Hollywood blockbusters costing 2.1 billion yuan can't be sold in China, and Hollywood can't work?

Not long ago, Lucasfilm's movie "Indiana Jones 5: Wheel of Destiny" was released simultaneously in the mainland.

As the finale of the oldest tomb robbery series "Indiana Jones", George Lucas and Steven Spielberg equipped "Indiana Jones 5" with the strongest protagonist cast and the most extravagant top CG special effects.

The film was conceived and written by George Lucas, and "Wolverine 3", "Deadly ID", "Speed King" director James Mangold directed.

Not only Harrison Ford as the soul protagonist Indiana Jones, John Reis-Davis who plays the Arab old man Sara and Karen Allan who plays Jones' wife Marianne also return together to bring the series to a perfect end.

In addition, the addition of four Hollywood-style men, Max Mikkelsen, Boyd Hobrooke, Antonio Banderas and Thomas Kreschumann, also added a lot to the film.

However, this sincere work, which invested as much as 295 million US dollars (equivalent to about 2.13 billion yuan), suffered from Waterloo in the media reputation before its release, and the freshness of foreign Rotten Tomatoes websites was only 50%.

Although the freshness rebounded to 67% after the release, and the popcorn index was also 89%, due to the impact of the early word-of-mouth, only 6.7% of the films were arranged on the first day of release in the mainland, with a box office of 5.847 million yuan.

Up to now, the proportion of films has fallen to 2.6%, and the box office has just exceeded 18 million yuan.

As the Chinese mainland of the second largest box office of Hollywood movies, its box office results directly affect the total overseas box office of "Indiana Jones 5".

At present, the film received $60 million in the first 3 days of the first week in North America, which failed to meet box office expectations, and if it does not reach $900 million in the end, this well-built sequel movie is likely to become an annual tragedy.

As a benchmark for Hollywood commercial movies in the 80s, the "Indiana Jones" series once accompanied the post-80s generation through a beautiful childhood.

Emotional fans like Pico really don't want to see the embarrassment of the current box office performance of "Indiana Jones 5".

Today, Pico will talk to you about this movie.

One

"Rift in time and space", "Assassination of Hitler", "Siege of Syracuse", "Claw of Archimedes" ...

The media reputation in the early stage of the film is not good, obviously the shortcomings are prominent, but the popcorn index of 89% proves that the audience in North America is still relatively satisfied with the story.

The first 20 minutes of the opening game were impressive.

Back in World War II, the Battle of Berlin began, Hitler was anxious to transfer the harvested antiques by train, and Indiana Jones, who was in the prime of his life, picked up the train and wanted to find a holy gun.

This holy spear is one of the Catholic holy relics, the full name is "the gun of Longinus", according to legend, when Jesus was crucified, the Roman soldier Longinus used this gun to give Jesus a fatal blow.

But when Jones finds the holy gun, he discovers that it is just a fake, and when he flees the train urgently, he accidentally gets another artifact - half of the "Antikythera Machine".

The artifact was discovered in 1901 in a Roman shipwreck near the Greek island of Antikythera, hence the name "Antikythera".

It was originally a machine built to calculate the position of celestial bodies, but it is set to be owned by Archimedes and is an artifact used to detect space-time rifts in the clouds.

Jones singles out the entire Nazi army on a train, and fights with the officer Colonel Weber (played by Thomas Creschumann) to finally grab the artifact.

This opening scene, which is more than 20 minutes long, is the highlight of the movie, Lucasfilm spares no effort to use CG special effects to grind Forber's skin, and every frame feels like the money is burning, making the audience seem to travel back to the 80s.

After Jones brought the artifact to the United States, the magic of the artifact once made Jones' friend Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) go crazy.

In order not to let Shaw sink deeper and deeper, Jones had to seal the artifact until 1969, the time of the Apollo moon landing, when Shaw's granddaughter Helena (played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge) snatched the artifact from Jones, triggering a showdown between good and evil.

The film still inherits the tradition of the series "singular episodes against the Nazis", and the villain Dr. Jorgan Wallar (played by Max Mikkelsen) wants to use the artifact to travel back to 1938 to kill Hitler, thereby changing history and turning the defeat.

Jones and Helena encounter him in the ancient Moroccan city of Tangier and immediately start a motorcycle chase through the streets.

Speeding car battles have always been standard in action movies, and the intricacies of Tangier's streets and alleys in this film make the chase dangerous.

