On February 3, the thriller "Visit the Cabin" was released in North America, not only exceeded ten million US dollars at the box office in the first weekend, but also ended the seven-consecutive championship journey of "Avatar: The Way of Water", becoming the first non-Cameron film to reach the top this year.
The $20 million "Visit the Cabin" topped the list, which not only confirmed M. Knight Shyamalan's directing skills, but also continued the excellent performance of low-budget films in the off-season; In early January, "Artificial Killing" produced by Wen Ziren exceeded 30 million US dollars at the beginning, and on the day of its premiere, it also overtook "Avatar: The Way of Water", making the 2023 film market usher in a good start.
Defeated Cameron in the first weekend, and the reputation of the famous director was flat
Since last Thursday, "Visiting the Cabin" has raked in $1.45 million in advance, behind the director's previous film "Growing Old" ($1.5 million). Then "Visit the Cabin" was rolled out to 3,643 theaters in North America, winning the first place on the list with $5.41 million on the first day, and "Visiting the Cabin" rose 1% and fell 41% in the next two days, with the box office closing at $14.13 million in the first weekend, with a single revenue of $3,878.
The comedy "Star-Chasing Granny" at the same time was the runner-up with $12.7 million, but it has been at the top of the list since Sunday, and it is expected to continue to lead with the theme advantage of the "Super Bowl".
This is the second low-budget film this year that has made a splash. Early last month, the sci-fi horror film "Artificial Killer" ended the record of "Avatar: The Way of Water" for 21 consecutive days, earning $30.43 million in 3,509 theaters in its first weekend, just surpassing "Scream" ($30.02 million), which debuted last January. If you exclude the sequel to the series or the adaptation of the original book, "Artificial Killer" is second only to Jordan Peele's "No" ($44.37 million), which is the top result of original horror films in the past two years.
Among the non-sequel works produced by Wen Ziren, "The Nun" ($53.81 million) and "Annabelle" ($37.13 million) ranked first in the opening figures, but both benefited from the brand appeal of the original "The Conjuring" series; The two North American films ended at $117 million and $84.27 million, and the box office of "Artificial Killing" is currently falling in between.
From the perspective of word of mouth, the freshness of "Visit the Cabin" on Rotten Tomatoes reached 68%, and the popcorn index that characterizes the audience's preference was 65%, while the two indicators of "Star-Chasing Granny Group" were 63% and 90% respectively; In contrast, the freshness of "Artificial Killing" soared to 94%, echoing the B on CinemaScore, and the major media praised the horror elements and entertainment of the film; With the rare excellent reviews in mainstream horror films, "Artificial Killer" has a long-term endurance of nearly $90 million in the off-season market.
"Visiting the Cabin" is based on Paul Tremble's horror novel "The Cabin at the End of the World", which tells the story of a same-sex couple who take their cute Asian daughter on vacation to a remote wooded cabin, are taken hostage by four gun-wielding strangers, and they ask the family to make a decision to fight in order to avoid the end of the world.
While the topic of artificial intelligence has exploded public opinion, the story of "Artificial Killing" is closer to the current world: a toy company roboticist Gemma designed a lifelike doll M3GAN that can be programmed to be a child's partner and an ally for parents. When Gemma suddenly becomes the caretaker of her 8-year-old orphaned niece Kadi, she decides to pair the prototype of M3GAN with Kadi, but with unimaginable consequences.
At the same time, under the combined efforts of "Visit the Cabin" and "Star-Chasing Granny Group", "Avatar: The Way of Water" ended its nearly two-month succession, falling to 3rd place with $11.35 million, and a total of more than $636 million in North America; if you take the 8th week of revenue, "Avatar: The Way of Water" is not only lower than "Top Gun: The Lone Ranger" ($12.31 million), but also less than half of "Titanic" ($23.03 million) and "Avatar" ($22.85 million), which shows the "card god" The new nugget journey is coming to an end. The animated film "Puss in Boots 2" also gradually declined, shrinking 25% to $7.88 million over the weekend, and surpassing $150 million in North America, about to become DreamWorks' highest-grossing work since "How to Train Your Dragon 3".
It is worth mentioning that the documentary "BTS: Waiting for the Future" by the Korean boy group BTS landed in 1,210 theaters from the 1st, with an estimated box office of $6.28 million over the weekend, and has exceeded $8 million as of the 5th; Last year, BTS's live concert, Permission to Dance, ran in 803 theaters across North America and raked in $6.84 million on Saturday alone, highlighting the overseas influence of Korean pop culture.
According to Comscore, "Visit the Cabin" landed in 61 countries and regions, and the global box office reached 21.22 million US dollars in its first week; Considering that the filming budget for "Visit the Cabin" was only $20 million, recouping the investment should not be a problem. At the same time, "Artificial Killing" has made $160 million worldwide five weeks after its release, and its production cost is even lower as $12 million, which will bring a lot of profits to Universal Pictures.
