＂Veteran＂ Zhang Lin returns to chairperson Wanda Film, what else can we expect？

1905 movie network feature Wanda Film is a little "busy" this summer.

In terms of movies, from the beginning of the month, the next week’s "Underwater Column: Cave Adventure", to the early attention, and the release at the end of the month, Wanda Film may be the main controller, or participate in the investment, or participate in other forms.

But judging from the current box office, except for the animated film "Underwater Column: Cave Adventure", which has maintained the usual box office volume of low-level animations, other films that have been released are not as good as expected.

In particular, "Mozart in Outer Space", which had been highly anticipated by the market, even with the "golden sign", the box office barely broke through 200 million after 10 days of release, and previously insiders revealed that the film cost exceeded 250 million.

In terms of personnel, it is even more eye-catching. Wanda Film’s chairperson and president, the "old man" who worked at Wanda for 16 years, announced his departure in early July. Two weeks after he left, Vice President Bu Yifei also submitted an application to leave.

Meanwhile, on July 22, Zhang Lin was elected chairperson of Wanda Film. In fact, before Zeng Maojun, Zhang Lin served as chairperson of Wanda Film from November 2012 to December 2020, which helped to promote the listing of Wanda Cinema Line (formerly Wanda Film).

In addition, the "2022 semi-annual performance forecast" released on July 14 shows that during the reporting period, Wanda Film is expected to attribute the net profit attributable to the shareholders of the listed company to a loss of 520 million – 600 million yuan, and the net profit after deducting non-recurring profits and losses is expected to be a loss of 580 million – 660 million yuan, compared with the profit of nearly 640 million yuan in the same period of the previous year, and the change is relatively large.

After the change, Wanda Film may face a new layout, just looking back at the path of Wanda Film in the past few years, either to break the game or to resume.

01.　Against the trend, or a summary of Zeng Maojun’s tenure.

In December 2020, Zeng Maojun took over as the chairperson of Wanda Film. Before that, he had been involved in the film and television industry for more than a decade. Looking back at his resume, after joining Wanda Group, he became a core executive in two important sectors of Wanda Hotels and Wanda Commercial from human resources, and then gradually became the helm of Wanda Film.

Zeng Maojun really bought Wanda Film after Ye Ning, then vice president of Wanda Culture Group, left in 2016.

If we say that in the "Ye Ning era", Wanda began to advance to the upstream of film production, established Qingdao Movie Capital, tried to build a complete film industry system, and operated many popular movies.

Then, in the "Zeng Maojun era", the upstream and downstream industrial chain of Wanda Film was expanded.

Perhaps Mr. Zeng was simply pursuing his 2010 goal of "integrating the global film industry chain". "Wanda has a clear goal of entering all industries," said Wang Jianlin. "We don’t do low-value-added industries downstream, but occupy the upstream and channel of the industry chain."

During his tenure, he promoted the acquisition of two upstream companies, Mutual Love Interactive and New Media Eslite. He also acquired derivatives companies, integrated Time Network, established Wanda Media, and expanded advertising media buying channels.

Previously, Wanda did not stop expanding its overseas market. In 2016, it acquired Legendary Pictures for $3.60 billion. In fact, as early as 2012, Wanda Group began to expand its overseas market. In 2012, it acquired the US AMC cinema chain – the second largest cinema company in the United States – for $2.60 billion. Zeng Maojun has served as the director of AMC cinema chain since 2019.

However, after 2018, Wanda made a new plan, significantly slowing down its overseas market, and even withdrew from the AMC theater chain in 2021.

In 2018, Wanda and Sunac reached an agreement to completely withdraw from the Qingdao Movie Metropolis.

Also in 2018, Wanda Film and Wanda Film and Television reorganized, the latter signed a bet agreement, according to the content, from 2018 to 2021, Wanda Film net profit to complete 763 million yuan, 888 million yuan, 1.069 billion yuan and 1.274 billion yuan, four years to complete 3.993 billion yuan.

But in these four years, only in 2018 Wanda completed the performance target, four years of performance from the total target of more than 10 billion yuan, net loss far more than 9.10 billion yuan.

In 2018, Wanda produced and participated in the production of popular movies such as movies. In 2019, only one of the many movies produced was released in the year to achieve the possibility of high box office. In 2020, due to the pandemic, the re-filing of many blockbuster movies, and the operation of theaters was affected by many uncontrollable factors, resulting in substandard performance.

Like other film and television companies, Wanda Film and Television also suffered from "explosion".

Wanda Film is not only content, but also the cinema track.

