Light’s ambition and anxiety: How many “Nezha” does China’s mythical universe need?

author| He Jian on the Mountain 

On February 7, Wang Changtian held the annual company’s Spring Festival food temple fair at Enlight Media as usual. More than 500 employees brought many delicacies such as Chongqing spicy chicken slices, Huizhou wool tofu, crispy hairtail and so on. Employees crowded in the lobby, circling the long table to taste, and the loudspeaker played festive Spring Festival music, creating a cheerful atmosphere.

Wang Changtian said that there are a lot of people and dishes, but none of them are superfluous.

This Spring Festival belongs to Wang Changtian and Enlight Media. Starting from the third day of the Lunar New Year on January 31, Wang Changtian updated the box office rankings of movies during the Spring Festival on Weibo until the end of the seventh day of the Spring Festival. On every screenshot, the top box office item is the light-controlled animated movie “Nezha: The Devil Boy Raises in the Sea”(hereinafter referred to as “Nezha 2 “). Before this, his Weibo account was almost all about his calligraphy, and he had to practice calligraphy every day. In recent days, he stopped sharing calligraphy.

The latest box office of this animated film has exceeded 7 billion yuan, surpassing “Changjin Lake” to become the number one box office in China’s film history and the single market box office champion in global film history. Cat’s Eye Professional predicts that the total box office of “Nezha 2” in the mainland may exceed 10 billion yuan in 2024, while the total box office of mainland films in China will only exceed 42.5 billion yuan. Enlight Media’s share price also rose by 40% after the holiday, and its market value exceeded 40 billion yuan, a new high in nearly four years.

The epic breakthrough of “Nezha 2” may make Wang Changtian ignore the collapse of the Light animated film “Xiaoqian” a month ago. This film is regarded by Wang Changtian as the first animated film of the mythical universe system of Light China. After its release, it grossed only 12.84 million yuan at the box office, which is also an epic hit.

Just as “Nezha: The Devil Child”(hereinafter referred to as “Nezha 1″) officially opened the mythical universe of Light with a box office of more than 5 billion yuan five years ago,”Nezha 2”, which is expected to exceed 10 billion yuan in box office, has once again renewed the life of Light’s mythical universe.

01| A mythical universe with many twists and turns

In 2019, it was in the end egg of “Nezha 1” that with the appearance of the trailer of “Jiang Ziya” that the mythical universe conceived by Wang Changtian took shape. It was speculated that Light would use it to create an animated version of the mythical universe of China.

Wang Changtian also confirmed to the public at that time that they already had the idea of a mythical universe in China, and that in the future they planned to launch “Jiang Ziya,””The Great Sage Troubles in the Heaven” and “Phoenix” would become part of China’s mythical universe. Only later,”Jiang Ziya” did not have the success of reproducing “Nezha 1”. The box office stopped at 1.6 billion yuan. The plot was completely unrelated to the “Nezha” series, let alone the so-called universe.

Compared with the Marvel Universe, which was at its peak at that time, the China mythical universe conceived in the early days of Light was somewhat inherently deficient. At that time, Light Bar House Pictures, which was responsible for running animated film projects, was essentially more an investment institution than the subject of content creation. Marvel can connect dozens of its films, series and spin-off animations with a complete worldview, but Colored House Pictures does not have this ability.

In 2015, Tian Xiaopeng’s animated film “Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage” won 954 million yuan in box office, allowing the outside world to see the potential of domestic animated films for the first time. Light was originally one of the investors in “Return of the Great Sage”, but in the early stage of the film’s release, Light missed “Return of the Great Sage” because it was not optimistic about the film’s prospects.

But Wang Changtian moved fast enough. On the fourth day of the release of “The Return of the Great Sage”, Wang Changtian lavished RMB 20 million to sign Tian Xiaopeng and jointly established the October Culture Company with the core team of “The Return of the Great Sage”. Also that year, Light established Color Bar House Films and began to officially enter the animated film industry.

Media reports said that in its first year of establishment, Colorful Bar House Pictures signed 15 animation directors in one go, including Jiao Zi, the animation director who later created the miracle of the “Nezha” series. Wang Changtian even said to the public at that time that conservatively estimates that more than 50% of China’s top animation companies are invested by us. rdquo;

To a certain extent, you can use the logic of Tencent’s investment to understand Colorful House Pictures. In 2015, when the Color Bar House was established, China’s animation industry was still in the cultivation stage. Only one “Return of the Great Sage” was not enough for the market to fully recognize the prospects of animated films.

In the early days of its establishment, Color Bar House was more like looking for potential directors and directions in the market and exploring the market preferences of animated films. Colorful Bar House has launched many films including “Nezha”,”Jiang Ziya”,”Da Fa”,”The Big World” and “Deep Sea”. The styles and types are completely different and the market performance is uneven.

