Last weekend, the North American film market welcomed the large-scale release of Mickey 17, a new film by Korean director Bong Joon-ho that ventured into Hollywood. After the film was released in 3,807 theaters in North America, it earned $19.1 million in the opening box office. Although it firmly ranked first in the weekend box office chart, the data was still slightly lower than the original expectations of the distributor Warner.
In addition to North America, "Number 17" was also released in many countries and regions around the world, including China. Its performance in the Chinese mainland market was not satisfactory, with a three-day box office of less than 10 million yuan, even lower than the two-day box office of the Italian film "There is Tomorrow" released at the same time. Currently, the global box office of "Number 17" is about 55 million US dollars.
Poster of Number 17
"Number 17" is the first new work of director Bong Joon-ho since he won the Oscar for Best Picture for "Parasite" in 2019. It is inevitable that it will be compared with the previous work. "Parasite" cost only $11.4 million to produce, which is not even a fraction of "Number 17"; in addition to winning many awards, the global box office reached $259 million, which is a very good commercial achievement for an independent art film. Robert Pattinson, the star of "Number 17", is a Hollywood A-list actor who has played in the "Twilight" series and "The New Batman". In addition, the distributor is the Hollywood giant Warner, which is not the same as the independent company Neon Pictures that distributed "Parasite". It was arranged to be fully rolled out in 3,807 theaters in North America, instead of being released in only 2,000 theaters in North America at most like "Parasite". However, it seems that "Number 17" has little hope of replicating the box office performance of "Parasite".
Stills from Number 17
Some media have counted the winners of the Oscar for Best Picture in the past 25 years and found that 19 of the 25 directors had their next work released after reaching the peak; but only 4 of the 19 had their subsequent works recognized by the market, at least taking a step forward in terms of box office performance. In other words, winning an Oscar does not mean that a director will rise to prominence; on the contrary, in many cases, winning the Oscar for Best Picture is just the pinnacle of the lives of these filmmakers, and in the days that follow, they will embark on a downward path.
The four directors mentioned above who were able to go against the trend and continue to maintain their vitality are: Martin Scorsese, who won the award in 2007 for "The Departed", which grossed $277 million worldwide, and then "Shutter Island", which grossed $301 million worldwide; Kathryn Bigelow, who won the award in 2009 for "The Hurt Locker", which grossed only $49.2 million worldwide, one of the lowest-grossing award-winning works in Oscar history, but her subsequent "Zero Dark Thirty" earned $133 million worldwide; Tom Hooper, who won the award in 2011 for "The King's Speech", which grossed $419 million worldwide, and then "Les Miserables", which grossed $442 million worldwide; Alejandro González Iñárritu, who won the award in 2015 for "Birdman", which grossed $105 million worldwide, and then "The Revenant", which grossed $533 million worldwide.
Among the remaining Oscar-winning directors, Ridley Scott made The Martian right after Gladiator, Clint Eastwood made American Sniper right after Million Dollar Baby, the Coen brothers made Burn After Reading right after No Country for Old Men, and Peter Jackson made King Kong right after The Lord of the Rings. The box office of these latter films cannot actually be said to be low, but they just failed to reach a higher level than their predecessors who won the Oscars.
The really big drop is Guillermo del Toro's "Sex and the City" after "The Shape of Water" (global box office of 196 million U.S. dollars); Ben Affleck's "Life by Night" after "Argo" (global box office of 232 million U.S. dollars) (global box office dropped to only 22.7 million U.S. dollars); Steve McQueen's "The Outnumbered" after "12 Years a Slave" (global box office of 188 million U.S. dollars); Sam Mendes' "Road to Perdition" (global box office of 181 million U.S. dollars) after "American Beauty" (global box office of 356 million U.S. dollars); Rob Marshall's "Memoirs of a Geisha" (global box office of 162 million U.S. dollars) after "Chicago" (global box office of 307 million U.S. dollars).
Analyzing the four cases where the box office of the next work continued to rise after winning the Oscar, we can find the following common points: First, the first work was basically released by independent film companies, while the second work was produced by a Hollywood big company and the scale of distribution was much larger. Second, judging from the audience's reputation and media reviews, the ratings of the latter four works were basically not lower than the first four works, and combined with the increase in box office, it can be said that they were both critically acclaimed and commercially popular.
Stills from Number 17
Let’s look at Bong Joon-ho’s new film “No. 17”. On the first point, it is consistent with the above case, but on the second point, although the film’s current 79% freshness on the film review website “Rotten Tomatoes” is definitely not a low score, it is still incomparable with the 99% freshness of “Parasite”, and the audience reputation score of CinemaScore is only B (“Parasite” did not have this score because it was opened on a small scale in single-digit theaters that year).
At present, the industry predicts that the global box office of "Number 17" may only be over $200 million. Compared with its production cost of $118 million and the publicity and promotion cost of $80 million, it is likely to lose a lot of money. Previously, "Parasite" had a global box office of $259 million. After deducting the publicity and promotion costs, public relations fees during the award season and related expenses, Neon Pictures reported a net profit of $46 million.
Parasite poster
Another new film released in the North American film market last weekend was "Rule Breakers" produced by Angel Films. Director Bill Guttentag directed the documentary "Nanjing: The Forgotten 1937" many years ago, which left a deep impression on Chinese audiences. This time, Guttentag switched to shooting feature films, but the characters and scenes of "Rule Breakers" are all based on real people and real events. It tells the life stories of several Afghan girls. The audience has a very good reputation. It is also the only film in the North American market this year that is suitable for the Women's Day schedule. In the end, the film opened in 2,044 theaters in North America and only earned $1.59 million in weekend box office, ranking ninth. Fortunately, the production cost of the film was only $8 million.
Angel Pictures, which emerged as a rising star with "The Voice of Liberty" just over a year ago, has now become a new force that cannot be underestimated in the American film landscape. They produce so-called positive energy works that cater to the tastes of American conservative audiences and religious believers at a relatively low cost. This is the unique living space they have found in the extremely competitive North American film market.
Overall, the total North American box office this weekend is only about 57 million US dollars, which means that in the 10 weekends so far in 2025, the total North American box office has been less than 60 million US dollars for three weekends. Not to mention before the epidemic, even in 2024 and 2023, there was no such a sluggish situation. What kind of movies do American audiences want to watch? Theater operators and related industry insiders are struggling to figure it out.
