In the North American film market last week, there were "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" and "Meg 2: The Trench" which are very suitable for the summer. Blockbuster releases. However, it is still this year's biggest box office dark horse "Barbie" that tops the weekend box office list.

Over the past three days, "Barbie" has earned $53 million at the weekend box office, and its cumulative box office in North America has reached $459 million, and its global box office has broken through the billion-dollar mark. And it did so in just 17 days, an impressive eighth of the 53 billion-dollar hits.

Two new films rated one day at a time

In terms of new films, "The Meg 2", which was co-produced by China and the United States and distributed by Warner Bros. in North America, was released in 3,503 theaters and won a box office of 30 million U.S. dollars, ranking second on the weekend box office list.

"Megalodon 2: The Abyss" poster

The first episode of "The Megalodon" released in 2018, although the production cost was as high as 130 million U.S. dollars, it eventually won a global box office of 530 million U.S. dollars, which was better than the industry's general expectations. This time the second part, the production cost is relatively well controlled. Against the backdrop of rising everything and the epidemic, it only cost millions of dollars more than the previous part. However, the media evaluation of the film is still bad. Currently, it only has a freshness rating of 28% on the film review website "Rotten Tomatoes", which is a sharp drop from the 46% freshness of the first film. It can only be classified as a bad movie.

After "Oppenheimer" and ranked fourth on the weekend box office list, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" received surprisingly good reviews from the media and audiences. The film opened in 3,858 theaters and grossed $28 million over the weekend. However, in fact, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" was released last Wednesday. Calculated in five days, the opening box office was 43 million US dollars, which can still be said to be a good result.

What's more worth mentioning is that the production cost of this film is only 70 million US dollars, which is far lower than the various live-action films released recently, and the cost recovery is definitely not a problem. As far as the market is concerned, it is the first Hollywood animated film released on a large scale since June's "Crazy Elements City", and it should be quite attractive to small audiences, especially male small audiences.

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" was originally a comic book character born in 1984. Three years later, the TV animation series of the same name began to air, and it lasted for nine years and ten seasons. In 1991, the play was translated and introduced by many domestic TV stations, and it became a good memory that accompanied the growth of the post-80s and post-90s generations.

In terms of movies, since the first "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie released by New Line Pictures in 1990, there have been seven films in the series for more than 30 years. Except for the animated movie released by Warner Bros. in 2007, the rest are live-action performances, and most of the box office is stable. No matter how bad the media evaluation is, these four turtles with stunts always seem to be able to win the hearts of the audiences all over the world. Audience welcome.

However, the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Out of the Shadows" released by Paramount in 2016 has experienced a big setback in the box office. It only received 245 million US dollars worldwide. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Age of Mutants is only halfway through, and the planned third installment was aborted. In this context, Paramount decided to change to the animated film route, so there is an animated version of this restart.

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants" stills

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Fight" is the directorial debut of Jeff Rowe, the screenwriter of the animated film "Smart Attack", and is written and produced by the famous comedian Seth Rogen, 70 million The dollar production cost was half that of 2016's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. In addition to North America, the film has also been released simultaneously in many places around the world, and will land in domestic theaters this Friday.

At present, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants" has been unanimously recognized by film critics on the film review website "Rotten Tomatoes", with a freshness of 96%, setting a new high for the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" series of films; The evaluation is extremely high, and it has been announced that a sequel will be made next, and there will be follow-up streaming series.

Thinking back to the American film industry event CinemaCon held this spring, Paramount's promotional direction focused on a series of animation works including this "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". According to reports, this year and the next two years, they have a total of seven animation blockbusters to be released one after another. In addition to "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", "Transformers", "The Smurfs", "SpongeBob SquarePants" and "Avatar: The Last Airbender" are already in Under development.

The Hollywood animation film market was once dominated by two major studios, Disney and Pixar, but in the past few years, the situation has completely changed: Universal Pictures relies on DreamWorks' "Puss in Boots" series and Illumination Entertainment The "Minions" series and "Super Mario Bros. The Movie" have become the new kings in this field; in addition, Sony Pictures' animated version of the "Spider-Man" series is also menacing. The competitive situation in the entire animation film market has become quite fierce. Today, Paramount has also joined the battle, largely because it is optimistic about the relatively low cost and high output of animation production.

Hollywood stars give generously to strike

In the past July, the total box office in North America reached US$1.37 billion, making it the second best July box office in North America since statistics were available, second only to the total box office in North America of US$1.39 billion in July 2011. Among them, "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer", which ranked the top two at the box office, certainly contributed a lot; the originally little-known independent film "Voice of Freedom", relying on the right-wing party-mass effect, also earned 151 million U.S. dollars, ranking No. The three surprised everyone even more. The total box office in North America in July this year has increased by more than 20% compared with the same period last year, and compared with 2019 before the epidemic, it also increased by 6%.

