Good guys, it's 2023, and it's a bad movie of the century, and this is the product of the joint creation of Hollywood distribution giant Sony Pictures and Japanese animation production giant Toei.
This is really weird!
This movie is the live-action version of "Saint Seiya", which can be called a catastrophe of IP adaptation.
Recently, the film was released in North America.
In the 19th week of 2023 (May 12-14), the North American box office rankings were freshly released, and the Marvel superhero blockbuster "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" won the championship consecutively, and the new film of Daiben and "Saint Seiya" starring Shinda Shinkenyu both ended in box office failures.
In the second week of its release, "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" won the championship again with 60.5 million US dollars, and the total North American box office reached 213 million US dollars.
With the blessing of strong word-of-mouth, the opening week fell by nearly 49%, and among the more than 30 Marvel works, only the second weekend of "Black Panther" (45%) and "Thor" (47%) can maintain strong momentum.
The previous "Ant-Man 3", "Thor 4" and "Doctor Strange 2" fell by almost 70% the next week, which can determine how far-reaching the impact of high word-of-mouth on the box office is.
"Guardians of the Galaxy 3" has reached $528 million at the global box office, and the film's production and publicity costs are $250 million, and it is expected to be profitable this week.
"Super Mario Bros. Movie" officially exceeded $1.2 billion at the global box office in its sixth week of release, surpassing "Minions" to become the fourth-highest-grossing animated film of all time, and Universal Pictures, Lighting Entertainment and Nintendo completely made money.
The three new films did not perform well.
In third place is "Book Club 2: The Next Chapter", which earned $6.5 million in its opening weekend, which was lower than expected, after the same genre film "Star-Chasing Granny" smashed $12.7 million at the box office in its first weekend.
A light comedy also aimed at older women, the story is set in Italy, where four elderly sisters in their 60s embark on an unforgettable exotic journey.
Since the production cost of this film is 20 million US dollars, whether it can recover the cost depends on the performance of the Italian and overseas box office.
Ben Affleck has had two consecutive films this year, and the sci-fi action film "Hypnosis" was released in 2,118 theaters and received only $2.35 million in its first weekend.
Since the film cost $65 million, such a result is simply a loss to the producer to doubt life, and "The Legend of the Air Cushion" that he directed and starred with Matt Damon also suffered a box office failure.
It seems that Big Ben can only win back a city in "The Flash" released in June, after all, the Batman he played is still quite watchable.
The same as "Hypnosis" is the live-action version of "Saint Seiya".
The film was released in 586 theaters in North America, with a box office of only $530,000 in the first weekend, and Japan released on April 28, with a box office of only 50 million yen, equivalent to $360,000.
In three weeks, the cumulative global box office of the live-action version of "Saint Seiya" has just exceeded 5 million US dollars, and the budget cost of this film is 60 million US dollars.
The recovered box office is less than one-tenth of the budget cost, and this time Sony Pictures and Toei directly came to an epic box office pounce street, which can be compared with "Thunder Shazam 2".
The protagonist of the film is derived from the classic Japanese anime "Saint Seiya", which premiered in 1986 and has become popular all over the world, achieving great success in China and Southeast Asian countries.
The IP influence is the same as "Dragon Ball", "Detective Conan", "The Sea King" and "Slam Dunk", and many children in the 80s would treasure Saint Seiya stickers.
In this animated work, the fighter boys, through thrilling struggles, finally defeat the forces of evil and save the world and humanity.
Although it has gone through the trials and turns of time, the animation has always been loved and respected by loyal fans.
Three years ago, Sony Pictures in Hollywood announced that it would bring the live-action version of "Saint Seiya" to the big screen, and many fans were full of expectations.
But I didn't expect that such an effect would appear after the release.
In terms of word of mouth, it is undoubtedly a disaster level, with only 3.1 points in the rating of Yahoo Japan, 4.6 points in IMDB, 3.5 points on Douban, only 33% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes, 66% popcorn index, and 1.9 points in MTC audience reputation.
