The North American film market last weekend was still dominated by "Pabpenheimer". The "Haunted House" adapted from Disneyland's entertainment projects and the Japanese animation "Slam Dunk" are not ideal.

"Pabpenheimer" Boosts Summer Schedule to Hit $4 Billion

"Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" earned US$93 million and US$46.2 million at the weekend box office respectively. Ten days after their release, the cumulative box office in North America reached US$350 million and US$174 million respectively. The most commercially successful work so far.

In particular, "Barbie", which broke several North American box office records, has also been well received by audiences in overseas markets, and the current global box office has reached 774 million US dollars. Previously, Margot Robbie, who was the lead actor and co-producer of the film, said in an interview with the media that when she promoted the project to Warner executives, she had exaggeratedly declared that "Barbie" had the opportunity to be a great success for Warner Bros. Bringing in a billion-dollar global box office. Most people who heard this at the time felt that this number was unattainable; but now it seems that Robbie may really have a bit of a foresight.

"Barbie" stills

The summer box office in 2023 is of great significance to the total box office of North American movies throughout the year. A few months ago, with the strong box office performance of "Super Mario Bros. The Movie", many Hollywood industry insiders estimated optimistically that American audiences had completely bid farewell to the epidemic situation and resumed their previous enthusiasm for watching movies. At the box office, you can see $4 billion. What happened afterwards gave this optimism a head-on blow. Works such as "The Flash", "Crazy Elemental City" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark 5" suffered consecutive box office disadvantages, which taught the market a lesson. Coupled with the ensuing double strikes of the Screenwriters Union and Screen Actors Union, the film's publicity work has been greatly affected. For a while, almost no one believes that the total North American box office of this year's summer vacation may hit the $4 billion mark.

Perhaps, this is the charm of the film market. From time to time, so-called dark horses will appear, and unpredictable things will emerge, which makes experienced industry veterans call it incredible. Beforehand, everyone knew that the simultaneous release of "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" would inject a lot of momentum into the market, but I'm afraid no one, no matter how optimistic, expected them to have the current results. At present, the total North American box office of the summer season has reached almost 3 billion US dollars, and there is still more than a month to go, and blockbuster films such as "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Brawl" and "Blue Beetle" are about to be released, hitting 4 billion US dollars is possible. .

Of course, such a turnaround has taught all Hollywood executives a lesson. The audience is completely tired of the formulaic series and remakes. The production model that seemed to be effective for a long time in the past has reached a critical moment that needs major changes. This past weekend, the top six films on the North American box office list all exceeded $10 million in three days. The last time there was such a flourish was the Thanksgiving weekend in 2018. Among these six films, only "Mission: Impossible 7", which ranks fifth, belongs to the series, only "Haunted House", which ranks third, belongs to the remake, and the other four are original, which is exactly what is happening now. Today's audience values it most.

Disney's remake 'Haunted Mansion' is in trouble

"Haunted Mansion" from Disney is a new film released last weekend. It is said that the cost is as high as 150 million U.S. dollars, but the opening box office is only 24.2 million U.S. dollars, and the overseas box office is only 9 million U.S. dollars. foregone conclusion.

Rosario Dawson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jared Leto and Owen Wilson star in this horror-comedy adaptation of the Disneyland haunted house ride of the same name. Of course, in addition to the box office, it also has the added value of increasing the popularity of the park project. For Disney, I am afraid that it will not only determine the profit and loss based on the box office account.

The Haunted House Poster

Historically, Disney has developed its park facilities into movies, the first TV movie "Magic Hotel" (Tower of Terror) broadcast in 1997 and "Mission to Mars" (Mission to Mars) released in 2000, and achieved the greatest success The natural non-"Pirates of the Caribbean" series is none other than. The rest, such as "Jungle Cruise", "Dinosaur" and "The Country Bears", etc., are generally rated, and the box office results are different, but basically they can be compared with those in the park. The related facilities form an interaction, so its commercial achievements can't just look at the box office. Therefore, even if the box office of "Haunted House" is not very satisfactory this time, it will definitely not stop Disney's idea of continuing to develop such IP movies in the future.

At present, there are "haunted houses" in three parks in California, Florida and Tokyo Disneyland (Disneyland in Paris and Hong Kong also have haunted house projects inspired by it, the content is similar, just the name It's not called "Haunted House", only Shanghai Disneyland does not have this project among the Disney parks in the world), and they all have a history of operating for 40 to 50 years, and they have gathered quite a high popularity.

Therefore, as early as 2003, Disney developed it into a movie of the same name, which also took the route of horror comedy, starring comedian Eddie Murphy. At that time, although the film was not well received by the media, it was favored by the audience and won a global box office of 180 million U.S. dollars. Compared with its production cost of 90 million U.S. dollars, it was considered a lot of money. Moreover, with the passage of time, this old version of "Haunted House" has gradually gained the reputation of a cult movie for some reason. Every Halloween, many nostalgic fans will find out and revisit it, and discover the shining points that are worthy of recognition. Perhaps, it was this kind of folk enthusiasm that made Disney sniff out the remaining value of this IP and decided to remake it twenty years later.