Boosted by a number of new films such as "Visit the Cabin", the North American market rose 12.3% to $81.36 million over the weekend, and the theaters continued the high trend since the end of last year. As of the 8th, the total box office in February has climbed to nearly 108 million US dollars, and it is expected to catch up with last year's 366 million US dollars by the middle of the month; in addition, the total box office in January finally closed at 584 million US dollars, significantly exceeding the more than 389 million US dollars in the whole month of last year, regaining the year-on-year growth momentum interrupted in December.
Shamalan relayed Wen Ziren to help the monthly box office pick up
This "Visit the Cabin" was a success with Xiao Boda, adding another stroke to Shyamalan's professional resume.
Since his blockbuster with "The Sixth Sense" in 1999, Shyamalan has successively launched works such as "Undead", "Heavenly Omen" and "Mysterious Village", and also wrote the script for the family comedy "Brother Fairy Mouse", becoming a "winning general" in North America that exceeded 100 million. But after "Banshee in the Water", Shamalan began to try to take over the special effects blockbuster, but the performance of "The Last Child of the Wind" can only be regarded as unsuccessful, and "Return to Earth" suffered a huge loss, and the directorial career once fell to the bottom.
"Immortal Catastrophe"
Subsequently, Shamalan returned to the field of horror films, and "Split" and "Mr. Glass" successively exceeded the 100 million yuan barrier and gradually regained their former box office feeling. In the off-season in early February, "Visit the Cabin" also became the "terminator" of "Avatar: The Way of Water" streak, giving Sharmalan even more exposure to his victory.
"Artificial Killing" brings together Wen Ziren and Jason Bloom, two "gold medal producers", and the opening of the big red plate at the premiere further confirms the control of the two producers behind it. Wen Ziren, who is famous in the field of horror films, needless to say. Since the blockbuster "Chainsaw", Wen Ziren has successively created masterpieces such as "Dead Silence" and "Lurking", and opened up a "universe" territory with many derivative works with "The Conjuring", becoming a prominent horror film in Hollywood.
Although Wen Ziren's directing focus has shifted to special effects masterpieces in recent years, and the "Fast and Furious 7" and "Aquaman" he inherited have sold well around the world, he has still produced many horror films as a producer. In addition, Wen Ziren also served as the story creator in "Artificial Killing", which is higher than other nominal projects in terms of participation, which also provides a strong guarantee for the quality of the film.
Another producer, Jason Bloom, is also famous, founding the horror film studio Blumhouse. After shaking the industry with "Spirit: Ghost Record" in 2009, Buren House launched hit works such as "Human Elimination Project", "Sinister" and "Death Divination", creating many low-cost horror films with small and broad.
In addition, Jason Bloom also partnered with Jordan Peel as the producer of "Escape from Desperate Town" and "Us". In fact, Wen Ziren and Jason Bloom collaborated as early as 2011's "Lurking", when they were directors and producers respectively. The combination of two giants in the field of horror films has undoubtedly become one of the biggest marketing points of "Artificial Killing", contributing to the first box office hit this year.
In January, which just ended, even if "Artificial Killing" pushed the overall market out of the Yang line, it was still far from the normal level in January of previous years. According to IMDbPro statistics, from 2002 to 2020, the box sales of North American theaters in January were not less than 700 million US dollars, and in 4 years, it exceeded 1 billion US dollars, including 2010 led by "Avatar". In addition to the continuous contribution of the previous year's Christmas films, new or expanded films in January are also the key to driving the film market higher, including "Jedi: Fast Pursuit" and "American Sniper" have performed well, respectively achieving the best results of their respective Januarys.
Jedi Cop: Fast Pursuit
This can also be seen from the proportion of monthly box office champions: in the aforementioned years, the proportion of single film titles in January is below 30%, and in most cases even less than 15%; In contrast, the shares of "Spider-Man: Homeless" and "Avatar: The Way of Water" in the past two years reached 42% and 38%, respectively, showing that the revenue of other films except the leader is relatively limited. It is worth mentioning that the number of films released in January in previous years was about 150, and the more abundant content supply drove the strengthening of the theater line; However, in 2021 and 2022, it dropped to 55 and 65 films, respectively, becoming an important factor dragging down the box office recovery. That number has risen to nearly 84 this year, fueling the market along with "Artificial Killing" after the massive release of new films such as "Plane Down" and "Devil's Conspiracy".
In February, the pulling effect of new cinema films on the box office is undoubtedly more significant. From this point of view, the opening of "Visit the Cabin" has greatly contributed to the overall recovery, continuing the year-on-year growth momentum so far this year; With films such as "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Frenzy" gradually released to the market, the total harvest in February is expected to return to more than $600 million, further approaching the market pattern of normal years.
In the preview report released by The-Numbers at the end of last month, considering the promotion role of strong films such as the summer "Marvel Cinematic Universe", the total box office forecast for North America in 2023 will reach $8.8 billion, that is, an expansion of about 19 percentage points on the basis of last year. After successfully achieving a year-on-year growth of nearly 50% in January, it undoubtedly laid a good foundation for the full year.