Movies such as “Nezha 1″,”Jiang Ziya” and “Phoenix”, which are regarded by the outside world as the trilogy of colorful bar house China myths, do not share the same world view and can hardly be called the universe. Outside speculation is that it was precisely because of the success of “Nezha 1” that Rays began to use China myths as the main direction of its animation strategy.

“Jiang Ziya”

However, since “Jiang Ziya” and “Nezha 1” were approved at the same time and were produced by different directors and studios, it is difficult to have linkage in the plot. In fact, the linkage between the two is limited to publicity resources, which is only in the name of a mythical universe, but not in the reality of the universe.

Wang Changtian also realized that it was difficult to control the establishment of the mythical universe from the overall perspective based on the investment strategy of the colorful bar house alone. From 2018 to 2019, Wang Changtian began to organize a team of dozens of people to re-sort China’s mythical stories, novels, operas and folklore to establish his own mythical worldview of the universe.

Wang Changtian has high hopes for the light’s China mythical universe. In the past few years, he has repeatedly emphasized that the China mythical universe built by Light will be a systematic project that will last for decades. We initially estimate that the basic framework of China mythical universe will be composed of dozens of animated film works. This is a huge project that will last for decades. rdquo; In a previous interview with the media, he revealed that Light has planned more than 20 mythical universe works.

To this end, Light has established a wholly-owned subsidiary, Light Animation, within the company in 2023. Unlike Color Bar House Pictures, which relies mainly on external studio cooperation, Light Animation aims to produce Light’s own animated films.

According to Wang Changtian, the main purpose of light animation is to plan and manage the mythical universe. In other words, Light Animation is equivalent to Wang Changtian’s Marvel Pictures, which requires building Light’s China mythical universe from scratch. Even Wang Changtian publicly stated that China’s mythical universe is China’s own Marvel universe.

“Xiaoqian”, released in December last year, was the first animated film produced by Light Animation and was regarded by Wang Changtian as the beginning of the mythical universe in China. However,”Xiaoqian” had a bad start, which once again cast a shadow on the mythical universe of light.

02| A harder road than the Marvel Universe

To a certain extent, the China mythical universe that Wang Changtian chose to use animation to build is a more difficult and uncertain path than Marvel’s super-British films.

Unlike the common concept that people generally believe that animated films have lower investment and clearer returns than live-action films, animated films are actually the category in the film industry that tests the most industrialization strength. Similar to the industrialization of special effects films in China initiated by the “Wandering Earth” and “Fengshen” series, the “Nezha” series also represents the highest level of China’s animation industry.

You will know by looking at the production list of the end films of “Nezha 2”. This animated film, which took five years to produce, has more than 1900 special effects shots and requires 138 animation production companies to jointly create it. A total of more than 4000 animators across the country have provided support for “Nezha 2”. Wang Jing, chief producer of “Nezha 2”, told the media that it can be said that most of the outstanding animation talents in China have contributed to this film. rdquo;

Some special effects scenes take half a year or even a year to polish. The creator of “Nezha 2” said in an interview with the media that it took the special effects team more than a year to produce it just because there was only a short 10-secondheart-piercing screen in the film.

But if a film requires the support of the entire industry to complete, it is difficult to call it an advancement in industrialization. When “Nezha 1″ was released, Yi Qiao, CEO in front of the Colorful Strip House, told the media that I don’t think the way in which more than 1600 people and dozens of companies participated is good. This is unsustainable.” rdquo;

This situation has not been changed so far. The production cycle of domestic animated films is generally 3-5 years, far exceeding that of most live-action films on the market.

The historical animated film “Chang ‘an Thirty Thousand Miles” produced by Light Chasing Animation last year has a production cycle of more than three years and requires the support of an original team of nearly 300 people and an industry support team of nearly a thousand people. The animated film “Deep Sea”, also produced by Rays, took seven years to create by a production team of nearly 1500 people.

Even so, market feedback on animated films is more uncertain. After “Nezha 1” earned more than 5 billion yuan in box office, Enlight Media has yet to discover another animated film series with the same market appeal.

Tian Xiaopeng once created the success of “Return of the Great Sage”, but the market feedback of “Deep Sea”, which he subsequently directed, was not satisfactory. During the Spring Festival period in 2023, it only earned less than 400 million yuan in box office, ranking fifth among the six films released during the same period.

In the past 10 years, Light Chasing Animation has produced a total of 9 animated films, but only “Chang ‘an Thirty Thousand Miles” has exceeded 1 billion yuan at the box office. The box office of many films, including the “White Snake” series and “New God List” series, has always been around 500 million yuan, and it has not been possible to break through for many years.

“Chang ‘an 30,000 Miles”

Wang Changtian has also mentioned many times that compared with 15-20% of the box office of animated films in North America, Japan and other film markets, China’s animated film market share is only 4-5%. In other words, the domestic animated film market has not yet been fully opened.

