The music film "West Side Story", directed by world-class director Steven Spielberg, opened in 38 countries and regions last weekend and grossed only $14.9 million worldwide. Of that, $10.5 million came from North America and $4.4 million came from 37 overseas markets.
"West End Story" stars Ansel Elget, "The Great Car Thief", "New Snow White" Rachel Zegler, Ariane Debos and others. Adapted from the Classic Broadway musical West End Story, the play tells the story of the confrontation and strife between two different racial street gangs, Jets and Sharks, who develop feelings for a man and a woman, but the result is tragic.
The film has a Rotten Tomatoes freshness rating of 93%, a popcorn index of 94%, and a CinemaScore audience rating of A, and the word of mouth is quite good! But from last weekend's box office, it can be seen that the film has never been able to capture the attention of the outside world. North America only grossed $10.5 million in three days over the weekend, not even as good as the opening performance of the similar film "In the Heights" in June this year. It also set a record for Spielberg's weakest North American opening since Lincoln in 2012! It is worth mentioning that "Lincoln" soared all the way to $182 million with super staying power, and that period seems to be the last glory of Hollywood's non-big-budget IP movies...
During the epidemic, overseas theaters are very bleak! Only a small number of blockbusters can pull the audience into the theater, and the rest of the films can hardly let the audience see the necessity of going to the cinema, even if the quality (word of mouth) is good. There is nothing Tiven Spielberg can do about such a situation! The production cost of "West End Story" reportedly exceeded $100 million, and it was only necessary to seek opportunities to rely on the long term to reduce the impact of poor painting.
Coincidentally, "The Last Duel", directed by Ridley Scott some time ago and starring Big Ben and Matt Damon, also performed poorly, also opened in 38 markets, only receiving $9 million in the global box office, and finally ended with a total box office of $30.2 million. You know, the production cost of this film is more than 200 million US dollars, and the loss is quite miserable...
Both films are from "20th Century Pictures" (Disney). For creators and investors in non-big IP productions, the cinema market has little hope in the short term.