According to statistics, in 2015, at the beginning of Wanda Film’s listing, the market share of the cinema chain was 13.6%, and there was no big change in the follow-up. But the epidemic has instead prompted Wanda Cinema to vigorously develop franchise stores, but the market share has increased to 15.53%. Until the first half of this year, Wanda Film still chose the expansion plan of 60 to 70 self-built cinemas and 50 to 100 asset-light cinemas per year.

From the perspective of Wanda Film’s share price, the first week’s box office results of "Mozart in Outer Space" did not drive the share price up, but the return of the market’s movie viewing has become the key to the increase in the share price.

02.Once upon a time, "Mozart in Outer Space" was regarded by the outside world as the highlight of Wanda Film this year.

Zeng Maojun has emphasized more than once that the film is aimed at the summer season, because of the content of the film, and because only a large enough schedule can support the film to return to its original. Coincidentally, this is the same as the "Detective Chinatown 3" insisting on the Spring Festival release.

It is undeniable that behind the entire main content, Wanda Film has a point person – Chen Sicheng.

Wang Jianlin has more than once mentioned success in public – investing in 30 million and winning 400 million box office.

In fact, in 2011, during the production period of the drama "Beijing Love Story", the first production behind the drama, Xinli Media, had its shareholding changed, and Wanda Film and Television took a stake in Xinli. Chen Sicheng and Wanda Department had their first intersection.

In 2012, Wanda invested in Chen Sicheng and founded Shanghai Chengya Film and Television. Since then, the two have become more and more closely bound. In 2015, Wanda Film and Television took a 60% stake in Chen Sicheng’s company Shanghai Chengya, and Chen Sicheng himself held 30%. Chen Sicheng stepped down as the legal representative and was succeeded by Ye Ning.

The success of the film version of "Northern Ireland" proved Wanda Film’s vision. At that time, Wanda Department almost devoted all its resources to participate in the integrated marketing of the film in different forms. At the same time, the film also proved Chen Sicheng’s directing ability.

In 2015, Chen Sicheng brought "Detective Chinatown" again, which, together with another Wanda-funded film "Dragon Search", broke out of the siege at the end of the year.

Since then, "Tang Tan" has become one of the most profitable IPs in the entire film market, and the significance of Wanda Film, needless to say, is its life-saving straw in 2020.

Chen Sicheng almost never let Wanda down. After "Detective Tang", it brought the production of the "Manslaughter" series. Wanda’s trust in "Manslaughter" can be seen from the investment behind the two films. Therefore, from the second production of "Manslaughter 1", it has become the first production.

Looking back at recent years, Wanda Film has rarely controlled popular projects except for participating in Happy Twist works through Xinli Media relations. In the project planning that Zeng Maojun talked about in recent years, the follow-up works of the "Tang Detective" series have become one of the "big cakes".

Now that "Mozart in Outer Space" has failed, can there be any follow-up to the original planned trilogy? Judging from the current income of Wanda Film and the early investment of the series of films, it may be a bit difficult.

From Chen Sicheng’s follow-up exposure projects, the online drama "Detective Chinatown 2" still has Wanda Film’s participation, but the list of producers currently disclosed in the online drama "Ball Lightning" has not yet seen Wanda and Chengya Film and Television. The film to be released at the end of the year is controlled by Alibaba Pictures.

Web drama "Tang Detective 2" on the left, "Ball Lightning" on the right

03.What else does Wanda Film have besides Chen Sicheng?

"Dragon Seeking Technique 2" has been said over and over again, but there has been no follow-up on the team. Looking back at the 2021 financial report released at the beginning of the year, there has been no follow-up in August 2019, and the schedule has changed from the original forecast of 2021 to "missing" status.

The movie version of "I Want to See You" was also completed in 2022 without any action. Compared with these two projects, Wanda’s hands may become a breakthrough this year.

The cooperation between the former and the latter has the potential to replicate, and the similar plot tone may stimulate the film market.

The theme theme of "Peace and Riot Squad", with the director’s production bonus, or a trump card.

Just how should these films be arranged? In the earnings report at the beginning of the year, Wanda Film will pay attention to the choice of holiday schedules.

In Wanda’s officially announced film list projects last year, except for the projects that have been clearly announced, other content is kept secret or in the "painting cake" stage. However, now that the progress bar in 2022 has exceeded half, Wanda urgently needs the support of the explosion.

Zeng Maojun has said that Wanda is looking for ways to reduce the risk of controlling the film.

At least from the recent film list, except for "Mozart in Outer Space", other main control projects are not large-scale works. But for Wanda’s future, how to use this strategy to open up new markets is particularly critical.

As for the layout strategy of cinemas, Wanda has proposed "improving operating efficiency, rather than simply expanding". From the current environment, more accurate and forward-looking choices are also required.

Now that Zeng Maojun had left the arena and "veteran" Zhang Lin had returned, how to arrange the troops became the key to the next round.