Netizens are expected to find they have a good deal of influence over the future ofdomestic film production, distribution and marketing as new media companies try to picktheir brains for clues to success, officials said yesterday at the on-going 16th ShanghaiInternational Film Festival.
Business executives of popular Chinese video websites, gathered for a forum called"Big Data: New Motivation of Chinese Films," said data analysis of customers, contentand delivery will greatly influence almost every aspect of the film industry, from scriptselection, casting, shooting, marketing and sales.
Chinese companies have been inspired by Google's newly released model, whichpurports to predict the box office success of movies based on search data with anaccuracy rate of 94 percent, executives said.
Gong Yu, founder and CEO of Qiyi.com, said they plan to make several blockbustermovies after analyzing data on netizens' tastes on casting, subject and story.
"We will invest in film projects with the biggest market potential," said Yu.
China's large Internet company Tencent has also joined with Huayi Brothers MediaCorporation to invest in films and TV series. Some movies are adapted from popularChinese online novels that already have a large fan base.
The success of Netflix's original online political series "House of Cards," directed byDavid Fincher and starring Kevin Spacey, has also boosted confidence of Chinesevideo websites to create more film and series productions on their own.
Liu Chun, vice president of Sohu.com, said that while domestic video websites haveuntapped potential, originality is the key factor in success, with data analysis being agood tool to use during production and marketing.
