Last year, the mini-short drama market was 50.5 billion yuan, surpassing the box office for the first time. Is it a bubble or a blue ocean？

Author: Changfeng

When the audience enjoyed watching miniseries on the short video platform, the lights of traditional cinemas seemed to be gradually extinguished. Is the outbreak of miniseries a bubble of video entertainment in a fragmented and fast-paced era or a blue ocean of film and television industry?

Under the impact of a variety of new video entertainment forms, the audience who have just been attracted back to the cinema by "Nezha’s Magic Children Making a Sea" in the Spring Festival, can they become regular visitors to the cinema in the future?thisIt is a deep game about video content consumption, artistic value and the future of film and television industry.

Why can miniseries "overtake" quickly?

Why can miniseries quickly "overtake" in the film and television entertainment industry? Investigate its reason,This is the result of the audience’s demand for fast-paced consumption of video entertainment in the fragmented era, the iteration of Internet and video entertainment technology and the influx of capital hot money into this track.

At the moment when the pace of life is getting faster and faster, people are more and more inclined to quickly obtain video entertainment consumption content through fragmented time, and miniseries, a "fast-food" form of video entertainment, have naturally become the first choice of many people. The algorithm recommendation system of short video platform enables micro-short plays to reach the target audience accurately.

More importantly, the influx of capital. The production cost of miniseries is low, the cycle is short and the return is fast. Many film and television cultural companies and capitalists regard it as a new outlet of "low risk and high income".

The value of movies is never just the box office.

Among the films released in the summer of 2024, head films such as "Under the Alien" and "Decryption" failed to detonate the market due to word-of-mouth disputes. Nowadays, the audience’s requirements for "cultural resonance" and "emotional value" of movies have increased, but many domestic films and imported blockbusters are difficult to meet the audience’s requirements.

In 2024, the market scale of miniseries exceeded the national box office for the first time in China’s video entertainment consumption market.

The core competitiveness of film lies in its artistry and cultural depth. In the Spring Festival of 2025, "Nezha’s Devil Children Naughting the Sea" not only won the global box office champion in film history with a record high box office, but also attracted many audiences with shocking visual effects, bold narrative innovation and profound emotional expression. This achievement cannot be replicated by simple market logic.

In 2024, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued new regulations for filing, and Tik Tok removed 209 illegal short plays, and the industry entered the 2.0 stage of "removing the false and retaining the true". Under this background, miniseries need to be transformed into "high-quality".Rejecting the "cool drama routine" and exploring realistic themes, traditional culture and other diverse directions, such as "micro-short drama+literary travel" and "micro-short drama+popularization of law" have achieved initial results.

Movies and miniseries are not confrontation but symbiosis.

Miniature plays and movies are not an either-or relationship. Micro-short plays are more like a kind of supplement, which meets the audience’s demand for video entertainment in the fragmented time, while movies are a kind of "deep immersion", which provides the audience with a unique cultural experience through complex narration and artistic expression. The integration and symbiosis of the two may be the real way out for the film and television industry in the future.

When the film art such as "Nezha’s Devil Children Making a Sea Trouble" caused a heated discussion among the whole people, when the audience eager to be moved still gathered in front of the IMAX giant screen, we were convinced that:The real value of film and television art always lies in the spiritual resonance that penetrates time and space and reaches people’s hearts.