Since 2014, the term "big online movie" has gradually come into people's attention. At that time, there were stories everywhere about hundreds of thousands of production costs and millions of box office wins. Koala Entertainment entered the game during the barbaric era of online content.

In an interview with 36Kr, Qian Wei, the founder of Kaola Entertainment, admitted that they had made a lot of money by leveraging the past momentum. "We had a movie that cost 80,000 yuan, and finally recovered more than 1 million in box office." In the past two years, they have produced an average of more than 20 big movies a year. Among the top 10 revenue rankings on major video websites, you can easily find several movies produced by Kaola, which has also accumulated a lot of channel resources for them.

But as we enter this year, the major online movie market has begun to reshuffle. Last year, the number of more than 600 films in the entire market suddenly surged to more than 2,000. The era of making small fortunes has passed. You will find that the production costs of the top online majors are basically more than one million, which has reached the level of second- and third-tier theaters.

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After the market bonus period passed, Kaola Entertainment started their new layout this year: targeting the female market and producing high-quality online content. "This was actually planned before, and the reshuffle is certain." Qian Wei said that they basically did not release many films in the first half of this year, and they were all preparing for "slow" content in the future.

The first thing Kaola Entertainment changed was the IP incubation method. They formed a comic team and positioned themselves as long-form, world-view works that have been serialized for more than three years. When these works are verified by the market, they will gradually launch corresponding online dramas, major movies and other derivative content.

Its work "The Ultimate Cultivation Boy", which verified this model in the first half of the year, currently has a popularity of over 350 million after 52 episodes. The movie of the same name has also started filming. "The feedback from fans has been very good for this approach." Qian Wei said that in the future, his female-oriented works will be launched in this model, and the IP will be amplified and then developed into games and other derivatives. They have also reached cooperation with some game, film and television companies.

While starting to plan for long-term IP, Kaola Entertainment is also building its own channels. "Similar to the mobile game wave in the past, after the reshuffle begins, the channels will become more and more powerful, and CP's voice will decrease." Qian Wei said that this is also planning for the future, and will not let itself be completely controlled by the platform. Now Kaola's approach is to produce female-oriented PGC live broadcast content.

At present, they have accessed the WeChat mini program and independently developed a PGC live broadcast channel. They have jointly launched customized live content with some female-oriented large-scale media to meet the needs of these large-scale graphic content to video content while accumulating traffic in the vertical field to prepare for their own female-oriented comics and online content in the future. This channel is still in testing and only broadcasts live at 8 o'clock every night. The average number of people online is around a few thousand.

"The feedback from the public accounts I have cooperated with is all good. In the future, I hope to turn it into a women's channel with live broadcasts all day long." Qian Wei said that this platform does not need to be large, and the purpose is to form an internal cycle of IP incubation, channel promotion, and monetization. Of course, building its own channels does not mean that Kaola will give up platform channels. The next few works they produce will have in-depth cooperation with the platform.

After determining the new content incubation and channel promotion model, Qian Wei said that they have also completed upgrades in core online content production. Now Kaola has also adopted a core system of screenwriters and producers in production. A large number of works launched in the past were actually talent screening. "For example, directors who cannot adapt to this model were eliminated by us." Qian Wei said that among the dozens of directors they cooperated with, they only retained two.

In the future, Koala Entertainment will promote about 10 major online movies every year. Some of them will be female-oriented content based on comics to realize long-term IP monetization. The other part will be market-oriented content to ensure the activity of the Koala brand and create revenue.

In terms of the team, Qian Wei is an investor. He once served as the investment director of Chuangdongfang and the founder of Huanyu Interactive Media. He is responsible for the overall layout of the company and the planning of original film and television content. Two other partners are responsible for comics and live broadcasts. Comics partner Fu Tao once served as the producer of Xishanju Game.

They have previously received tens of millions in Series A financing from Heyi Capital and Chuangdongfang Investment, and are currently preparing for Series A+.