China★Shakes Up Film Industry: Young Popular Writer × SNS Breaks Box Office Records

In China, films based on popular novels and directed by their authors are breaking box office records one after another, shocking the traditional film industry.

According to sources like the First Financial Daily and Caijing.com, this summer's blockbusters were the romance-fashion film "Tiny Times 3," produced by Zhejiang Huace Film & TV, and the road movie "So Long, My Son," produced by Bona Film Group. By its third week, "Tiny Times 3" had earned 517 million yuan (approximately 8.62 billion yen), with over 40 million admissions. The final installment, "Tiny Times 4," is scheduled for release before next year's Spring Festival. Combined with parts 1 and 2, the entire series is expected to ultimately exceed 2 billion yuan. "No More Meeting" also outperformed "Tiny Times 3" in its second week, grossing 514 million yuan, and is projected to surpass 800 million yuan.

A common factor in the success of these two films is their direction by "amateur directors" like Guo Jingming and Han Han—popular writers born in the 1980s with no background in filmmaking. Furthermore, they both skillfully leverage social media. Both Guo and Han excel at self-promotion as writers on social platforms; their microblogs ("Weibo") and chat app ("WeChat") accounts are followed by tens of millions of fans, known as "fans" or "followers."

"Investors are increasingly using online influence as a factor in investment decisions," notes media consulting firm LZ Media Research & Consulting. They conduct preliminary research on the number of fans following the SNS accounts of the director and lead actors of the projects they fund.

Furthermore, "Tiny Times" garnered significant attention by raising funds from 100,000 fans through "Yulebao," a dedicated media content investment fund launched in March by Alibaba Group, China's largest e-commerce company. Within about three months of its launch, Yulebao attracted approximately 460,000 investors, raising over 160 million yuan for nine films, including "Tiny Times," and one mobile game. The novelty of Guo Jingming's fans being able to "invest" directly in his work has become a fresh element boosting the film's appeal.

China's film market is growing at an annual rate of 20-30% due to factors like the expansion of cinema complexes. As a major pillar supporting the film market's development, there are high expectations for the continued emergence of buzzworthy films driven by cross-industry participation.