This past weekend, "Doctor Strange 2: The Multiverse of Madness" continued to lead the North American box office chart with $61 million, but compared to the opening weekend's box office results, there was a full 67% decline, which seems to have some lack of stamina. . Currently, the film has grossed $291 million at the North American box office and $396 million overseas.

The new version of "Ferocious Fire" poster

The only new release over the weekend was Firestarter from Universal. The film is adapted from the novel of the same name published by Stephen King, an American horror novel master, in 1980. It was introduced and published by Zhuhai Publishing House in China, and the translation is called "Mysterious Flame"; in 2020, the new translation of Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House will be renamed "Ferocious Fire" ". The film tells the half-sci-fi half-horror story of nine-year-old girl Shalin's parents who participated in the US military's drug experiments before giving birth to her, so she was born with supernormal abilities and can ignite objects with her thoughts.

1984 version of "Ferocious Fire" poster

In 1984, Universal Pictures bought the copyright of the novel and put it on the screen. This old version of "Ferocious Fire" starred the then popular child star Drew Barrymore, but the film itself was so mediocre that even the original author Stephen King gave a "bland" evaluation, director Mark Because of this, Lester and him had a lot of quarrels with him, and the trouble was not very pleasant.
This new version, launched after a lapse of 38 years, is produced by Bloom House Films, a "horror film specialist" that has become quite popular in recent years, and is directed by a newcomer, Keith Thomas. Thomas just completed his debut film "The Vigil" in 2019, taking the line of a low-cost horror film with a little literary temperament, although it was generally recognized by the media after it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in Canada three years ago. , but because of the new crown epidemic that began in 2020, the box office was not ideal.
This time, "Fire" is Keith Thomas' second time as director, and the production budget has also risen from "Night Watch"'s $1.8 million to $12 million. Of course, today, a $12 million movie is still a decently low cost in Hollywood. It is also fortunate that the production cost of the film is so low that the film only got a bad start of $3.82 million in 3,412 theaters in three days, so that Universal will not lose too much.
On the same day that "Ferocious Fire" was released, Universal also made it available on the group's streaming media platform "Peacock" simultaneously, so that users can watch the new film at home, but this is obviously not the main reason for its box office failure. In the past few years, horror films have been extremely popular in the American film market. Last year's "Moonlight Panic: Killing" also landed on "Peacock" on the same day it was released, but it opened at the box office with 49 million US dollars, turning over "Ferocious Fire" More than ten times.

"Fire" has only a 13% rating on Rotten Tomatoes

It can be seen that the reason for this is the quality of the film itself. The audience rating of "Ferocious Fire" is only C-level, and the professional film critics on the film review website "Rotten Tomatoes" have only 13% praise. The old version of "Ferocious Fire" was originally poorly rated, with only 37% of the critics' praise on "Rotten Tomatoes". I didn't expect the old version decades later to be even worse. With all the movies based on Stephen King's novels, this kind of rating data can be said to be almost the worst, only slightly better than "Deadly Call" (11% favorable rating) and "The Lawn Mower 2" (10% favorable rating) It's good, and it ranks third from the bottom.
In fact, although the works of Stephen King, the master of horror novels, have extremely high sales, far-reaching influence, and generally have good reviews, once they are put on the screen, there are not many people who can really applaud them. Of the fifty films that have been remade so far, only eighteen films have passed 60% on Rotten Tomatoes, accounting for about one-third. Among them, the top three with the highest scores are "Carrie the Witch" released in 1976 (93% favorable rating), "The Shawshank Redemption" released in 1994 (91% favorable rating) and "Walk With Me" released in 1986 (91% positive) - Yes, Kubrick's The Shining (85% positive) didn't make it to the top three.
However, the box office failure of "Ferocious Fire" will not change the general trend of Hollywood film companies continuing to seize all kinds of IPs desperately. In fact, this trend of remakes of works from the 1980s and 1990s has intensified recently.

"Four Graduates" poster

Universal Pictures announced last week that the 1994 film "The Four Graduates" (Reality Bites) is about to be remade as a TV series, landing on the "Peacock" platform. The film that year was directed by Ben Stiller and starred Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke together. The cast of the new series has not yet been determined.

"Fatal Attraction" poster

Also last week, Paramount announced plans for the TV series Fatal Attraction. This work, which was released in 1987, is only slightly more influential than "The Four Graduates". Through a bloody interpretation by Glenn Close and Michael Douglas, audiences around the world are attracted to the temptation and fatality of extramarital affairs. understand deeper. This new version of the series will star Liz Caplan as the femme fatale in the American drama "Masters of Sex".
In addition, the 1989 baseball inspirational film "Field of Dreams" starring Kevin Costner will also make a TV series, and the 1983 popular "Flashdance" (Flashdance) will make a new version. John Travolta's trendy musical "Grease" (1978) will be filmed as a prequel, and his romantic film "Urban Cowboy" (1981) will also be remade into a drama set. In addition, the drama version of "American Gigolo", the drama version of "Pink League", the drama version of FX Channel's "Alien", the drama version of "True Lies" produced by CBS TV, etc., have also successively announced projects or projects. Shoot.