The Paper's reporter Cheng Xiaojun
Last weekend, the North American box office market was uneventful, with only one new film released on a large scale, and that was "Malignant" from horror director Wen Ziren. However, the number one seat in the weekend box office list is still the Marvel movie "Shangqi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" released the previous week.
The simultaneous different versions of "Fatal Induction" between China and the United States have attracted controversy
The restrictive horror film "Fatal Induction", produced by New Line Pictures, was released in nearly 3,500 theaters in North America and only grossed $5.57 million, ranking third in the weekend box office list, and even less than "Out of Control Player", which has been released for more than a month.
Stills from Fatal Induction
It is reasonable to say that many horror films released during the entire epidemic period have a good North American box office, after all, the audience market targeted by such works is mainly young people, that is, the part of the population that is least affected by the epidemic. But "Fatal Induction" only got such a premiere box office result, perhaps due to the simultaneous release of the film on the HBO Max online platform.
Another big reason for the unsatisfactory box office is the audience's word of mouth. Judging from the professional film critics' scores on the film critic collection website "Rotten Tomatoes", "Fatal Induction" has a 74% praise rating, and it is still recognized by the media. However, the audience did not buy it, and the praise was below the passing line of 50% of the rating; the score after the premiere was only C-rated, and the user rating on the movie information website IMDb was only 6.3.
Audience ratings on Rotten Tomatoes were not high, only 50%
In the name of "the first restricted horror film to be broadcast simultaneously in Chinese mainland", "Fatal Induction" also landed on the domestic video platform on the day of its premiere in North America, spending 12 yuan to watch on demand. However, the version broadcast by the Chinese video platform is 4 minutes less than the version broadcast in North America, and it is also directed by director Wen Ziren himself. For a movie like "Out of Control", deleting one or two meat jokes is generally acceptable to Chinese audiences; but for a restricted horror film, what it means to delete four minutes is a matter of opinion, so it is inevitable that it will encounter piracy problems.
The official Weibo of "Fatal Induction" calls on the audience to choose the genuine version
To this end, the official Weibo of "Fatal Induction" issued a statement yesterday, calling on the audience to choose the genuine version, and said that "if the destination of the work is piracy, the legitimate rights and interests of the creator cannot be guaranteed, and the platform no longer has the courage to buy the genuine film." However, some netizens did not buy such a statement, and retorted: "If the destination of the work is to delete and modify, the creator's work cannot be fully displayed, and the audience no longer has the courage to support the genuine film." ”
Regardless of the viewing channel the audience chooses, the rating of "Fatal Induction" on "Douban" is much higher than that of foreign websites, reaching 7.0 points, showing better than 83% of horror films.
The big sale of "Shangqi" justified the name of the theater window period
"Shangqi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" (hereinafter referred to as "Shangqi") received $35.8 million in the second weekend after its north American release, which was significantly better than the $25 million that "Black Widow" received in the second weekend. For such Hollywood blockbusters, the box office performance of the second weekend is often quite important – the momentum of a movie depends largely on the second weekend.
Relying on word-of-mouth and the advantages that cannot be seen online for the time being, the box office of "Shangqi" fell by only 54% compared with the opening weekend, which is basically similar to the situation of several Marvel works of the same size released before the emergence of the epidemic, and much better than the previous "Black Widow" release to the second weekend Box Office sharp decline of 68%. For the producer Disney, in the case that the Chinese mainland has not yet been finalized, such a box office performance can make them breathe a sigh of relief.
Poster of "Shangqi and the Legend of the Ten Rings"
Imagine that when "Black Widow" was released, a representative of the American Cinema Line Alliance (NATO) came forward and severely criticized Disney's decision to let "Black Widow" be released simultaneously on the offline platform, believing that this move seriously hurt the interests of movie theaters and required the latter to resume the practice of maintaining the window period as soon as possible.
Shortly before the release of "Shangqi", Disney CEO Bob Chapek also said that the pure theatrical distribution model of "Shangqi" was an experiment they did, hoping to see whether the practice of recovering the window period under the epidemic was pros and cons. At that time, this statement also once ushered in the displeasure of Liu Simu, the male protagonist of "Shangqi", who angrily choked the boss on social media that "we are not experimental products".