In the British and Irish markets, which also speak English, the total box office in July also reached 160 million pounds (about 200 million U.S. dollars), an incredible 78% increase from June and an increase from July last year. 27%.

"Gran Turismo: Speed Fury" poster

If this momentum can be maintained in the future, the full revival of the British and American film markets may not be a dream. However, the double strike of the American Screenwriters Guild and the Screen Actors Guild has brought many difficulties to the Hollywood assembly line, and new films have been postponed. At present, Sony Pictures has moved back the schedule of "Gran Turismo: Speed Furious" by two weeks, and also postponed the schedule of the sequel of "Ghostbusters" from Christmas this year to next spring. Emma Stone's new film "Poor Things" (Poor Things) produced by Searchlight has also been rescheduled from September to December. Amazon Studios' sports romance "Challengers" has been delayed until next year. In addition, there are rumors that Warner is also considering to postpone the second part of "Dune" from November this year to next year, and "Purple" and "Aquaman 2: The Lost Kingdom", which were originally scheduled to be released at the end of the year, may also be postponed. .

Last Friday, the Alliance of American Producers (AMPTP), which represents the interests of major Hollywood producers, finally sat down to meet with the screenwriters union negotiating team. And this is also the first official meeting between the two parties in more than three months, giving hope to people from all walks of life in Hollywood who have suffered from the impact of the strike, and even the mayor of Los Angeles has publicly expressed his optimism. However, the news that came that night was that the two sides still had huge differences on many issues, and they were completely unable to reach an agreement on resuming negotiations. The nearly one-hour meeting turned out to be useless.

It is reported that the Producers Union told the Screenwriters Union that whether they can return to the negotiating table in the near future, they will have to solicit the opinions of the various members within the union again, and the Producers Union still refuses to let go on key issues such as the distribution of works . Moreover, the Screenwriters Union stated that even if they and the Producers Union do reach an agreement in the future to end the strike, they will still support the Actors Union that is still on strike in moral, spiritual and practical actions, and will not immediately resume screenwriting work , and this also made the representatives of the Producers Union feel unacceptable.

Last week, Warner executives publicly predicted that this double strike in Hollywood is expected to come to an end in early September. But given the current situation, this thinking may be a little too optimistic. Midweek, media reports on George Clooney, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Hugh Jackman, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lopez Ben Affleck, Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Julia Roberts, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Meryl Streep and Oprah Winfrey News of Hollywood superstar donating $1 million to Screen Actors Guild. These donations will be used to improve the lives of middle and low-level actors, and to support those colleagues who have lost income due to the strike movement.

According to Fran Drescher, chairman of the Screen Actors Guild of America, although Hollywood big-name actors do have high salaries, 85% of the 160,000 members of the union earn less than 26,500 a year Dollar. Since the start of the strike, there have been more than 30 times the number of urgent requests for help from union members every day. The problems involved include rent, water and electricity bills, food and even medicine. . In this case, the stars at the top of the Hollywood pyramid are duty-bound. Action superstar "The Rock" Johnson was the first to send a seven-figure check, and Streep and Clooney quickly followed up, and led the rest of the above-mentioned big-name actors to donate generously, and also showed that the actors We are determined to fight a protracted war against the same enemy.

In fact, it's not just actors and writers who are affected by the strike. In the past few months, the American media have also widely reported news that all walks of life in Hollywood have been affected by strike activities. For example, Dmitry Tokar, who runs a laundry service in Hollywood, has specialized in cleaning, ironing, and coloring services for film and television crews for more than 30 years. But the strike caused his company's business to plummet by 93 percent and has now laid off 17 of its 56 workers. There are also Ilaria Urbinati and Elizabeth Stewart, who provide styling services for film and television stars walking on the red carpet. They were originally in the summer vacation, and they will soon usher in the gathering activities of major film festivals in autumn. It was the golden age of this industry, and they also lost their jobs because of the actor's strike.

Moreover, many people compare the current situation with the previous epidemic era, saying that Hollywood has just recovered, and the result seems to be experiencing the epidemic again and completely shutting down. Even in Ilaria Urbinati's view, the current situation is worse than the epidemic, because at that time they stopped talking, but at least there were various relief funds issued by the government, and life was at least not a problem . As for this strike, the screenwriters and actors can of course receive various internal subsidies from the union, as well as donations from big stars, but for Hollywood peripherals like them, it is impossible to obtain such relief. "As far as I know, many stylists, hair stylists and make-up artists are 100% in support of the strike behavior of actors and screenwriters. But the irony is that we ourselves have no protection from unions, and we don't even have health insurance." Elizabeth Stewart told the media.

The funny thing is that when Warner announced its second-quarter financial report last week, Warner said that the strike caused various production crews to stop working, which saved Warner an overall production cost of about 100 million U.S. dollars, and it looked better on the books. However, on the other hand, it is estimated that the overall economic losses in the core areas of film and television production such as New York and California have reached billions of dollars since the strike.