Lighthouse Professional Edition shows that in 2024, a total of 27 domestic animated films will be released in China, with a cumulative box office exceeding 2.8 billion yuan, but nearly 2 billion of them were created by “Bear Infested Reverses Time and Space”. There were only 2 domestic animated films with box office exceeding 100 million that year, and the box office of 15 domestic animated films did not exceed 10 million yuan.

From this perspective, the “Nezha” series, which has a cumulative box office of more than 12 billion yuan, is an alternative to China’s animated film market and hardly represents the current general level of China’s animated film industry. As Yi Qiao, CEO of the former Color Bar House, said before, there is a 5 billion yuan animation in China that can only start with national manga. It takes five animated films with a box office of 1 billion yuan to call it a rise. rdquo;

Even Wang Changtian, who has planned more than 20 China Mythical Universe films series, has repeatedly expressed the hope that the outside world will not expect too much from animated films.

He told the media at the 2021 Shanghai Film Festival that there is a big difference between animated films and live-action films, that is, the production cycle is very long, and it takes at least four to six years to produce an animated film. But even so, the best quality may not be guaranteed.

“Therefore, Light has always been a film company dominated by live-action films.& rdquo; Wang Changtian said.

03| Nezha cannot be the only one

At least for now, Wang Changtian no longer has to worry about the death of the mythical universe he conceived of in China.

On February 5, after the cumulative box office of “Nezha 2” exceeded 4.8 billion yuan, Enlight Media announced that as of February 4, 2025, the company’s operating income from the film ranged from approximately 950 to 1.01 billion yuan.

Based on this rough calculation, the proportion of Light’s revenue from the box office of “Nezha 2” is roughly 20.8%. The current box office of “Nezha 2” has exceeded 7 billion yuan, and Light’s revenue from the film may reach about 1.5 billion yuan.

Wang Changtian should not be too surprised by the super box office of “Nezha 2”. As early as the middle of last year, he predicted that the box office of “Nezha 2” would definitely start at 5 billion yuan, and it would set a new box office record. For example, the box office of six to seven billion yuan, which I think is possible. rdquo;

In addition, this time, Light learned the lesson from the lag in derivative development when “Nezha 1” was released. The derivatives of “Nezha 2” were launched almost at the same time as the movie, and related products were already out of stock. After the release of “Nezha 2”, IP authorization will also bring a considerable return to the light.

In Wang Changtian’s vision, the mythical universe of China composed of animated films will be a systematic project that will last for decades, requiring the continuous output of dozens of animated films. Such a grand blueprint is difficult to support by the trilogy of “Nezha”, let alone the fact that a “Nezha” takes four to five years to appear.

For Wang Changtian, the most pressing issue is still production. At present, under the Light Media system, the production of animated films is mainly responsible for the production of animated films by Color Bar House Pictures, which cooperates with external studios, and Light Animation, which focuses on homemade content. Enlight Media has previously stated that relying on Color Bar House and Enlight Animation, the company already has the ability to launch 2-3 animated films every year, and its production capacity continues to increase.

Even the Light label, which previously focused on live-action movies, has begun to get involved in animated film production. For example, Colorful has invested in the animated film “Stars of the Three Kingdoms”. Enlight Media also previously stated at investor events that in the future, they will allow more brands and more employees of the company to participate in the production, planning and operation of animated films.

Even so, these production capacity is slightly insufficient. Wang Changtian said in the company’s internal letter in 2023 that they realized a few years ago that production power might become a constraint on development efficiency, and began to invest in and establish several animation production companies, but the production capacity was far from enough.

Later, they began to form an internal animation production team, but due to the large number of projects to be developed, the production force will still be unable to meet the demand for a long time. To this end, Wang Changtian called on the entire company to actively explore the application of AI technology in animation production.

As the first work under the mythical universe system of Light China, the failure of “Xiaoqian” may raise doubts from the outside world, but it may not shake Wang Changtian’s determination.

Light is still the film company with the highest level of animation film production in China and the most extensive investment layout. It only disclosed in its financial report that 11 animated films that have been approved for production include “The Stars of the Three Kingdoms”,”Go to Your Island” and “Zhuolu”. There are so many. According to Enlight Media’s statement, animity-related business is the business segment with Enlight’s most obvious advantages in the horizontal field and one of the business segments with the most development potential.

“Xiaoqian”, which was released at the end of last year, did not involve much of the mythical worldview of the universe conceived by Wang Changtian. According to previous disclosure at an investor event, Light is already preparing a work about the opening battle of China’s mythical universe, saying it will be a very large-scale gathering of mythical heroes.

“I hope it will become China’s own Marvel, but our Marvel is made up of animated films.& rdquo; Wang Changtian said.