a question: how can the creative team come up with new ideas for the original story and make moviegoers willing to pay for it? Specifically for the two new films at present, it can be clearly seen that the team is trying to "seek common ground while reserving differences" as much as possible, while retaining the most essential theme expression of the original work, adding genre elements that are more suitable for the current film market audience.

"Sweeping Black" is based on the main perspective of Li Nanbei (played by Xiao Yang) and Yu Qing (played by Fan Chengcheng), the master and apprentice of the Kuizhou City Criminal Police Team, focusing on the game between good and evil and the growth and "alienation" of the characters in the fierce game process. Different from the narrative focus of the previous series "Sweeping Black Storm", the director Wu Bai tried to shift the focus to the growth and emotional direction of the characters as much as possible, and closely revolved around "people" and "people" to tell the story. Suspense is no longer the main type element, but gives way to emotional relationships such as brotherhood and master-apprentice relationship, so as to make the audience empathize and meet their emotional needs as much as possible. In character creation, Wu Bai also made differentiation. Li Nanbei, played by Xiao Yang, does not have much elite color, but is closer to the psychological state of young people nowadays, and uses the "philosophy of life" of lying flat to deal with big and small difficulties in the workplace. And the young policeman Yu Qing, played by Fan Chengcheng, is a fledgling green, and the daily rivalry between the master and apprentice is full of comedy elements.

Compared with the TV series, the film version of "Friends" has a more compact rhythm. In order to compress the entire story into more than 100 minutes, director He Nian had to make significant deletions and changes to the characters in the original work, such as deleting the role of Duan Xiao and focusing the entire story more on the relationship between Li Jinbu and Li Qingtong and their family affection. In addition to streamlining the story, He Nian also added a lot of comedy elements and Internet memes to amplify the Northeast comedy elements of the original work. Whether this design is based on the pursuit of differentiation or the analysis of the market audience, the results are positive.

In general, among this batch of "drama-to-film" works, there are no works that simply copy the original story and overall context structure. On the contrary, the creative team is very sensitive to the research and market feedback of the film market. While striving for differentiation, they can also show their own expression as much as possible, which is commendable.

What kind of drama is suitable for adaptation into a movie?

After discussing the new possibilities in the current trend of "adapting TV series to movies", a new question naturally arises: what kind of TV series is suitable for adaptation into movies? After all, TV series and movies are two different genres, and their audiences do not completely overlap.

Based on the successful cases that have received a lot of discussion and high box office, we have noticed that not all hit TV series are suitable for adaptation into movies.

Specifically, first of all, clear genre elements are the key to the project of "adapting drama into film". Taking "Sweeping Black" as an example, the quality of the finished film is very outstanding compared with other Dragon Boat Festival movies. Its clear crime and suspense genres can quickly locate the target audience, and can also be more vertical in the later publicity and promotion; "A Flash" at the beginning of the year is also a work with clear genres. The positioning of youth, love, and fantasy can attract moviegoers who prefer this type of movie.

Secondly, novelty of subject matter is also crucial. Take works such as "Friends" and "Love is Delicious" as examples. Compared with other theater movies, their themes are novel and the stories are creative, which can be regarded as more distinctive projects. "Friends" is wrapped in a fantasy setting and uses comedy as a thickening, but its essence is to explore the relationship between mother and daughter and individual growth. Although many viewers compare it with "Hello, Li Huanying", the story of "Friends" focuses more on the entanglement between an adolescent girl and her mother, and the story as a whole is full of fun.

The third crucial feature is the audience with a certain stickiness that the series has accumulated. As a dark horse in the 2020 series market, "Friends" has an excellent reputation among the audience. Although the data performance is not as strong as other blockbuster works, the influence of the IP "Friends" cannot be underestimated among youth film lovers. As of the day before the release, the pre-sale box office of "Friends" exceeded 30 million, which is a strong proof of this point of view. The data performance of "Sweeping Black Storm", which was created by the 500 team, is very impressive, and the audience in the sinking market is also very wide, so the film version of "Sweeping Black Storm" has a natural audience advantage.

In addition, whether the type and story of the series itself conform to the aesthetic preferences of the movie-watching crowd is also one of the keys that cannot be ignored. For example, movies like "Sweeping Black" that superimpose crime and suspense elements have a stable audience. "Flash" and "Friends" target young audiences of romance, youth and comedy films, and try their best to make the stories more in line with the living conditions of young people today, thus successfully capturing a group of new audiences who are not the original IP audiences.

Finally, whether the series performs well in small or large circles and becomes a hit is also a consideration for investors. Because good series data means that the IP has a natural discussion and topicality, which will also drive investors to make the decision to "adapt the series into a movie."

From this, it is not difficult to find that the "drama-to-film" project is not as the outside world imagines, relying solely on the commercial value of the drama itself to promote film adaptation, but based on the commercial value of the drama and audience stickiness, combined with research on the movie market's audience population and the level of interest of the segmented audience in the story, the project is finally implemented.

Admittedly, the new possibility of "adapting drama into movie" has brought some new changes to the slightly sluggish film market this year. Behind this trend, there are actually deeper motivations. This new possibility is actually the dual consideration of the market and content by investors and creative teams.

In terms of content, through the analysis and observation of these project teams, we can find the commonalities between the teams. Wu Bai, the director of "Sweeping Black", has many representative works in the fields of TV series and movies. He Nian, the director of "Friends", has dabbled in the fields of movies, TV series and dramas. Wang Feng, the producer and creative team of "A Flash", are from the film industry and have set records in shared-account dramas. The creative teams of these projects are not specialized in a certain field, but cast a wide net, focusing only on innovation in the content track, seeking different forms of content production, and not clearly defining their own positioning. Therefore, their creations often do not have too many limitations and can more accurately grasp the audiences in different fields.

In terms of the market, "drama-to-film" is the producer's expected judgment on the effective migration of the established audience. At the beginning of developing a film project, the investor will obtain a basic estimate of the stickiness and number of the project audience by observing various information such as background data, public opinion feedback, and social media discussion, so as to make subsequent decisions on the project creation, preparation, shooting, and publicity. In addition, in the current environment, "drama-to-film" is also an IP superposition output, which can obtain more commercial profits for the investor and increase the possibility of the subsequent continuous realization of the IP.

Image source: Tuchong Creative and the movie's public poster

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