Chapter 1879: 1879 Conservative Forecast
The summer of 1997 has come to an end. This is undoubtedly an atypical summer. The box office hit that people expected did not appear. Not only that, several highly anticipated works have suffered from box office Waterloo, It is even more disappointing. The most representative of them is undoubtedly "Batman and Robin". The manga adaptation of Head Name Throne.
Although "Men in Black" and "Air Force One" performed well in the August schedule and achieved good results, they were not a little bit worse than last year's summer schedule led by "Independence Day". Not to mention the historical record of 40 consecutive weeks of "storms" in the music market, which almost took away all the charm of the summer file, which makes people quite dumbfounded.
People are talking about whether the special phenomenon of "Independence Day" is short-lived. This work has created a box office miracle relying on Hugo's strong appeal and realistic computer special effects, but it is a miracle that other works are difficult to replicate. Even "Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World" has not been able to reach such heights, so what other works can continue the strength of this commercial blockbuster? This is a question that almost everyone in the film industry is wondering.
Perhaps, the answer still needs to be found in Hugo, because on September 19th, "LA Confidential" will be released soon!
As the most watched top superstar in the world today, Hugo's every move can attract the attention of countless people. Since the end of the "Storm" world tour, Hugo has almost entered a long vacation. Even the paparazzi seldom caught him. Later, the filming of "LA Confidential", the 40 consecutive championships of "Storm" and the launch of "As Good as It Gets" made people feel deeply about this top superstar again. With a strong appeal, it almost dominates all the focus of the entire entertainment industry with a sweeping attitude.
In fact, after "Independence Day" created a new record in North American film history, Hugo completely disappeared from the movie screen in the next year. Too much attention grabbing, almost stealing everyone's style, not to mention the impact of the re-emergence of the golden age of rock and roll on everyone. While lamenting the amazing achievement of Glory to Death, people can't help but start discussing: When will the great actor whose every move can affect the market, come back?
Warner Bros. has given the answer. On Wednesday, September 17th, "LA Confidential" will hold its world premiere in Los Angeles; Simultaneous release in theaters!
After the announcement of this news, the whole of North America boiled up. The grand opening ceremony of "LA Confidential" is still vivid in my memory. Two years later, Hugo once again starred in the leading role. Just when people almost thought that Hugo would not be seen within this year, Warner Bros. gave everyone a huge surprise.
Amid the discussions, many people have discovered an important problem: In September two years ago, "Seven Deadly Sins" made its debut with a shocking attitude, and its outstanding box office performance changed everyone's impression of the autumn season; And now, "LA Confidential" will once again challenge the cold schedule in September-of course, people have already noticed that the so-called schedule dilemma has never existed for Hugo, but the problem is: "LA Can "Confidential" replicate the miracle of "The Seven Deadly Sins"?
In 1995, "Seven Deadly Sins" was released on September 22. The box office data of the opening weekend was 34 million US dollars, which created a great miracle in the history of movies. The September schedule broke out with enough box office data to determine the winner in the summer, and it turned out to be a cumulative box office of 195 million US dollars, easily holding countless historical records in its arms.
In 1996, the autumn file in September was still under the strong storm of "Independence Day". The accumulated box office has made people attribute the glory of "Seven Deadly Sins" to a flash in the pan.
In 1997, "LA Confidential" will once again challenge the desolation and loneliness of the autumn film, trying to give a hint to the confusion of the entire film industry: Is the emergence of "Independence Day" a habit or a special case? Is the box office potential of the fall file real or hypothetical? Excellent movies can survive in the autumn, or the effect of star actors may become a booster, or only Hugo has such ability?
Can "LA Confidential" succeed? If successful, can the record of "Seven Deadly Sins" be broken? If it fails, does this mean that Hugo's golden touch has started to make mistakes? Most importantly, compared with Hugo's previous countless brilliance, "LA Confidential" gathered a lot of expectations before it was released, so what kind of height must this work achieve to meet these expectations? Word of mouth, box office, quality, response... all are indispensable, but they all set high standards. There is no comparison with "Independence Day" or "Death Row Walk", but "LA Confidential" is comparable to "Seven Deadly Sins" in terms of subject matter, core, target audience, and genre style. Is it another "Seven Deadly Sins"?
