Last weekend, three new films were released in the North American film market. The live-action and CG animation film "If" produced by Paramount Pictures was released in 4,041 theaters and earned $35 million in the three-day opening box office over the weekend, which was lower than the market expectation of $40 million, and also caused the overall box office performance of the 2024 North American summer season to continue to decline significantly year-on-year.

"Friends" is written and directed by John Krasinski, who created the "A Quiet Place" series, and stars "Deadpool" Ryan Reynolds. It tells the story of a superpower girl who can see the imaginations of others. Although "Friends" has not received good reviews from the media, and its freshness on the film review website "Rotten Tomatoes" is a failing 49%, American audiences still showed great enthusiasm for it, with a popcorn index of 87% and an A-level score after the screening.

Stills from "Mysterious Friend"

The good audience reputation makes the industry predict that "Friends" will continue to gain a lot of market share in the next few weeks and will not be forgotten early. After all, there are not many films suitable for parents to watch with their children in North American theaters. However, Sony Pictures' popular animated film "Garfield" will be released soon, which is expected to compete with "Friends".

In the words of Tom Brugman, an American box office analyst, the modern North American summer movie season began with Jaws, which was released in 1975. After that, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, ET the Extraterrestrial, Top Gun, Ghostbusters, Ghost, Twister, The Lion King, Independence Day, Speed, and Men in Black emerged one after another during this period, all of which were original IP works with large investments. But in the past 20 years, such original works have become increasingly rare, replaced by various remakes and sequels. Few film companies are willing to invest more than 100 million US dollars to shoot a summer movie with an original script. And this time, the original work "Friends of the Mystery" was invested by Paramount Pictures at a high investment of 110 million US dollars, which is quite rare.

In a way, this is purely based on their trust in the film's creator, John Krasinski. He started out as a star in the hit TV series "The Office", and with his original work "A Quiet Place", he has become one of Hollywood's most valued rising stars. The first two "A Quiet Place" films did make a lot of money for Paramount, and the third one is scheduled to be released next year. Therefore, back at the end of 2019, Paramount spared no expense to enter the game, defeating competitors such as Sony Pictures and Lionsgate, and won the "Friends" project that Krasinski and Ryan Reynolds were developing at the time. In other words, Paramount invested not only in "Friends", but also in the person of Krasinski, who has unlimited potential.

The third place in the weekend box office list is also a new film. The horror film "The Strangers: Chapter 1" produced by Lionsgate was released in 2,856 theaters and earned $12 million in the opening box office. Compared with its C-level audience score and 13% "Rotten Tomatoes" freshness, this box office is already quite good.

Stills from The Stranger: Chapter One

The Stranger: Chapter 1 is directed by the famous Renny Harlin, but the current film market and Hollywood ecology are far from the era when he shot Cliffhanger and Die Hard 2. In the past 10 years, Harlin has basically been running between the United States and China, but the films he directed, such as Hercules, Skip Hunt, Swords of Legends: The Moon Rising, Silent Witness, Alien, and The Bourne Legacy, basically make people confused after watching them.

The budget for The Stranger: Chapter 1 is only $9 million, which is shabby at a time when prices are soaring. The film is based on the 2008 horror film The Stranger, which is a prequel to the film, and was shot by Renny Harlin all at once as a horror trilogy.

In fact, the story of "The Stranger" is not new, but the production cost was only $9 million, and with good publicity, it eventually earned $82.4 million in global box office, making Universal Pictures, which was responsible for the distribution, a fortune. Since then, the producers have insisted on filming a sequel, but encountered various practical difficulties. "The Stranger 2" was not released until 2018, 10 years after the previous one, and it also lacked the powerful distributor Universal Pictures, and was produced by the unknown small company Aviron Pictures instead.

Relying on the reputation of the previous film, the media reputation was even worse and the production cost was even lower, only $5 million, and "The Stranger 2" eventually received a global box office of $32.1 million. However, Aviron Pictures was involved in a scandal three years ago, and the founder was imprisoned for financial fraud, and the company declared bankruptcy.

Two years ago, Lionsgate took over the IP, hired Renny Harlin as the director, and moved the entire filming to Slovakia, where prices are relatively low, to reduce costs. Judging from the current opening results, "The Stranger: Chapter 1", which cost $9 million to produce, should be a good investment for Lionsgate.

Stills from Back to Darkness

Another new film is the Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black, which is distributed in North America by Focus Features. Born in 1983, she was the most popular British female singer in the new century, but unfortunately died of alcohol poisoning at the age of 27 in 2011. In 2015, the documentary Amy, which is based on her artistic life, was released around the world and subsequently won many honors including the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.

As for the biopic, several film companies have been working on it since 2012, but they have been unable to make progress due to obstacles from the singer's family and the copyright holders of the songs. It was not until the year before last that the British branch of French StudioCanal Films finally succeeded in convincing all parties, which led to the current "Back to Darkness".

Last month, the film was released in the UK and topped the box office charts for two consecutive weeks. In North America, Focus Features, a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, bought the distribution rights for $20 million and released it in 2,010 North American theaters over the weekend, but it only earned $2.85 million at the opening, ranking fifth on the weekend box office charts.