Monkey King: Hero is Back
Monkey King: Hero is Back is an excellent advert for the power of crowdfunding. As the top-grossing project in China’s animation history, the film became a smash hit when it was released in the summer of 2015, making a record-breaking $150 million at the box office.
Monkey King’s crowdfunding plan was initiated through popular Chinese social media platform WeChat in November 2014 by film producer Lu Wei. A total of 89 individuals invested 7.8 million yuan ($1.17 million). The final investment return for the backers reached a combined 30 million yuan with yield of nearly 250,000 yuan for each investor.
Directed by first-time director Tian Xiaoping, the animated film is the story about the Monkey King, a legendary figure from the Chinese epic novel Journey To The West.
Big Fish & Begonia
Big Fish & Begonia is the second highest grossing Chinese-produced animated feature.
Directed by Liang Xuan and Zhang Chun, Big Fish & Begonia is loosely adapted from a traditional Chinese folklore tale written by Zhuangzi, a famous Chinese philosopher who lived during the 4th century B.C.
The film reportedly took 12 years to produce. The breakthrough point for the project was in 2013, when the team launched a crowdfunding campaign on Demohour, China’s leading crowdfunding platform at the time. The project successfully pulled in both capital support and media attention.
It raised almost 1.6 million yuan (about $240,000) from over 3,500 backers, who each contributed between 10-500,000 yuan. The record-breaking crowdfunding campaign subsequently attracted substantial funding from China’s leading entertainment company Enlight Media, which funded the film’s completion. The film recorded a box office revenue of 430 million yuan (about $64.7 million) as of July 19.
One Hundred Thousand Bad Jokes
Originally adapted from a comic series on U.17.com, the leading online original cartoon website in China, One Hundred Thousand Bad Jokes is a combination of classic and contemporary stories. It became popular among netizens thanks to its use of funny internet slang and Kuso style, a type of Japanese cartoon. The comic managed to attract more fans after it was aired on TV in July 2012.
In 2013, fans of the book rejoiced when the cartoon site created a crowdfunding campaign for the film version, again using crowdfunding platform Demohour.
The campaign raised almost 1.4 million yuan (around $200,000) from 5,300 backers. The blockbuster brought in more than 100 million yuan (about $15 million) in box office revenue within 10 days after its premier on December 29, 2014.
—This story first appeared on Technode.com.