Its lens control and action design are very clever, and it is a very ornamental action drama in the middle of the movie, and some viewers on the Internet say that it is comparable to the action scenes of the "Fast and Furious" series.

The third act of the film takes the gang of Jones and Dr. Waller back in time to the ancient Roman era in 417 BC and witnesses the siege of Syracuse.

This is a famous battle that took place in Sicily, and the movie uses a lot of special effects to restore the legendary "Claw of Archimedes" and "Archimedes Death Light", which also surprised the audience.

Two

The "artifact" that appears in the film is real in history?

"The plot concept is fantastic, and the details are ingenious", which is a major feature of the "Indiana Jones" series.

Compared with the "Mummy" series, which sells quite similarly, the antique artifacts added to the "Indiana Jones" series and the historical background are more rigorous, which is a big reason why fans love this series.

In this film, the "Gun of Longinus" that appears at the beginning does exist in reality, and legend has it that it can give the holder an invincible supernatural power, so war madmen in history want to get it.

Napoleon captured Nuremberg in 1796 and received the Holy Gun, which remained in Vienna until it fell into Hitler's hands during World War II.

During the Battle of Berlin, General Patton led American troops to overthrow Hitler's lair, obtained the Holy Gun and left it in Austria.

However, archaeological discoveries in recent years have confirmed that the holy gun is just an imitation, and its manufacturing time should be 7th century AD, so Jones can see at a glance in the movie that the holy gun is fake, which also sets off Jones' rich knowledge reserve.

Each episode of the Indiana Jones series revolves around an artifact, following the previous 4 episodes being the Ark of Law, the Holy Stone, the Grail and the Crystal Skull.

The "Antikythera Machine" in this film is different from the previous 4 artifacts, it is real.

According to archaeological findings, it should have been made between 150 and 100 BC, but it was not by Archimedes.

The Antikythera machinery is currently stored in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, the capital of Greece.

Research around it has been going on for more than 100 years, but many mysteries remain unsolved, such as why its design technology is more than 1,500 years ahead of its European contemporaries. What other purpose does it have other than to calculate the position of celestial objects?

The film also shows the location of Archimedes' tomb, located in the Carvaggio cave on the outskirts of Syracuse, Sicily.

The biggest feature of this cave is that it echoes up to 16 times (also shown in the movie), so it is also known as the Ear of Dionysius, which was used as a prison for prisoners by the ancient Greek tyrant Dionysius I.

In addition, the plot tells that Jones' son Matt Williams (played by Shia LaBeouf in the previous episode) died in the Vietnam War, and the story takes place during the Apollo moon landings in 1969.

The close combination of the Cold War era and the fictional story of the fight against the Nazi remnants gives the audience a unique experience that is both real and fantastic.

From this, we can all see the intentions of "Indiana Jones 5" in script creation.

Although it is a popcorn visual blockbuster created with a lot of money, the control of the story is still meticulous, which is the maturity of Hollywood commercial films, and it is also the foundation of its life.

But care and care cannot compensate for the lack of creativity and the total collapse of IP obsolescence.

In order to continue the vitality of Indiana Jones, the soul of the series, the film uses a lot of CG special effects to reshape Forber's face, changing Jones back to his 30s in the first 20 minutes.

After all, Fubo himself is in his old age, his movements are slow and old, and the movement design team has to simplify the martial arts movements according to his body and strength, but he can still see that everyone is accommodating and cooperating with him.

Even the "ashes" who love the "Indiana Jones" series for ten minutes, seeing Forber fighting with young guys at his age, his heart is full of taste.

Why do you want an 80-year-old man to star in an action movie?

The answer is obvious, because Forber is the soul of this IP, and its important position cannot be replaced.

Similar to the "Terminator" series, 2009's "Terminator 4: The Salvation Army" failed at the box office without Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In 2019's "Terminator: Dark Fate", the aging Schwarzenegger will continue to star in the T-800;

And 2018's "Star Wars Story: Ranger Solo" caused a box office tragedy because of replacing Forber and using young actors to play Han Solo.

Taking this as a guide, "Indiana Jones 5" naturally did not dare to easily replace Forber.

The launch of this film can also be seen from another angle that today's Hollywood really lacks new stories and new ideas, and can only "old bottles of new wine" and repeatedly launch these series of movies.

However, the "Indiana Jones" series is an "ancient IP" with a history of 42 years, the actors are old, how can the story continue?

What's more, the main consumer force of today's theater line is the post-90s and post-00s generation, who are not familiar with "Dr. Indiana Jones", let alone feelings.

