2019年经济学人 迪士尼创新策略:翻拍经典动画的真人版电影(1)（在线收听）

Disney goes back to the future

迪士尼：回到未来

An old new world

旧的新世界

Live-action remakes of classic cartoons are one of the most lucrative innovations in cinema

经典动画片的真人版翻拍是电影界最赚钱的创新之一

In January 1991 Jeffrey Katzenberg, then chairman of Walt Disney Studios, sent a 28-page memo to his colleagues. Entitled “The World is Changing: Some Thoughts on Our Business”, it lamented that the studio had lost its way. The finances were sound—Disney had outdone its competitors at the box office the year before—but Mr Katzenberg felt the company was unduly focused on blockbusters. It should be less fixated on big budgets, big names and whizzy effects, he urged, and concentrate on developing original ideas and executing them well. “People don’t want to see what they’ve already seen,” he said. “Our job is not to count on recycled formulas, but to create and develop fresh, new stories.”

1991年1月，时任华特·迪士尼工作室董事长的杰弗瑞·卡森伯格向同事们发送了一份28页的备忘录。备忘录题目为《世界正在改变：业务畅想》，哀叹工作室正迷失方向。一年前，迪斯尼在票房上超过了它的竞争对手，尽管财务状况良好，但卡森伯格认为工作室过于关注大片。他敦促道，不应过度关注巨额预算、明星演员和技术特效，而应注重发展创意并将其执行。“人们不想看已经看过的，”他说。“我们的工作依靠的不是循环公式，而是创新发展令人耳目一新的故事。”

His advice now seems quaint. Of the ten most expensive films ever made, Disney is responsible for six. In 2012 the studio hired Alan Horn as its chairman after a successful stint at Warner Brothers, where he had devoted a hefty share of the budget to a handful of “event films”, such as the Harry Potter series. If the average American only sees around five movies a year, he reasoned, they are most likely to opt for “something of high production value, be it because of the story, or the stars involved, or the special visual effects”.

他的建议在现在看起来很奇怪。史上最昂贵的10部电影中，迪斯尼出品了6部。2012年，在华纳兄弟娱乐公司，阿兰·霍恩投入大量的预算用于少数“事件电影”，如《哈利波特》系列，大获成功后，迪士尼工作室聘请阿兰·霍恩担任董事长。他推断，如果一个美国人平均一年看大约五部电影，那么最有可能选择的是“高产值的电影，无论是故事本身，还是出演的明星，亦或是特效”。

That approach can backfire. One calculation by Stephen Follows, a film consultant, implies that half of Hollywood productions with budgets over $100m lose money. When Mr Horn arrived at Disney, it was lurching towards two of the worst-ever box-office flops. “John Carter” (2012) and “The Lone Ranger” (2013), a pair of untried action stories, lost around $200m each. But since then the studio seems to have found a magic formula: extravagant remakes of animated fantasies that audiences already love. Discounting Mr Katzenberg’s dim view of blockbusters can evidently be risky, but big bets seem safer if film-makers eschew his yen for novelty, too. Or so Disney’s recent record suggests.

这种做法可能适得其反。电影咨询师斯蒂芬·福洛斯的一项计算表明，预算超过1亿美元的好莱坞影片中，有一半是赔钱的。霍恩先生来到迪斯尼时，正值两部影片几乎沦为史上票房最差。《异星战场》（2012）以及《独行侠》（2013）是两部没有经验的动作片，每部亏损将近2亿美元。但从那以后，工作室似乎找到了一个神奇的公式：以全新的方式改拍观众喜爱的动画片。忽视卡森伯格对大片的悲观看法显然是有风险的，但如果电影制作商避开对新奇事物的渴望，那么大片似乎更安全。至少迪士尼最近的票房表明了这一点。