What has Oriental DreamWorks experienced since it issued five new works,"Kung Fu Panda"?

Oriental DreamWorks, which has been silent for a long time since the release of Kung Fu Panda 3 in early 2016, has finally released its latest animation list.

Oriental DreamWorks, which has been silent for a long time since the release of Kung Fu Panda 3 in early 2016, has finally released its latest animation list.

the contents of this list seem to be mainly stories from traditional Chinese culture. The protagonist of above the Moon is Chang'e, who symbolizes the moon. The Great Sage of Qi Tian will be another story about Sun WuKong. "good Luck" will explain the stories of good luck and bad luck with Chinese characteristics that fascinate many people. There is also an undecided animation with Chinatown as the background of the story. The only film that seems to have nothing to do with China is "here comes the Cat," which tells the story of the world being ruled by cats.

in addition, Oriental DreamWorks once again confirmed that Everest, an animated film project previously announced by Universal Studios of the United States, will also be released in North America as planned in 2019. Universal Pictures became a shareholder in Oriental DreamWorks after it acquired DreamWorks Animation last year. "Everest" is about a group of isolated teenagers who meet a snowman named "Qomolangma". They will help him return to his home on the highest mountain on earth.

Oriental DreamWorks is being questioned by all sides recently. There have been media reports that Oriental DreamWorks is in the middle of a round of layoffs and Universal Pictures intends to give up its stake in Oriental DreamWorks.

as far as the reporter knows, the news of layoffs is true. Among them, the animation team was cut, while the project development team, that is, the core script creativity was retained.

the adjustment of the team shows the change in the management strategy of Oriental DreamWorks.

previously, Oriental DreamWorks followed the DreamWorks model. From the early development of animation creativity to the later stage of animation production, Oriental DreamWorks has set up a team. The advantage of this model is that all work is under the supervision of Oriental DreamWorks, so it can ensure the quality of related products. But the downside is that the team is large and the related manpower costs are very high, thus driving up the cost of each cartoon.

in recent years, Oriental DreamWorks has begun to have doubts about this model. When Oriental DreamWorks was officially established in 2012, DreamWorks Animation made great progress in the United States, and each animation achieved a good return on investment. However, the box office of DreamWorks animation "Guardian Alliance", "Speed Snail" and "Genius glasses Dog" was not satisfactory. In fiscal year 2014, DreamWorks Animation reported a loss of $300m.

at the same time, lighting entertainment, which produced animated films about the Little Yellow Man, began to attract attention in Hollywood. The reason for this is not only that the box office performance of "God stealing Daddy" is good, but also that the cost of animation under Lighting Entertainment can be controlled at around $70 million compared with DreamWorks and Pixar, which often cost hundreds of millions of dollars or even close to $150 million.

Lighting Entertainment uses money more efficiently because it outsources animation production to animation companies outside Hollywood. Because these animation companies do not have such a large market base as North America, they are better at making animation at a limited cost. In addition, these companies can also enjoy tax rebates and other subsidies from the local government.

for Oriental DreamWorks, reducing production costs through outsourcing is obviously a better strategy. First of all, China's animated film market is developing. At present, the highest-grossing animated film "Zootopia" in China has totaled more than 1.5 billion yuan, or about $226 million. This figure obviously does not support Oriental DreamWorks to make films according to the previous DreamWorks model.

starting in 2017, Oriental DreamWorks made a round of strategic adjustments and began to call itself the creative center Creative Hub. According to Zhu Chenghua, CEO of Oriental DreamWorks, in an interview, Oriental DreamWorks "focuses on the creative screenwriter development of animation and the core aspects of related production, and we outsource production on a global scale for some non-core production processes."

however, Oriental DreamWorks's creative team is also unstable. At the same time as the new film list was released, Oriental DreamWorks announced that Zhou Yingyi, the former creative director, had been promoted to the new chief creative officer. According to Linkedin, Melissa Cobb, former chief creative officer of Oriental DreamWorks and long-time producer of the Kung Fu Panda series, has gone to Netflix as vice president, responsible for the development of original programs for children and families.

in the five years since its establishment in 2012, Oriental DreamWorks cannot be said to be a successful case. After a brief honeymoon, the main job of Oriental DreamWorks is to undertake animation production from DreamWorks in the United States. After the release of Kung Fu Panda 3, many animators at Oriental DreamWorks were shut down. With nothing to do, many animators began to leave their jobs one after another. Since then, news of layoffs and transformation of Oriental DreamWorks began to appear in the media.

Oriental DreamWorks released five new works this time, but did not announce the specific release or broadcast time of these new projects.

Edit: mary