Why are variety shows targeting short dramas?

As the short drama market continues to be hot, long video platforms have entered the market and explored the new model of "IP + short drama". Mango TV recently announced that it would adapt its popular variety show IP "Escape Room" and the national classic film and television IP "My Fair Princess" into short dramas, which attracted industry attention. This article will analyze the motivations behind this trend and its potential challenges, and explore the future possibilities of combining popular IP with short dramas.

In the second half of the short drama, whoever owns the IP will rule the world?

Recently, Mango TV officially announced that the derivative short drama of its variety show IP "Escape the Room" has officially started filming, and it will also cooperate with the national classic film and television IP "My Fair Princess" to adapt the short drama.

For long video platforms, their own IP is a natural material for developing short dramas, and short dramas can further feed back to the original IP, achieving a win-win situation.

However, it remains to be seen how the popular IP and short dramas can be better combined, and whether the derivative short dramas can be successful.

1. Mango TV makes short dramas, targeting big IPs

Mango TV is making short dramas, targeting the IP resources it holds.

Recently, the official Weibo account of Mango TV's "Escape the Room" released a Weibo post about a script reading session. The accompanying picture was a photo of the two leading actors, Wang Yizhou and Jie Xinhao, attending the script reading session, announcing the official launch of the short drama "The Scholar and the Cat" project.

At the end of October, the official Weibo account of "Escape the Room" revealed that one of the stories in the show will soon be re-released in the form of a short play.

On November 20, the short play "The Scholar and the Civet Cat", produced by Mango TV and created by the original crew of the variety show "Escape the Room", officially started filming. It is understood that the short play is adapted from the story in the Mango variety show "Escape the Room", starring Wang Yizhou and Jie Xinhao as the students of the academy "Wang Sheng" and "Tao Sheng" respectively. They will once again experience the choice and selection of identity in the short play, and interpret the complex emotional entanglements between the characters.

In other words, "The Scholar and the Cat" is a short drama derived from "Escape the Room".

Previously, Wang Yizhou and Xie Xinhao, the two leading actors in "Escape the Room", became popular due to their superb acting skills and excellent character settings, ushering in a small peak in traffic. Therefore, the derivative short drama undoubtedly caught up with this wave of traffic again.

Mango TV’s attempts at “IP+short drama” go beyond this.

It is reported that Mango TV also plans to launch short dramas derived from variety show IPs such as "Breaking Through the Thorns: The True Identity Can't Be Hidden" and "Flowers Bloom and Restart Your Life".

Mango TV has many popular variety show IPs. Recently, Mango TV announced that its membership scale exceeded 71.71 million, an increase of nearly 6 million from the end of last year. The reason behind this is inseparable from the recent popular variety show "Goodbye Love 4".

In addition to variety show IPs, Mango TV has also promoted cooperation in short dramas on film and television IPs. For example, Mango TV has officially announced that it will cooperate with Qiong Yao on a high-concept adaptation of "My Fair Princess", adapting this national classic film and television IP.

In the article "Hongguo short dramas are closing in, "iQIYI, Youku and Tencent Video" are getting anxious", it is mentioned that the continued popularity of the short drama market has brought a sense of crisis to long video platforms. Therefore, long video platforms have to respond.

2. What is the effect of “long two, short linkage”?

For long video platforms, their own IP is undoubtedly a natural material for developing short dramas.

As early as 2022, the popular film and television IP "Strange Stories of the Tang Dynasty" started its exploration into the field of short dramas, and "Su Wuming from the Tang Dynasty" was born.

This short play tells the story of Su Wuming, a county lieutenant of the Tang Dynasty, who traveled through time to the Tang Mansion of the Republic of China because of an ancient mirror. Mysteries occurred frequently in the mansion, and items involved in the cases from the Tang Dynasty kept appearing. There was also a little girl in the mansion who claimed to be Princess Taiping. Su Wuming solved all the mysteries in the intricate Tang Mansion, found the real culprit behind the scenes, and finally returned to the Tang Dynasty.

"Su Wuming from the Tang Dynasty" achieved good results as soon as it was broadcast, with over 55.45 million views on Douyin, over 230 million discussions on Douyin, and over 310,000 likes on the first episode.

The popular film and television IPs "Where the Wind Is" and "Joy of Life" have also achieved long-term and short-term IP linkage.

