Black technology: a super empire spanning two worlds

Chapter 377 [Rewriting the Rules of the Game for Content Production in the Film and Television Industry]

It's not just this film and television production company that's having meetings to discuss the possibility of creating virtual actor IPs; many of their peers have also thought of this, and it's not hard to see why.

Some even believe that this is a carefully planned grand scheme by Lingjing Technology.

The release of this incredibly powerful AI video generation tool, combined with the Flowing Star Language simulation robot, could revolutionize the traditional business logic of the existing film and television industry.

Actually, this was just a scenario they made up in their own minds. Xiao Yu never had any grand plan in mind, nor did he ever think that the fusion of the Liuguang Xingyu simulation robot and the AI ​​Xiaojing would replace the profession of film and television actors.

It's just that as technology has developed to this point, people will naturally discover new business formats and new business models, which has become an inevitability.

Lingjing Technology's release of this powerful video productivity tool caused a huge stir in the global film and television industry on the same day, with media reports describing it as a powerful AI tool that "rewrites the rules of the game in content production in the film and television industry."

At this critical moment, industry giants such as Hollywood, Netflix, and Warner Bros. held meetings overnight, while major film and television companies in China also held emergency meetings. They were all surprisingly in agreement to study and discuss the deployment of AI Xiaojing and the establishment of AI R&D teams.

Industry data shows that within 24 hours of Lingjing Technology releasing its video productivity tool, global searches for AI video generation tools surged by 1870%, and related companies' stocks also saw a significant rise.

Industry insiders have to admit that Lingjing Technology's move has sparked a wave of AI revolution in the film and television industry, rapidly reshaping every aspect of the film and television industry chain.

In terms of script creation, Xiaojing's built-in narrative engine has analyzed the structure of 150 million films, and this number continues to grow.

Film and television have a history of 105 years, with various movies, TV series, animations, short films, and so on, totaling tens of millions of series. AI Xiaojing is continuously analyzing these series to automatically generate scripts that include three-act structures, character arcs, and emotional turning points.

In terms of virtual production, AI Xiaojing can generate dynamic scenes in a virtual production studio through real-time rendering technology. After testing overnight, Disney Animation Department initially concluded that using this auxiliary tool, AI Xiaojing, could reduce scene construction costs by 60% and shorten the shooting cycle by about 45%.

In terms of special effects, the sci-fi short films released by Lingjing Technology are in no way inferior to top Hollywood special effects blockbusters.

If this level of special effects were produced using traditional methods, it would cost $2000 million to achieve. However, Lingjing Technology also announced the total cost of this sci-fi short film generated by Xiaojing, which was only 25 RMB, or about $3.5 USD excluding exchange rate fluctuations.

The total cost of 25 RMB was mainly spent on computing power.

However, it's worth mentioning that the cost of a half-hour short film is 25 yuan, which doesn't mean that producing a standard 2-hour film would cost 100 million yuan, multiplied by 4.

If we were to actually make a two-hour-long blockbuster, the cost would definitely be more than 1 million yuan.

For a 2-hour feature film, the production team may need to generate 200 hours of sample content, which may or may not be 200 hours.

The production team will produce different video clips as needed, and then edit them in post-production to finally create a feature film of about 2 hours.

The half-hour sci-fi short film released by Lingjing Technology was generated from more than 42 hours of sample footage. After post-production editing, the half-hour final product was released, but every frame is indeed genuine AI-generated content.

In any case, a two-hour blockbuster with special effects comparable to a Hollywood A-list production can only cost tens of millions of dollars, with a ceiling not exceeding 20 million dollars, all in RMB.

With a target for comparison and reference, the difference becomes more apparent. The visual effects generated by AI Xiaojing can be compared to "Avatar 2: The Way of Water". If AI Xiaojing is used to assist in the production of a visual effects blockbuster of the same scale as "Avatar 2: The Way of Water", the total cost would be around 2000 million RMB, which is equivalent to 280 million USD.

According to publicly available data, Avatar 2: The Way of Water grossed $23.16 billion worldwide, with a production cost of $4 million, advertising and promotion costs of $1.75 million, equity investment costs of $3 million, and a total cost of $10.87 billion.