Today, the excellent box office performance of "Shangqi" has given the film screening industry more and more confidence. Rich Gelfond, CEO of IMAX, said in an interview with CNBC that the topic of whether audiences will return to the theater in the epidemic era and post-epidemic era can already be concluded with the release of "Shangqi" - "the test has already been determined."
Sure enough, Disney also cooperated to announce its final decision: the next six movies to be released this year will retain a window of at least 30 to 45 days before landing on Disney+ or Hulu online platforms. These include the animated film Full House, Ridley Scott's The Last Duel, and Spielberg's new West End Story.
Of course, by careful calculation, four of these six movies are "inherited" by Disney from Twentieth Century Fox. According to the original agreement, just like the previous "Runaway Player", Disney would have been unlikely to force the four movies to be released online and offline. But in any case, this is undoubtedly the best news for the cinema industry, which has been running for the recovery window period.
Many theaters will usher in a busy October
Soon, many parts of the world, including North American theaters, are about to usher in a busy October. First, "Venom 2", which has been repeatedly jumped in the schedule and is currently scheduled to be released on October 1, followed by "007: No Time to Die" on October 8. Although the Delta variant virus still brings various variables, North American theaters still insist that cinemas have been doing a good job of epidemic prevention measures compared to large crowd gatherings such as sports competitions or live concerts, and the risk of infection when people watch movies is actually very low. According to the American Cinema Line Alliance, after careful combing, since the outbreak of the epidemic, the number of cases of cluster infection due to watching movies has been zero worldwide. Not once.
In order to further call on everyone to return to the theater, just last week, AMC, the largest cinema chain in the United States and even the world, announced that it had spent $25 million to invite Hollywood star Nicole Kidman to endorse and shoot a promotional film, which would soon be broadcast in AMC theaters around the world, and would also land on various TV channels and online media in the United States.
The commercial was directed by Jeff Cronenweth, a director of photography who had shot films such as Fight Club and The Social Network, and was written in part by Billy Ray, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter for Captain Philip. In the ad, Kidman praised the cinema's wonderful effects and "the indescribable feeling of dimming lights, like being in a place we've never been before."
Poster for 007: No Time to Die
Looking at the UK, this week, the pre-sale of "007: No Time to Die" will start. Although the number of hospitalizations in the UK has recently hit a new six-month high, the latest 007 film, which has been postponed as many as three times, should not have any variables in the UK release plan on September 30. Released in 2012, 007: Breaking the Sky, which grossed £103 million in the UK, is the best film in UK box office history after Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and of course the highest-grossing local producer.
So far, British cinemas have been on and off, and like all cinemas around the world, they have experienced various darkest moments. During this period, the best-grossing "Bid Rabbit 2: Escape Plan" also only grossed £20.3 million. Today, the British film projection industry generally believes that "007: No Time to Die" is not only bound to surpass this achievement and become the best box office work in the UK so far by the epidemic, but the final result is likely to be close to the normal box office level of similar films before the epidemic.
Of course, the box office of the 007 series of films wants to restore to the past as much as possible, not only depending on the situation in the United Kingdom, after all, the series has always had great appeal in overseas markets outside the United Kingdom and the United States, and the overseas box office has always accounted for a considerable proportion of the overall box office. At present, although the epidemic situation around the world has not completely subsided, including Japan, Thailand and parts of the United States, the daily new confirmed data in many places is still hovering at a high level. But as long as the vaccination rate continues to increase, the overall trend of the global epidemic slowdown will not change, and the dawn of the film screening industry will always be brighter and brighter every day.
In the case of malaysia's film screening industry, which has been repeatedly hit hard by the epidemic, starting from September 9, even in the most severely affected areas, cinemas can finally reopen their doors under the premise of a 50% full occupancy limit (of course, the audience must issue a vaccine certificate). Since the outbreak of the epidemic in March 2020, cinemas in Malaysia have been basically closed for a full year and a half. In the past year and a half, the government has planned to restart cinemas twice, but each time it is about to restart or has just restarted, and it has had to continue to close because of the resurgence of the epidemic, which has made more than 20,000 malaysian film projection industry practitioners bitter. At present, 51% of Malaysia's adult population has been vaccinated with two doses, and cinemas are finally expected to stop closing their doors.
Editor-in-Charge: Zhang Zhe
Proofreader: Luan Meng