Last weekend's North American film market finally welcomed the release of two blockbusters. As a result, the newly released "Kung Fu Panda 4" overtook "Dune 2" in its second week of release and secured the top spot on the weekend box office list. The combined three-day box office of these two blockbusters exceeded US$100 million, kicking off the Indian film market in North America.

"Kung Fu Panda 4" opened with better results than the previous two installments in the series

"Kung Fu Panda 4", produced by Universal Pictures and produced by DreamWorks, was released in 4,035 theaters and earned an opening box office of US$58.3 million. Although the media reputation of "Kung Fu Panda 4" is not very outstanding, its freshness rating on the film review website "Rotten Tomatoes" is currently 71%, which is lower than the previous three films' freshness level of at least 80%, but the opening performance is still Better than the second and third films, and second only to the $60.2 million earned by the first film when it was released in 2008.

In addition to the fact that the media evaluation is not as good as "Dune 2", the marketing investment of "Kung Fu Panda 4" on social networks is actually completely incomparable with "Dune 2". However, relying on the popularity accumulated from the previous three works, plus the favorable factors of spring break for schools at all levels in the United States in March, "Kung Fu Panda 4" still seems to have a strong enough mass base in North America.

"Kung Fu Panda 4" stills

What's more important is that this is the first cartoon to be released on a large scale since 2024. Many parents in North America have not taken their children to a theater for a long time. Therefore, the potential market for "Kung Fu Panda 4" is already quite large. You know, it has been more than two months since the animated film "The Flying Ducks" was released in December last year, but it still ranked eighth on the box office list this weekend, and it was even after the film had already been streamed online. In the case of media, this is enough to show how strong the market demand for cartoons is at the moment. With the release of "Kung Fu Panda 4", "The Flying Ducks" has basically completed its mission and will soon be withdrawn from theaters. The next big animated movie after "Kung Fu Panda 4" is "Garfield" which will not be released until the end of May, leaving a huge market space for "Kung Fu Panda 4".

"Dune 2" stills

Although "Dune 2" ranked second this weekend, it still took in a box office of 46 million US dollars, a year-on-year decline of only 44% (the first film's box office dropped 62% in its second week of release in 2019), which can be said to be quite strong. . At present, the film's total North American box office has reached 157 million U.S. dollars, exceeding the first film's total North American box office of 108 million U.S. dollars. At present, it seems that "Dune 2" will have at least 250 million US dollars in the North American box office, so making money should not be a problem.

In terms of these two leading works, this has also become the first time since the joint release of "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" in July last year that two films on the weekend box office list have a box office of more than 4,000 each. Ten thousand U.S. dollars. This situation occurred four times in 2023 and as many as 15 times in 2019. It can be seen that the lack of a sufficient number of hit works has become a major problem that Hollywood needs to solve in the post-epidemic era.

The total North American box office this weekend was approximately US$139 million, which is the best result since the opening weekend in August last year. Compared with the same weekend in 2023, the growth reached 18%. This is the first time since 2024 that there has been a year-on-year increase in weekends, which can be regarded as a temporary shot in the arm for the struggling theater industry. However, the total North American box office so far in 2024 is still 10% lower than in 2023.

Each of the two new films has its own dedicated audience.

In addition to "Kung Fu Panda 4" this weekend, there are two other new movies released on a large scale. The PG-13 horror film "Imaginary" produced by Blumhouse Films and produced by Lionsgate Pictures opened with a box office of US$10 million in 3,118 theaters. The film tells the story of a teddy bear causing trouble, and is directed by Jeff Wadlow, who has made films such as "Kick-Ass 2" and "Truth or Dare."

Audiences who are slightly familiar with Blumhouse Film Company know that it has a long-term cooperation agreement with Universal Pictures, and Universal Pictures is responsible for basically all distribution of its works. However, after the filming of "Inside Out" was completed, it was said that Universal Pictures was not satisfied and doubted whether the US$12 million production cost could be recovered at the box office, so it decided not to participate in its distribution. After a round of touting, it was Lionsgate that finally won the global distribution rights to the film.

At present, although the film's freshness rating on the film review website "Rotten Tomatoes" is only 32%, which is an out-and-out bad movie, due to the lack of similar products on the market, young audiences who love to watch horror movies There are many people who are willing to support it, and it should not be a problem for Lionsgate to recoup its investment.