Good guy, this reputation can compete with the bad films of Andy Lau, Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Chow Yun-fat.
Andy Lau, Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Chow Yun-fat have had high prestige and influence in China's film and television industry since the 80s of the 20th century, but they have also had their reputations overturned.
In 2013, "Tianji Fuchun Mountain House" directed by Sun Jianjun and starring Andy Lau, Lin Zhiling and Zhang Jingchu won a low reputation of Douban 3.0 god-level.
"Fuchun Mountain House Map" was ridiculed by the audience and film critics because of the lack of logic in the plot, the lack of rigorous character image, and the unreasonable narrative.
In Andy Lau's own words, knowing that it is a bad film, but also to star, is to create a genre film.
From 2014 to 2016, Bona Film and Ximihua's Sun Entertainment Group jointly developed and created the "Macau Vice" trilogy, inviting the "God of Gamblers" Chow Yun-fat, as well as Andy Lau, Cheung Ka-fai, Nicholas Tse and other blockbuster casts.
Directly walk Wang Jing's nonsensical comedy, plus a tribute to "God of Gamblers" and "Gambler", came a pot of stew, discerning people know at a glance that this is Wang Jing's bottomless work, and finally the reputation fell to 4.4 points.
In 2016, Xiang Huaqiang's China Star Pictures also wanted to make an all-star blockbuster, and then invited international kung fu superstar Jet Li to create this unprecedented "Legend of Fengsheng".
With the joining of a superstar such as Bingbing, Gu Tianle, Huang Xiaoming, Yang Ying, etc., the production cost of the film directly climbed to 500 million yuan, and the final box office only got 283 million, and the reputation of Douban was fixed at 3.0 points.
In fact, the film eventually played Xiang Zuo, who played Lei Zhenzi, and had a father with strong capital, so he could build hard, at this point, he had to admire Wang Sicong, play and play, but he would not pit his father like this.
Coincidentally, Jackie Chan, who has a poor reputation in recent years, also wants to do the same, and in 2019, the costume fantasy action blockbuster "Detective Pu Songling" was launched, with a cost of 300 million in exchange for 160 million box office, becoming a laughing stock for fans.
These films are actually similar to the live-action version of "Saint Seiya", with big productions and blockbuster stars, relying on IP adaptations to earn high box office.
Now it presents the current situation, the male protagonist of this movie is Shinda Shinkenyu, the son of the famous Shinichi Chiba, and the biggest star of Toei.
He once played the role of Xiongba in "Wind and Cloud", and is the master of Nie Feng (played by Zheng Yijian) and Bu Jiaoyun (played by Kwok Fucheng).
Shinda Makenyou, born in 1996, has the same status in Japan as China's Luhan, Yang Yang and Wang Yibo, belonging to the top traffic stars, originally wanted to rely on this Hollywood production to transform into a well-known powerful actor.
But the reality is too cruel, the dream has been shattered, in order to adapt to the understanding and aesthetic senses of different people, the live-action version of "Saint Seiya" made a series of changes that made the audience scratch their heads, resulting in the film's layout appearing too weak and pale.
It can be said that "Saint Seiya" is the childhood of many fans, and the traditional characters who originally performed very well in the anime were portrayed as alternative images, and this change was largely not supported by the audience.
For example, the character costumes, accessory designs and other aspects in the movie are too "strange" and "casual", obviously not inheriting the essence and style of the previous work.
At the same time, the characters and plot settings in this movie are too superficial, which makes fans full of expectation and curiosity frustrated, and has basically ruined the childhood of loyal fans.
This is also another live-action adaptation of the movie after Liu Yifei, not every main creator can reach the level of "Aladdin", and not every little fresh meat can easily transform and succeed like Yi Yangqianxi.
The live-action version of "Saint Seiya" hit the street, which made Disney Pictures' "The Little Mermaid" shiver, because it is also a live-action adaptation of the film.