Last weekend, the North American box office champion was unexpectedly killed by Spider-Man: The Universe. The film continued to be shown in 3,785 theaters in North America, earning $19.3 million at the weekend box office. Followed by the Pixar animated film Crazy Element City, which earned $18.5 million at the weekend box office. The DC remake of the superhero blockbuster "The Flash" continued to be shown in 4,256 theaters, but it only earned $15.26 million at the weekend box office, ranking third in the box office list.
The box office of "The Flash" dropped sharply.
In fact, although the opening box office of "The Flash" is not ideal, the so-called skinny camel is bigger than a horse, and it is at least a superhero blockbuster adapted from DC comics. The industry originally expected the film to remain at the top of the box office list on the second weekend after its release, and predicted that its box office dropped by about 60% year-on-year over the past three days, which was basically the same as those DC movies with poor reputation.
"Flash" poster
As a result, the box office of The Flash dropped by 72.3% on the second weekend, which was staggering. In a horizontal comparison, Ant Man 3 in February this year dropped by 69.9% on the second weekend because of its poor reputation, but after all, the opening box office of others was no matter how bad it was, it also had $106 million, nearly double that of The Flash. In a vertical comparison, the decline of box office in this next week ranks the second highest among all the films that have changed from English to English, only after 73.8% of Doctor Night: Morbius in 2022. At present, its global cumulative box office is only $210 million.
At this point, the loss of The Flash, which cost $220 million to produce, is a foregone conclusion, which is a great blow to Zaslav, the head of Warner Exploration Group. According to American media reports, Zaslav has always been fascinated by this ill-fated superhero blockbuster for some reason. Therefore, at the Las Vegas Film Festival in April this year, he personally promoted it and vowed to tell someone at the venue that this was the greatest superhero movie he had ever seen in his life. I don’t know whether the current top-ranking Warner who started as a documentary watched less drama films or adhered to the spirit of selling melons by the old woman. In short, the whole market was full of confidence in The Flash from April to June.
Once The Flash was officially released, it immediately showed its true colors. The $55 million premiere box office was actually worse than the DC remake Green Lantern released in 2011, if the ticket price increase was included. There is a word hype in English, which is specially used to describe such a misnomer propaganda. It is said in advance that the flowers are good and the rice is good, but it is actually not worthy of the name; In short, it is what we often call a big bluff. Today, the American media has labeled The Flash as the biggest hype movie in 2023.
In fact, it is not clear to the outside world why Zaslav has worked so hard to personally promote The Flash. After all, the film is the product of the last generation of DC movie universe, and it is the legacy left by the former president of DC Film, Walter Hamada, who left at the end of last year. Hamada even found someone to write a script for Flash 2 early. Now that we have decided to let James Goon start over, and ezra miller, the star of The Flash, has already become a "negative asset" because of various scandals, Zaslav can actually keep a certain distance from the film. The only explanation, I’m afraid, is that Zaslav feels from the bottom of his heart that The Flash is really an excellent movie, and it will definitely get excellent box office results and hopefully shoot a sequel.
Aquaman 2 poster
What is in trouble is not limited to the movie "The Flash". The Blue Beetle, which will be released in August, and Aquaman 2, which will be released at the end of the year, are also the legacy of Hamada Walter. According to the current situation, including Shazam 2 and The Flash, the four DC movies released in 2023 are likely to fail to meet the expectations at the box office. The reason why the audience is no longer willing to pay for it is actually not difficult to understand: since DC movies will be fully restarted in 2025 with james gunn’s "Superman: Legacy", why spend time and money on the "old universe" that will be eliminated in 2023?
Blue Beetle poster
For Zaslav, "Shazam 2" and "The Flash" have become the past, and the lessons are not profound. So, what about The Blue Beetle and Aquaman 2? The production cost of "Blue Beetle" is $120 million. Originally, it was intended to be put directly on the streaming media platform without being released in theaters. However, james gunn is said to be quite optimistic about this IP, and it has been included in his restarted DC universe, so it will not only be released in theaters, but also be released with a lot of investment. Aquaman 2, whose production cost is $205 million, should still be in post-production, but in the future, it is likely to be abandoned by james gunn as a whole, just like Wonder Woman of Gal Gardo. If so, how much should Warner invest in Aquaman 2’s post-production and publicity to stop the loss in time?