In "Disappearing Her", "In the Octagon", "I Love You! " and other domestic films, "Indiana Jones 5" cannot be sold in the mainland for this reason.

Three

So far, the 5 films have been behind the scenes, will there be another one?

The Indiana Jones series was born in the 80s of the 20th century.

After George Lucas became popular with the "Star Wars" series, he gave the script of "The Adventures of Indiana Smith" to his friend Steven Spielberg, who thought that the surname "Smith" was too common and changed it to "Jones".

Harrison Ford followed Han Solo in the Star Wars series and became the actor of Indiana Jones (formerly Henry Jones II).

Compared to Space Ranger Han Solo, Forber himself likes this character more.

Jones's focus, elegance, tenderness, and manly rough wildness all coincide with Forber's temperament.

"Indiana Jones 1: Ark of the Ark" was released in 1981 and collected $390 million at the global box office with a production cost of $18 million.

Its outstanding feature is that Spielberg deliberately speeds up the pace of the film, making it more thrilling than the action movies of the same period (such as the "007" series), so the audience flocks to it.

While the iron was hot, Spielberg launched "Indiana Jones 2: Magic Raiders" in 1984.

Compared with the previous work, its production cost has been increased to 28 million US dollars, the story is more curious, the service is more exquisite, the action scenes are more grand, and the box office results are also very satisfactory, selling 330 million US dollars at the global box office.

But the snakes, beetle cold cuts, monkey brain stewed eyeballs and other props that appear in the movie all make some audiences feel uncomfortable.

It was rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America, but these shocking images were clearly not suitable for children, so at Spielberg's suggestion, the Motion Picture Society added PG-13 between the original PG and R ratings.

Lucas and Spielberg wanted to create a trilogy, so in 1989, they released Indiana Jones 3: Holy War.

Spielberg, who has always hoped to direct the "007" series of movies, recruited the first "James Bond" Sean Connery to play Jones' father Henry Jones I.

Although Lucas's original story outline was so brainy that he even titled the film "Indiana Jones and the Monkey King".

But Spielberg believes that the bond between Jones and his son is the core of the story.

This made "Holy War" the best reputation in the series, with a cost of $48 million and an astonishing box office of $470 million.

In the 19 years since the trilogy was completed, the series moved toward the small screen, launching the Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, but Forber did not return.

Until 2008, Spielberg brought in Shia LaBeouf, who became popular with the "Transformers" series, and launched "Indiana Jones 4: Kingdom of Crystal Skull" with the returning Forber.

The film cost $185 million to produce, and compared to the previous trilogy, with a lot of CG special effects, Dr. Jones became more omnipotent and even able to dodge a nuclear bomb.

Judging from the story, the film intends to use Matt Williams (that is, Henry Jones III) played by Shia LaBeouf to succeed the old Jones as the protagonist of the series of movies.

Judging from the market reaction after its release, this sequel also lived up to expectations, with a box office of 790 million US dollars (contract 5.7 billion yuan) that set a new series box office record and became the global box office champion that year.

It's a pity that people are not as good as heavenly calculations, and in the following years, LaBeouf himself died, and the negative news continued, which finally ruined the great future, and the fate with the "Indiana Jones" series ended here.

The original release time of "Indiana Jones 5" was actually July 9, 2021, but due to well-known reasons, it was delayed until this year.

The film directly killed Henry Jones III in the Vietnam War, and the loss of his son became the reason for the breakdown of the Jones' marriage relationship, and it was also the sad tone of Dr. Jones throughout the film.

Fortunately, in the end, Jones' wife Marianne finally returned to his side and drew a successful end to the series.

Forber said that this is his last time playing Dr. Jones, and I believe that the audience in front of the screen will be moved by the scene of the couple hugging at the end of the movie.

Pigo, who walked out of the cinema, once felt a complicated mood, which was an unprecedented viewing experience.

Pico believes that "Indiana Jones 5" is a sincere work, and it is also the best work that 81-year-old Forber has tried his best to come up with, but its story is decent, in fact, it lacks novelty, and it is difficult to attract the attention of young audiences.

Therefore, the ranking of "Indiana Jones 5" in the mainland will be so low, and the media predicts that its final score is only 27.747 million yuan, which is a catastrophic failure for this series.

Pico even feels that perhaps the things that our post-80s generation loves are gradually being abandoned by this era.

And the generation that grew up in the information age has its own trend that they chase.

Text/Pippi Film Editorial Department: Blood Dan Xin

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