Finally, the North American film market has come out of the downturn, and of course it is still relying on comics to adapt superhero blockbusters. In this regard, the weekend box office in North America also ended the 12 consecutive weeks of the dilemma of the broader market below $100 million.
Last weekend, Black Adam, a spinoff of DC Comics' Shazam series produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, earned $67 million at the box office in 4,402 theaters in North America, better than expected and better than 2019 Thunder Shazam! " opened with $53 million at the box office. Driven by "Black Adam", the total weekend box office reached 113 million US dollars, an increase of 48% month-on-month, which made the theater industry taste the joy of hardship.
Black Adam poster
As the villain in the DC Comics "Shazam" series, Black Adam is actually not a very influential IP among young people in the United States. Fortunately, the film's star "The Rock" Johnson has become one of Hollywood's most popular box-office stars over the years, and this time he has finally entered the comic book universe, which can be regarded as popular. Combined with the fact that North American audiences haven't seen big productions on the big screen for months, it's no surprise that Black Adam's box office is soaring. However, the production cost of this film is as high as 200 million US dollars, plus the huge publicity cost, Warner still has a lot of pressure to face. At present, the overseas box office of the film has reached 73 million US dollars, and it is hoped that it will enter the Chinese mainland theaters next month.
Thunder Shazam! ", although it has a 90% praise rating on the film review collection website "Rotten Tomatoes" and is highly praised by professional film critics, but due to the general popularity of the IP itself and the consistent decline of DC comic works, it finally received only 140 million US dollars in North America. The box office, relying on the increase of the box office in overseas markets, can finally turn losses into profits.
There is a huge gap between critics and audiences on film review website Rotten Tomatoes
In contrast, "Black Adam" was criticized by critics as soon as it was released. The critics' rating of "Rotten Tomatoes" is currently only 39% positive, which is basically the same as "Justice League", which was madly complained about in 2017. Many film critics think that the film's fighting scenes can be watched, but the literary and drama aspects are too sloppy, many plots are not explained clearly, and the emotional lines of the characters are reduced to the background. In short, the word "chaos" can be used to summarize , is another disappointment from Orphans director Jaume Collet-Serra. However, the audience has quite recognized "Black Adam", and the "Rotten Tomatoes" rating has reached 90%, which has given "Black Adam" a lot of support for the follow-up box office.
Universal Pictures' "Ticket to Paradise" (Ticket to Paradise) chose to release at the same time as "Black Adam", because the film type is completely different, and the target audience is also very different. The film, starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts, tells the joyous story of a divorced couple who reunite to prevent their daughter's flash marriage. The production cost was $60 million.
"Tickets to Heaven" poster
Based on various uncertainties in the North American film market, Universal Pictures decided to let the film be released in Australia, the United Kingdom and other places in September, and it will be released in the United States on October 21, more than a month later. As a result, the film received a box office of 16.34 million US dollars in 3,543 theaters. In addition, the film has received nearly 100 million US dollars at the box office in overseas regions. It is believed that there is no problem of losing money.
Although the media reputation of "Tickets to Paradise" is not good, and the "Rotten Tomatoes" film critic's praise rate is only 56%, in general, the courage of Universal Pictures is still worthy of appreciation. There are fewer and fewer romantic films targeting middle-aged and elderly audiences in Hollywood today, let alone a distribution model that must be released on the big screen instead of streaming media.
However, if the U.S. film market wants to fully recover, it needs more new films of different types, and the theater chains that are waiting to feed also hope that major Hollywood film companies will dare to make such a decision. Because a single super blockbuster can only help in a short period of time, if you want to operate well in the long-term, you still have to rely on the blooming of a hundred flowers. Otherwise, the audience will only become more and more distant from traditional theaters and fully embrace the embrace of streaming media.