The box office of the restricted comedy "Don’t take offense" was better than expected.
In the face of blockbusters, you can sing me out. Last weekend, the only new film that was fully released was the restricted comedy No Hard Feelings from Sony Pictures. The film was released in 3,208 theaters, and earned $15.1 million at the opening box office, which was better than the industry’s expected $10 million, but it was not very good.
"Don’t take offense" poster
"Don’t take offense" is directed by Gene Stupnitsky, and jennifer lawrence, the winner of the Oscar for Best Actress, takes the lead. It tells the story that her Uber driver is forced to agree to a couple’s strange request for a living: to date their son, who is about to enter college, and to help this shy and introverted boy bid farewell to his virginity. At present, the film’s freshness on the film review website "Rotten Tomatoes" has reached 68%, and it seems that it is not good enough to boost the subsequent box office.
Restricted comedies like this have always been reserved items in North America’s summer programs, and this year is no exception. Besides "Don’t take it amiss", there will be three similar films of Lionsgate’s "Joy Ride", Universal Pictures’ "Strays" and MGM’s "Bottoms" to meet the audience one after another. However, the box office performance of "Don’t take offense" has sounded the alarm for these other three films. The opening box office of $15.1 million, compared horizontally, is not only inferior to the opening box office of $21.4 million in 2019 of director Stupnitsky’s previous film "Good Boys", but also far inferior to the opening box office of $23.2 million of the similar film "Bear Hey" released in February this year.
Once upon a time, the youthful comedy represented by the American Pie series was also a big fist product of Hollywood movies, which earned good revenue in both domestic and overseas markets. However, with the change of social atmosphere and the change of audience’s appreciation taste, such works are declining day by day. Even the successful "Hangover" series has been the product of ten years ago.
Moreover, readers who pay attention to Hollywood movies may also find that the production cost of these new films released recently, no matter what kind of cassette, has increased significantly compared with the past. On the one hand, this is because most of these films were shot during the epidemic, and the strict epidemic prevention policy imposed by Hollywood brought a lot of extra expenses (masks, vaccines, nucleic acids, social bubbles, etc.). On the other hand, in the past, many parts of the world have experienced a serious round of inflation, and everything has gone up. Even films that are not filmed in the United States will still cost more money than in the past.
Therefore, it is said that the production cost of a comedy film like "Don’t take offense" is as high as $45 million, and there are even rumors that it is $70 million-I believe a considerable part of it is paid by jennifer lawrence. For reference, Don’t Look Up earned $25 million the year before last.
PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that China’s box office will lead North America in the next five years.
On the whole, in the last weekend of June, no movie grossed more than $20 million, and the total box office in North America in these three days was only about $110 million. From 2015 to 2019, the box office in North America was about $200 million this weekend. Even in the same period last year, when the epidemic was not far away, the box office was about $25 million more than the same period this year.
Interestingly, just last week, PricewaterhouseCoopers released a latest forecast report on the global film market, and made a number of bold predictions. They estimate that the global film market will reach 7.2 billion movie-goers in 2027, still slightly lower than the 7.9 billion in 2019, but the actual box office revenue will definitely exceed that in 2019 because of the price increase of tickets. Specifically, they predict that the global box office in 2024 will be $38.8 billion, which is close to $39.4 billion in 2019. By 2025, the global box office will reach $43 billion, exceeding the level before the epidemic. By 2027, the total box office value will jump to an unprecedented $52.1 billion.
In addition, according to the forecast of PricewaterhouseCoopers, during the five years from 2023 to 2027, the film market in China will basically keep ahead all the way, ranking first in the world. By 2027, the movie box office in China will be as high as $13.2 billion, far exceeding the $11.9 billion in North America.
Historically, China’s mainland movie box office surpassed the United States in 2020 and 2021, ranking first in the world. However, these two years are special periods when the world is affected by the epidemic. Last year, affected by multiple factors, the annual box office in mainland China was only $4.3 billion, which was surpassed again by the $7.5 billion North American market. So far this year, the box office in North America is about US$ 4.2 billion, and the total box office in China is RMB 25 billion. The former is still ahead.
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