Cabrini poster

Another new film, Cabrini‎, comes from Angel Studios, which was a blockbuster last year. The film is adapted from a true story and tells the gospel story of Cabrini, an Italian nun who fought for equality for foreign ethnic groups in New York at the end of the 19th century. It currently has a 90% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a rare high score among similar religious gospel-themed works.

The film's director, Alejandro Gomez Tverde, became an instant hit last year with "Sounds of Liberty." The film, also produced by Angel Pictures, had a global box office of US$249 million, of which North America accounted for US$184 million. In addition to being good at using controversial news to create hype, one of the keys to the film's commercial success lies in the so-called "ticket purchase and donation" model that Angel Pictures came up with. That is, in addition to buying tickets to watch the movie themselves, viewers can also spend an additional $15 to watch the movie. Buy an extra ticket and invite others to watch the movie; if those who watch "Sounds of Freedom" for free feel that the film is indeed worth the money, they can naturally continue to buy tickets and give them to others who come later.

Relying on this eccentric approach, "Sound of Freedom" not only won the box office, but also gained huge network traffic. However, some netizens expressed different opinions on social media at the time. They posted photos showing a theater that was clearly sold out, but the theater was empty. In other words, those tickets bought for others, no one actually came to pick them up or watch, and they became so-called ghost performances; there were also situations where some right-wing groups paid for the tickets, but no one came to watch them at all.

Recently, in order to cooperate with the release of "Cabrini", Angel Pictures CEO Neal Harmon accepted an interview with the media and talked about this issue, expressing the encouragement in the closing credits of "Freedom" last year. Next, a large number of viewers did respond to this model and bought tickets as gifts, with a total value of US$26.07 million, which is approximately equivalent to 1.82 million free tickets. Later, 21.8 million US dollars worth of movie tickets were actually paid, and they were actually watched by people, and the seat count statistics of major North American theater chains such as AMC, Regal and Cinemark can also prove it. As for the photos of the ghost scene that have been widely circulated on social media, Harmon said they were intentional distortions by a few people and were inconsistent with the truth.

Angel Pictures did not continue this promotion model for the release of "Cabrini" this time. The film was released in 2,840 North American theaters, earning an opening box office of US$7.5 million, ranking fourth on the weekend list.

In addition, "Hot" directed and starred by Jia Ling was introduced to North America for distribution by Sony Pictures. It was released in 200 theaters this weekend and earned a weekend box office of US$840,000, ranking ninth on the list.

Oscar-nominated works collectively failed at the box office

This weekend is known as "Oscar Weekend." However, because this year's popular works such as "Oppenheimer" and "Barbie" were all released as early as last year, the North American movie market did not gain much benefit from this Oscar weekend. All candidates currently in theaters have weekend box office receipts of less than $2 million. The one with the best results was "Perfect Day", which represented Japan in the competition for the Best International Film Award. The importer, Neon Pictures, arranged for the film to be released in 241 theaters and earned US$300,000 at the box office over the three-day weekend. Currently, its total box office in North America is only US$2.7 million.

Overall, among this year's Oscar nominees, apart from "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer," the one with the greatest commercial return is "Poor Things" produced by Searchlight Pictures. This film, which has won three design statuettes and the most competitive Best Actress award, continued to be released in 700 theaters last weekend. Although it only earned US$280,000 at the box office, its total North American box office has so far been It has 34 million US dollars, which is twice that of the best adapted screenplay winner "American Novel", four times that of the best international film winner "Zone of Interest", and seven times that of the best original screenplay winner "The Fall". Its global box office has exceeded US$100 million, surpassing the US$158 million of "Killers of the Flower Moon" in the future, becoming the third best film in terms of commercial performance at this Oscar after "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" Shortlisted works are not completely impossible.

This kind of box office performance is really rare for such a literary and artistic work with a niche theme; it is also a big encouragement to the global art film market that has never returned to normal after the epidemic. For Yorgos Lanthimos, a director from Greece, coupled with the US$95.6 million global box office of his previous film "The Favorite", this will definitely allow him to continue to gain the favor of more film and television investors in the future. . This is crucial to the career of an art film director.