As the third week of September approached, the news media became lively again. This time, it was not about the news that "Storm" still firmly occupied the second place on the Billboard album list after forty weeks of consecutive championships, but about "Seven deadly sins" the prospects of this work.
However, surprisingly, most of the media's box office estimates are relatively conservative, even the "Los Angeles Times" is no exception. In fact, the reason is very simple, not because the media is not optimistic about "LA Confidential", but because the timing of the "Seven Deadly Sins" miracle was too special: the entire North America was shrouded in the wave of resistance against the uncrowned king, and the interests were paramount , entertainment to death, and criticism of social indifference reached an all-time high.
A work like "Seven Deadly Sins" is placed in such an era background, which further stimulates people's expectations and crowds, which makes the premiere weekend such an incredible effect. The right time, place and people are indispensable.
In fact, the same is true for the "Independence Day" box office miracle. The timing of the release on July 4th, Hugo's successful summit on Oscar night, and the continuous bombing of publicity after the Super Bowl, all released energy for the film's premiere box office. Conditions are created, and history is created.
However, the release time of "LA Confidential" was quite mediocre, and the heat wave of the summer vacation has just extinguished—people were greatly disappointed in the film market, and their interest was waning. attention plummeted. Of course, Hugo's appeal is still a deadly weapon, not to mention the powerful cast of "LA Confidential", but "Time" has lost its opportunity, and "LA Confidential" wants to replicate the miracle of "The Seven Deadly Sins" , is too difficult.
Therefore, the media's box office estimates are relatively conservative, not because of any negative emotions, but just seeking truth from facts.
The lowest box office forecast for "L.A. Confidential" is the "San Francisco Chronicle"-this is really beyond the expectations of many people. They think that the film's premiere box office should be around 10 million, in the cold autumn. , was able to successfully win the weekend box office champion in the third week of September, but it was too difficult to break the record. That estimate is lower than the eleven million that The New York Post predicted.
Objectively speaking, the weekend box office of $10 million in the September schedule can already be regarded as an outstanding performance. However, the "San Francisco Chronicle" eliminated the strong influence of Hugo's box office appeal and gave a "moderate data in a moderate situation", which is actually not optimistic about "LA Confidential".
Relatively speaking, the highest-grossing forecast was not the Los Angeles Times—again, unexpectedly—but the Chicago Tribune, who said that "LA Confidential" would make $30 million in its debut. In other words, while they couldn't break the horrific opening record of "The Seven", they still believed that the movie could win the whole market.
The "Chicago Tribune"'s point of view is also very simple, "fans who have been suffocating for fifteen months will not be stingy with seven dollars in their pockets-at least not with Hugo Lancaster." Although this There was some ridicule in the words, but it hit the point: Hugo's box office appeal should not be underestimated even in the deserted September.
Nicholas McCllen of the Los Angeles Times backed Hugo this time without any surprises, "Lancaster, Spacey, Crowe, and Theron are enough to make people look forward to the cast." Hope! What's more, this script will not disappoint: Lancaster's super high requirements and sensitive touch for scripts are well known. "LA Confidential" may not be "Seven Deadly Sins", but similar themes are still very important. The script put forward extremely high requirements, and Lancaster not only nodded and agreed to play, but also served as the producer of the film, which shows his strong confidence. Just this reason is enough."
However, Nicholas is relatively restrained when predicting the box office. The box office performance of 22 million US dollars can also be among the top in film history, but there is still a huge gap compared with "Seven Deadly Sins".
It can be seen that no matter which media it is, they are very cautious when predicting the box office, because they have deeply understood a truth: "If Hugo produces, it must be a masterpiece". This law has gradually penetrated into the masses and become One of the most important rules of the North American film market. The only question is whether this masterpiece is a commercial box office work like "Seven Deadly Sins", or a work that is very popular in the video tape market like "Before Sunrise".
Or...another possibility: no more good works, but tragedy?