Of course, in retrospect, the shooting plan for the new version of "Haunted House" was established as early as 2010. At that time, it wanted to find ghost director Guillermo del Toro to write and direct it himself, with Ryan Gosling as the lead. It's just that time has changed, and the director of "Haunted House" has been replaced by Justin Simien, who may not be very familiar to ordinary audiences. He is 40 years old this year, and he can be regarded as a graduate of a film school. As early as ten years ago, he won the recognition of the industry with his debut film "Dear White People", and was selected as one of the "Top Ten Directors of Tomorrow" by "Variety" magazine. list, and even got the nickname "New Spike Lee". However, in the following ten years, Simeon did not go very far on the road of film director, and spent most of his time filming the spin-off series "Dear White People", which was only filmed in 2020. His second film work "Magic Hair" (Bad Hair).

A similar situation also happened to many young African-American directors like him. In all fairness, thanks to the rising awareness of racial equality in Hollywood over the years, whether African-Americans, Asians or Latinos, it seems that they are getting more and more resources in the industry. At first glance, their career prospects are compared with decades ago It is no longer the same. But when it comes to reality, there are still not many African-American, Asian-American, and Hispanic screenwriters and directors who can really continuously release new works in Hollywood. The reason behind it is naturally not clear in one or two sentences, but it is undeniable that in Hollywood, which pays attention to political correctness, all kinds of discrimination on the bright side have almost disappeared, but at a deeper level, the so-called structural , Systematic prejudice, I'm afraid it really can't be completely overthrown in a year or two, or even ten or twenty years.

As far as this "Haunted House" is concerned, anyone who has watched the previous two films directed by Simeon can more or less feel that this is a director who aims to tell the stories of the past and present of African Americans and the trauma of their hearts. A purely commercial entertainment film like "I'm afraid it's not very suitable for his project. As a result, it encountered the current situation of failure in the opening of the painting. Disney's interests were damaged, and the director's own future development would also be affected. It can be said to be a lose-lose ending.

In addition to "The Haunted House", the Japanese animated film "Slam Dunk" finally landed on North American screens last weekend, earning a box office of 620,000 US dollars in 581 theaters, which is not very satisfactory. The New York-based GKIDS Film Distribution Company is responsible for the introduction of the film to North America. GKIDS, which was officially established in 2008, specializes in the introduction of overseas animated films to the North American market, including my country's "White Snake: Origin" and "Yang Jian". Introduced to North America by GKIDS. However, what they operate the most are related works from Japan, a major animation country, especially the new and old works of Ghibli, almost all of which are bought out by this company in North America. The copyright is released for theaters and video disc production, including Miyazaki Jun's latest work, "What Kind of Life Do You Want to Live?"—the title has been changed to the more straightforward "The Boy and the Heron" (The Boy and the Heron).

In addition, the Australian thriller "Talk to Me" (Talk to Me), which was introduced to the North American market by A24 Films, was also released in 2,340 theaters last weekend, with an opening box office of US$10.02 million, which was better than industry expectations.

Affected by the strike, new film schedules have been adjusted

Of course, the box office of "Haunted House" is not ideal. In addition to the audience's boredom, it may also be affected by the strike of the American Screen Actors Union. According to regulations, all actors of the film are not allowed to participate in its promotional activities-no matter whether it is an offline red carpet event or a post on the Internet. As time went on, the impact of the strike became more and more obvious.

Just last week, Sony Pictures took the lead in announcing a series of file change plans, "Gran Turismo" (Gran Turismo), "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse" (Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse), "Jedi Movies like Bad Boys 4, Kraven the Hunter, and Venom 3 have all been affected to varying degrees, some already in production and waiting to be released, but because Actors were unable to participate in promotional activities and postponed;

"Gran Turismo: Speed Fury" poster

Among them, the most noteworthy is "GT Racing: Speed Hurricane". The film was originally scheduled to be released on August 11, but due to the strike of actors, including starring Orlando Bloom and David Harper, they were unable to do promotion anymore, and Sony Pictures did not want to delay its release for too long. Because no one knows when the strike will end and when the actors can start participating in promotional work again, the schedule of the film has been slightly postponed to August 25th, but on August 11th and August 18th. For two weekends, a small-scale trial screening of the film was arranged, hoping to rely on the word-of-mouth effect of this part of the audience after watching it in advance, to drive the promotional effect of the film. In response, a spokesperson for Sony Pictures said: "Since the stars can't promote the movie, it's up to the audience to promote it."

In addition to film distribution, film festivals are also affected, and the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, which will be held on August 2, bears the brunt. Originally, the film festival planned to present a special award to the actor Riz Ahmed at the screening of this year's opening film "Dammi", but the latter informed them that he could not come because of the constraints of the labor union strike. Similarly, Stellan Skarsgard, who was planning to attend the Locarno Film Festival because of his role in the new director Huang Ran's "What Remains", although he did not cancel his attendance plan, declined the original participation. master class activities and award program. In addition, it is still unknown whether some VIPs who originally planned to attend this year's Locarno Film Festival, including Cate Blanchett, will finally be able to make the trip, which has also caused headaches for the organizers.