In the film industry, there is a very interesting box office phenomenon called "applause is not popular", obviously whether it is a film critic or a general audience, the evaluation is very good, but the box office is very ordinary, that is, it cannot go up.
Of course, this phenomenon is still relatively common for some literary and art films, after all, this kind of film positioning is not a commercial film. But sometimes even in commercial films, this can happen.
For example, today's "Wolverine 3: Death to The War".
As the finale of Wolverine that has accompanied the audience for 17 years on the big screen, this film itself is full of gimmicks, and the quality of the film itself is also impeccable, whether it is film critics or ordinary audiences, they have basically scored high scores, and word of mouth can be said to be exploding.
However, despite the excellent quality and explosive word-of-mouth, the final global box office of "Wolf 3" was only $619 million (not as good as 2010's "Iron Man 2"), and the North American box office was only $229 million (a fairly ordinary number).
Of course, compared to the $97 million production cost of "Wolf 3", the overall box office of more than 600 million is definitely profitable, but this figure is indeed very sorry for the good reputation and quality.
So the question is, "Wolf 3" is a commercial film and not a literary film, why is it not popular?
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="01" > grading problem</h1>
First of all, we want to popularize the rating system of American films.
The Motion Picture Association of America divides the film into five grades based on the content of the film, namely G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17.
G-level is well understood, although it is all-age, but it is more inclined to show children the film, the positioning is quite clear, such as "Finding Nemo".
PG is actually not fundamentally different from G-level, but there is an explanation that "some of the content needs parental guidance".
Many famous Hollywood animated films are rated this way, such as "Toy Story" and "How to Train Your Dragon".
PG-13 is not recommended for children under 13 years old, and it is best to be accompanied by parents if you watch it.
This level is basically the standard of Hollywood movies, because it has a moderate amount of blood, visual impact and other shots, and the sensory stimulation of the audience is in place but not too out of line, and blockbusters such as "Reunion" and "Fast and Furious" are all this rating.
R-rated is restrictive, and because the film has a large number of shots that are not suitable for children (such as too bloody, SEX, negative energy, etc.), people under the age of 17 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian to watch.
The Deadpool series is an R-rated film, as well as a large number of horror film series.
NC-17 is a completely adult film, which is prohibited for people under the age of 17 due to its large size.
For commercial films, it is clear that the PG-13 level has the widest audience, followed by PG.
The rating of "Wolverine 3" is R-rated.
In other words, "Wolf 3" has inherently reduced its audience due to rating problems, and this is still a chain reaction.
Why is Wolf 3 an R-rated film? Because the movie contains some excessively bloody shots (of course, if fans who are accustomed to watching European and American plasma horror movies have long been accustomed to these shots), and most of these shots are still fight plots.
Although the rating system for films varies from country to country, this kind of footage will be handled, and "Wolf 3" was cut a lot when it was released in China, which is also the reason.
For the movies that have been deleted, in fact, many people will feel that it is not worth watching in the theater.
As a result, in North America, the audience is limited because of the rating, and in other overseas film markets, the audience's desire to buy tickets has been affected by the deletion.
This must have had a big impact on the box office of the movie.
R-rated films are restrictive films, but also limit the audience, in fact, only from the rating of the film box office can also see this.
The highest-grossing film in the PG-13 level is "Reunion 4", which is 2.797 billion US dollars, or the first in film history; the PG rating is the live-action version of "The Lion King", with a box office of 1.656 billion US dollars, the seventh in film history.
And the highest grossing R-rated film "Joker", is $1.074 billion, and "Joker" is a phenomenon-level movie (abnormal) If you don't count it, the highest-grossing R-rated film is "Deadpool 2", only $783 million, not even 800 million, compared to PG-13 and PG, how big is the gap?
Various data show that R-rated films have inherent disadvantages at the box office, and "Wolf 3" in this rating naturally cannot escape this influence.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="02" > "cruel"</h1>
In addition to the rating reasons, another factor that restricted the box office of "Wolf 3" was the death of Wolverine.
Speaking of this, it is estimated that some people do not agree, "Reunion 4" in the Iron Man is not also dead, why can the box office be so high? And it touched a lot of people.
But in fact, Wolverine is completely different from the death of Iron Man.
Iron Man's sacrifice in "Avengers 4" is very moving, but he died after a direct finger at the last moment, his painful process is very short, and the audience receives little psychological impact during the period except for Stark's sluggish appearance after the ringing of the finger.
Wolverine is the opposite.
In "Wolf 3", you can see that the dying uncle wolf has lost the glory of the past, and is beaten by a small gangster in order to save a broken car.
The decline in physical ability made him even have to pull out his claws by hand.
Because it is no longer the former majestic style, in the end of the fight with the anti-fight, except for a small moment of drug use, basically the whole time was beaten violently, after being hooked through the legs, he could only fall to the ground and watch his daughter being beaten by the replicant, and the powerless roar issued by Uncle Wolf was simply heartbreaking.
Not to mention the "kill" that X24 gave to Uncle Wolf at the end.
A centenarian, or a character who is familiar to everyone and has a lot of feelings, is constantly ravaged on the screen to the point of dying to protect the only remaining mutant children, and this impact is quite large for the audience.
In layman's terms, it's too cruel.
In this way, despite the excellent quality of the film itself, it is basically difficult for fans to have the willingness to brush more, and passers-by generally do not watch how centenarians are beaten by a group of young people when they have more commercial film options.
After all, this movie is really desperate.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="03" > the limitations of X-Men itself</h1>
Although the X-Men series has appeared on the big screen as early as 2000, it has been tepid from a film and television perspective alone, and the highest-grossing "Reverse Future" is only about $740 million.
Therefore, "Wolf 3" itself can not expect this IP to have much of a bonus, purely relying on the personal charm of Wolverine's character to increase the gimmick.
And because the timeline of the "X-Men" series itself is chaotic, one will engage in prequels, one will engage in time and space travel reboots, and there are quite a lot of inconsistencies, so that the creation of the script of "Wolf 3" itself is completely abandoning the series.
At this point, Wolverine's actor Hugh Jackman also said that "Wolf 3" is not a movie with an X-Men worldview, but can be seen as a parallel world.
But the problem is that many of the settings of "Wolf 3" need to be connected to previous "X-Men" movies to understand, and even many tear-jerking clues are based on this foundation.
For example, if you don't know the friendship between Wolverine and Professor X, it is impossible to understand the sad and crazy psychology of Wolverine after Professor X's death.
In other words, Wolf 3 is independent, but it is not independent enough.
The result of this is that passers-by will be more confused, after all, the popularity of "X-Men" and the Marvel Universe can not be the same day, and because it is an R-rated film, the audience is narrow, which further hits the enthusiasm of a small number of passers-by.
And the box office of a movie is, after all, supported by passers-by.
Of course, despite the average box office, Wolverine 3 is definitely a movie worth watching, and its quality is definitely the best one even in the entire comic book film industry.