Internet giants in scramble to grab space on big screen

　　Actress Fan Bingbing stars in a movie adapted from Guo Jingming's novel, Legend of Ravaging Dynasties. Photos provided to China Daily

　　With half of China now online, the country's Internet behemoths are seeking new pastures－and it seems that the big screen is their next target.

　　Statistics show that China has 688 million, or 50.3 percent of its population, on the Internet. And the country, which just saw its box-office receipts overtaking the United States in February, is widely expected to become the world's largest movie market within the next two years.

　　For most industry watchers, seeing Internet giants stretching their tentacles towards the movie industry is not a surprise. But the scale and speed has come as a bit of a shock even to them.

　　On March 26, Internet giant Tencent released the blueprint for its "pan-entertainment" strategy, and that includes its movie ambitions.

　　The world's largest Internet gaming company, Tencent－which established its film unit Tencent Pictures, only in September－now says that has 11 IP programs underway and will release six feature films by the end of the year.

　　"IP", a term coined by Internet giants, refers to fan-driven productions, which are often developed into movie franchises, TV series, literary works, games and other spin-offs.

　　"Technological revolutions in the digital era have unleashed human emotions and imagination ... IPs come from imagination and emotions," says Cheng Wu, the vice-president of Tencent and chief executive officer of Tencent Pictures.

　　He regards the current era as one where all entertainment can be connected through the Internet. "Even ordinary people have the potential to create IP," he says.

　　Interestingly, in China's booming movie market, IP has become a cultural phenomenon.

　　Most investors now believe that only an IP-developed program can secure healthy box-office returns, and very few are willing to risk their money on a tale that is not very well known to the public.

　　A scene from the upcoming fantasy epic, Warcraft.

　　Cheng says investors are now competing for quality IP content and copyrights.

　　Meanwhile, Tencent, with its literary unit having 4 million online writers and 10 million online works of fiction, seems to have a large number of options when it comes to screenplays.

　　But a look at forthcoming films and their makers shows that the Internet giant is taking shortcuts.

　　It seems to prefer to recruit veteran talent from the traditional movie industry and combine their efforts with Tencent's gaming sector.

　　And as evidence of this trend, Chen Hongwei, one of the producers of last year's Oscar-aspirant, Go Away, Mr Tumor, is now in charge of three films with close links to computer games.

　　Among them is Dianjing Kuangchao (Crazy for E-sports), a documentary about video game competitions and Weiwei Yixiao Hen Qingcheng (When a Smile Makes the World Crumble), the adaptation of a best-selling novel about a college romance sprouting from a martial arts-themed online game.

　　The third film, based on Taiwan wuxia (martial arts) author Gu Long's classic novel Moonlight Blade, now adapted into a Tencent computer game, is to be made into a namesake action movie directed by Xu Haofeng, known for his last year's hit Master.

　　Separately, Guo Jingming, a best-selling novelist and the director of China's highest-grossing franchise, Tiny Times, is teaming up with Tencent to develop his novel Legend of Ravaging Dynasties into a movie, a TV series, an animated production and games.

　　Explaining why film industry veterans are teaming up with Internet giants, Chen Yingjie, head of the Black Body Studio, which is affiliated to Tencent Pictures, says: "The movie industry is not short of money or talent. So the reason Guo has chosen Tencent Pictures is because Tencent has wide reach."

　　Actress Fan Bingbing stars in a movie adapted from Guo Jingming's novel, Legend of Ravaging Dynasties.

　　Tencent's "pan-entertainment" strategy aims to establish a string of entertainment platforms to connect more and more users.

　　Besides, within the next two years, Tencent plans to team up with leading video-sharing site Bilibili.com to produce at least 20 animated series.

　　In a related development, Tencent is also seeking alliances in Hollywood.

　　One example of this is fantasy epic Warcraft, based on a namesake games series.

　　The movie has been co-financed by American studio Legendary Pictures and Tencent Pictures.

　　Tencent is, however, not the only Internet giant creating a buzz at the movies. Compatriot Alibaba is also flexing its muscle in the movie market.

　　After investing in Tom Cruise's action epic Mission: Impossible－Rogue Nation, Alibaba Pictures, the film arm of the Internet giant, will reportedly produce an animated movie adapted from My Fair Princess, one of China's most popular TV series.

　　Award-winning actress Zhao Wei, also the main star of the 1998 series, will direct the film.

　　Alibaba plans to buy out leading video-streaming site Youku Tudou. This is seen by industry players as an indication that the e-commerce giant wants to have its own platform to release films online.

　　But as Internet magnates eye the movie market, industry veterans are concerned.

　　Xu Zheng, the director of the box-office hit Lost in Hong Kong, says that while the Internet can help with movie promotion and marketing, it is not as successful when it comes to developing quality material.

　　"Big data research cannot always accurately predict when audiences will laugh or cry," Xu says at the 2016 Boao Forum for Asia.