In addition, "A Chinese Odyssey", a spin-off short drama of the movie "A Chinese Odyssey", is also popular on Douyin.

"A Chinese Odyssey" is a funny comedy. The series has been updated to episode 24 on the TikTok platform, with a total of 310 million views.

"A Chinese Odyssey" tells the story of a young carpenter named Zhizunyu who pretends to be the "reincarnation of Sun Wukong" and thus gets acquainted with the heroine Yueguang. The two embark on a magical journey to find the Monkey King, doing justice along the way and trying to recover Yueguang's memories of her past life.

But this short play is not just a derivative short play, but also a dream linkage with the variety show. From the beginning of its production, it has added elements of the variety show "The Comedian of the Year". Wang Jianhua and Song Tianshuo are the directors of the play, Liu Shou and Shan Xinkang are the screenwriters, and actors such as Fu Hang, Jiang Shimeng and Song Muzi participate in the performance. The "pleasant" content exceeds the standard.

Although the world view setting of the movie version is continued, the crew interspersed many popular Internet memes in the content, such as "Black Wukong" and Fu Hang's "Passion", and combined it with hot current affairs topics, making the content of the short play have new innovations and more in line with the aesthetics of young people.

With the elements of "Stephen Chow", "happy people" and "short drama", "A Chinese Odyssey" lived up to expectations and achieved a good result of 190 million views in 11 days after its launch.

At the same time, "Starting Short Drama Season", the first domestic short drama IP incubation reality show, is also trying to turn some classic childhood film and television IPs into short dramas, including "Du Lala's Promotion Diary", "KO One", "Bao Zheng and Gongsun Ce", "Back to 18" and other well-known IPs with high national popularity.

3. Is “IP+short drama” a new solution?

The short drama market is still hot, but with the entry of long video platforms and professional film and television teams, the industry is also evolving at an accelerated pace.

Xiao A, a keen user of short dramas, told Jubian: "I feel that the short drama industry is very competitive now. Many actors are graduates of Beijing Film Academy, and the content is comparable to idol dramas."

The "White Paper on the Development of China's Micro-Short Drama Industry (2024)" also pointed out that the micro-short drama industry has entered a period of transformation and upgrading and has officially entered the 2.0 era. The industry has grown steadily, with user scale, market scale, number of practitioners and content supply all reaching new highs. The production methods and business models have also undergone fundamental changes.

IP-derived short dramas undoubtedly meet the requirements for the short dramas to transform into "high-quality" short dramas.

On the one hand, as a secondary creation based on the original IP, the derivative short drama makes new innovations in the original characters and story backgrounds, extending and modifying a certain character or part of the plot, thus bringing about an intensive dissemination effect.

And the potential requirement for derivative short dramas is the "original crew", which means that the composition team of derivative short dramas is usually the creators and crew of the original IP, so that the core of the IP can be shown.

In this case, IP short dramas and the original IP are actually mutually beneficial. Short dramas can not only take over the traffic of IP, but also further increase the popularity of the original IP, realizing the "short" to expand the "long"; and relying on the traffic and audience groups of these IPs, IP-derived short dramas have their own user groups, making it easier to break the circle.

On the other hand, the IP short drama format is also conducive to the platform's layout in the field of micro-short dramas. The emergence of a large number of IPs can meet the platform's demand for good scripts in the micro-short drama market.

However, IP-derived short dramas are a path that everyone is still groping for, and there are still some difficulties that need to be resolved.

First of all, how to combine the shooting techniques of traditional long videos with short dramas to bring out different advantages.

Traditional film and television dramas are long enough, and empty shots and hidden lines can appear in the plot, but a short drama only has the "golden six seconds" to attract the audience. A derivative short drama of a few minutes may need to have a large number of plots such as reversals, internet memes, and original IP plots. The appearance of empty shots and hidden lines may delay the advancement of the plot of the short drama.

Secondly, there are restrictions on the audience for the derivative sketches.

The characters and plots of the derivative short series will be closely related to the original IP to a large extent. This makes it difficult for first-time viewers who are not familiar with the original IP to understand some of the jokes and hot topics.

How to better combine popular IP with short dramas, whether derivative short dramas can become one of the directions for the transformation of short dramas into "high-quality" ones, and what the broadcast effect will be, all require more exploration.