Based from a popular online novel, “Mojin: The Lost Legend” (2015) stars Angelababy, Chen Kun, Huang Bo and Shu Qi. The novel’s author, Tianxia Bachang, Zhang Muye’s pen name, wrote the screenplay. (Photo : JoBlo Movie Trailers/YouTube)
With online publications gaining a huge following, their popularity has caught the attention of local film outfits and start turning them into blockbuster hits, according to Xinhua.
The country’s movie industry relishes its booming state, and film executives eye online publications as another force that will further boost revenues.
That was exactly what “Mojin: The Lost Legend” (2015) did for Enlight Media, Dalian Wanda Group and Huayi Brothers, the production companies behind this blockbuster film.
The $37-million action-adventure film earned an amazing $259.3 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.
Directed by Mongol-Chinese Wu Ershan, the movie is based from Tianxia Bachang’s (Zhang Muye in real life) fantasy novel, “Ghost Blows Out the Light” (“Gui Chui Deng”), which narrates the adventures of tomb raiders.
Zhang’s hit novel debuted online in March 2006 and got published in the printed form in October of the same year, reported CRIEnglish.
The online publishing world has rejoiced over the steady progress of online literature in recent years.
When the website Under the Banyan Tree sponsored the First Online Original Literary Works Award held in Shanghai Mall Theater in Jan. 2000, the event “clearly, unequivocally” signified a new literary world emerging, according to the book, “On China’s Cultural Transformation” (2016) edited by Keping Yu.
According to China Internet Network Information Center, the number of online literature readers reached a staggering 293 million in 2014. The 35th Statistical Report on Internet Development said that as of Dec. 2014, there were 557 million mobile Internet users in the country, reported The Literary Platform.
A 2013 data from Nielsen, a New York-based global information and measurement company, indicated that 89 percent of Chinese consumers aged 16-above owned a cell phone. The huge number of people engaged in mobile reading contributed to revenues amounting to an astounding 6.89 billion yuan in 2012, according to the site.
According to iResearch, an American market research and consulting company, a movie adaptation of a widely read online novel can make more than 2 billion yuan, reported Xinhua.