In terms of the revenue sharing with the production company, the global box office revenue was $12.687 billion, the global home video revenue was $1.5 million, and the global television network and streaming revenue was $2 million, for a total revenue of $16.187 billion.

Avatar 2: The Way of Water ultimately earned the studio a profit of $5.317 million, making it the highest-grossing Hollywood film of 2022.

Assuming this film was produced with the support of AI Xiaojing, and its production cost was $280 million, if the box office revenue is still $23.16 billion, it means that the producer's profit will directly skyrocket to over $10 billion, instead of $9 million, because other comprehensive costs will also decrease, and the reduced costs become profit. If it really achieves $23.16 billion at the box office, the producer's final profit will definitely exceed $10 billion.

In the future film industry ecosystem, the biggest expenditure for a film will no longer be production costs, but more likely advertising and marketing costs.

Moreover, it is very likely that advertising and promotion costs will also decrease significantly. The reason is simple: for the production company, it is extremely unwise or even foolish to spend 1.75 million US dollars on advertising and promotion when a movie is made for $280 million, because the risk is too great.

The production company is likely to choose to mass-produce more films, such as 20 films. The $1.75 million advertising and marketing expenses would be spread across 20 films, which means that the advertising and marketing expenses for each film would be $875 million.

Obviously, this is the lowest risk; it's impossible for all 20 movies to lose money, right?

A movie might lose a few million dollars at most, but if $1.75 million is poured into a movie and it turns out to be a box office disaster, then the loss would be so huge that you wouldn't even recognize your own mother.

Unless the production company is completely stupid, they certainly wouldn't do that.

The current film advertising and promotion expenditures are huge. For example, the promotion cost of "Avatar 2: The Way of Water" was $1.75 million. This is because the film was so big that it was absolutely impossible to cut corners on advertising and promotion. Otherwise, the entire project could suffer losses or even huge losses due to inadequate promotion.

However, with the introduction of AI technology, the rules of the game for content production in the film and television industry have been rewritten, and the entire industry's model and structure will be subverted and reshaped.

Nowadays, for a top-tier blockbuster, the production company will bring in many investors to share the risk. Even Hollywood's Disney will not easily bear the entire production cost of a mega-film on its own, because the risk is too great.

However, with the exponential drop in production costs, this model of multiple production companies jointly investing in a film will likely be phased out, and a single production company will be solely responsible for funding the entire film, allowing them to afford both losses and profits.

Even with top-tier visual effects comparable to movies like Avatar 2: The Way of Water, the production cost was only 2000 million RMB. Normal films typically only need a budget of around 700 to 1000 million RMB.

Clearly, a well-established production company has nothing to fear and is absolutely willing to bear the production costs exclusively.

Co-productions will inevitably cease to be the mainstream in the future; independent productions will gradually replace them and become the mainstream of the industry.

Besides this foreseeable change, another foreseeable change in the film and television industry is that it will probably be difficult to produce films with box office revenue of 10 billion yuan in the future.

With a phenomenal box office monster like "Ne Zha 2" during this year's Lunar New Year season, which grossed 150 billion yuan, it will be extremely difficult to see a similar case in the future.

The reason is simple: with the support of this productivity tool, AI Xiaojing, production costs have plummeted and production efficiency has increased dramatically, which will inevitably lead to a terrifying exponential increase in the output of film and television works.

This means that audiences have more choices, but the total number of audiences is still the same, the size of the film market is still the same, and the total box office is still the same. Therefore, the box office will inevitably be distributed among more films.

Moreover, with more movies available, cinemas have more choices. Cinemas need to make a living, and with more options, their bargaining power also increases.

If a movie's attendance rate is low, its screenings will be immediately reduced and replaced with other movies.

This also means that competition between films will be more intense in the future, and the entire industry will be subject to full competition. The film industry may well see a situation where the premiere determines life or death.

A phenomenal box office monster like "Ne Zha 2" this year is not impossible to achieve in the future, but it will definitely require a combination of favorable timing, location, and people.

Even the huge box office success of "Ne Zha 2" this year was the result of a combination of favorable timing, location, and people, making it a unique case that is difficult to replicate.

……

(End of this chapter)