Chapter 1997: 1997 Summer Heat Wave
The performance of comedy movies in the summer has always had an excellent traditional history, last year's "Men in Black", 1995's "Ghost Horse Elf", 1994's "Ghost in Disguise" and so on. Especially after entering the 1990s, exaggerated comedies represented by Jim Carrey became the mainstream, and it is the best proof to become a member of the "Twenty Million Club" with the outstanding momentum of many works-although currently only Only one work has received such a salary.
However, comedy movies are limited by themes-it is very difficult to make the audience laugh. Coupled with cost limitations, limitations of publicity methods, and audience base limitations, there is not much room for comedy movies in the summer file.
Although "Men in Black" created an excellent box office record last year, it is a comedy, but it is more of a sci-fi comedy. Box office champ. More often, comedy movies are still active in the holiday season. The atmosphere of Thanksgiving and Christmas gives works such as "Home Alone", "Dumb and Dumber", "Slim Dad", "Shorty" and other works have inherent advantages, often able to Create even better box office results.
The disadvantage of comedy movies is also an advantage: the cost is low, but the audience is far wider than horror movies. This makes comedy movies the best carrier for a small and big business—Universal Pictures started out with comedy movies, and they can often exchange an investment of 10 million or 20 million for a North American box office of more than 100 million. It was so popular that Universal Pictures was able to occupy a place among the eight major production companies in Hollywood.
As a comedy film, "The Truman Show" cost 60 million US dollars is already a high-investment and large-scale production, but considering the joining of Hugo, Nicole Kidman, Alexander Lorraine and others, all of this It is also acceptable. However, what kind of box office performance this work can create is a huge question mark.
People have enough confidence in Hugo, and there is no doubt that "The Truman Show" can achieve a good box office. However, under the current situation of "The Sixth Sense" topic, many media have also put forward such a point of view: Comedy movie is Hugo's first attempt - "Sleepless in Seattle" cannot be counted, and the upcoming "Sixth Sense of Spirituality" as a horror movie is also Hugo's first attempt. No one knows Hugo and comedy movies, horror movies What kind of sparks will collide, but at least now we can get some clues from the box office performance of "The Truman Show"-that is, how receptive are people to Hugo's other images?
This is not a character image, but a style image. To put it simply, the audience has an image that is most suitable for each actor, Tom Hanks' family man taste, Tom Cruise's creamy boy temperament-but after "Mission: Impossible", it changed into Action hunk, Brad Pitt's sex. Masculinity, Jim Carrey's exaggerated and funny style, Leonardo DiCaprio's exquisite teenage appearance-this has also become the biggest cage that hampers his acting career, and so on.
Prior to this, Hugo had appeared in many movies with various roles, but on the whole, Hugo's mixed temperament wandering between men and boys has become the deepest impression on people. Even though Hugo starred in "Friends" and won an Emmy Award for it, there is still no way to directly connect Hugo and funny. There is still a difference between humor and funny. Hugo has humor, but not Possesses a flair for being funny; again, Hugo and the horror-movie temperament aren't quite the right kind of--blood-plasma-type horror flick.
Now, "The Truman Show" can be a touchstone to see how Hugo performs in comedy movies, and also to see how wide the audience's acceptance of Hugo is. This will not have much impact on Hugo's future career. Even if "The Truman Show" and "The Sixth Sense" failed, with Hugo's current status, he only needs to return to the drama film , will be able to succeed again, so this is not the focus of media discussion; the uncrowned kings are discussing whether the success of comedy movies and horror movies determines the breadth and breadth of Hugo's future career, that is, Hugo, a top superstar limit range.
So, "The Truman Show" can achieve box office success, how should this success be defined?
From a horizontal comparison of films of the same type, "Men in Black" had a premiere box office of 51 million last year, while "Grandmaid in Mask" had a premiere box office of 23 million, and "Dumb and Dumber" 's opening weekend grossed 16 million, and "Still Me" took in 20 million in its first weekend.
From this set of data, it can be seen that it is difficult for comedy movies to burst out the huge energy of disaster movies, action movies, and sci-fi movies. The box office data that fluctuates around 20 million is already a huge success—"Men in Black" It is mainly known as a science fiction movie. Comedy movies rely more on word-of-mouth, and their long-term box-selling ability is very strong, even comparable to family-friendly animated movies. This is also an important reason why comedy movies are difficult to stand out-only works with outstanding reputation and pleasing audiences can stand out in the long-term competition.
Since entering the summer season this year, although the two films "Clash of Heaven and Earth" and "Godzilla" have not been able to show the box office momentum of "Independence Day" and "Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World", the two films The box office of the works is very good. "Clash of Heaven" had a premiere box office of 41 million and won the championship for two consecutive weeks; "Godzilla" had a premiere box office of 44 million and also won the championship for two weeks.
It can be seen that the premiere box office of these two disaster blockbusters is at the 40 million level. Compared with the investment level, this result has not really met everyone's expectations. Especially "Godzilla", Roland Emmerich's relaunched work after "Independence Day", once again showed his style of disaster master, but suffered double cold reception from word of mouth and audience.
The media’s comprehensive evaluation is only 32 points, and the theater score is only "C". The most important thing is that the box office has not been able to show a strong momentum-the opening weekend box office is only on the same day as "Independence Day" on July 4th. The income of 36 million US dollars is only on a horizontal line, so the performance is really disappointing.
Many media began to criticize Roland impatiently, causing the word-of-mouth of "Godzilla" to slide further into the abyss. This is also what was expected before the movie was released - after "Independence Day" created an insurmountable peak, people are bound to There are more expectations for "Godzilla". Once the reality is lower than expected, the turbulent disappointment will make the feedback fluctuate greatly.
To make matters worse, "Godzilla" is about to face the impact of "Truman's World" after barely holding on to the championship for two consecutive weeks. This is not good news for Roland.
Comparing the box office results of comedy movies in previous years, comparing the box office energy of this year's summer season, and referring to Hugo's strong box office appeal to the audience, all major media have given relatively close data in terms of premiere box office predictions.
The "Los Angeles Times" believes that the film's premiere box office can reach 31 million US dollars. The media that support this view include the "Washington Post", "Chicago Tribune" and so on; The screening data should fluctuate around 25 million, and the media close to this data include "San Francisco Chronicle", "USA Today" and so on.
The highest forecast was the Seattle Times, which said "The Truman Show" was capable of taking in $33 million, while the lowest forecast was the Daily News, which said it would take in $22 million. The premiere box office is their guesswork.
From the speculative data of the media, it can be seen that even with the controversy of "Sixth Sense", people still fully affirmed Hugo's box office ability. Mentor "Peter Weir's cooperation after ten years has made people look forward to it even more.
Although the predictions of the uncrowned kings are quite different, they have actually created new highs for comedy movies. The current top-grossing debut for a comedy is "Men in Black" at $51 million, followed by "True Lies" at $26 million and "Professor Fat" at $26 million. Twenty-five million.
Although "Men in Black" and "True Lies" are both classified as comedy movies, it is well known that the success of these two works is not due to the "comedy" part. So the all-time opening record for a really pure comedy is $25 million for "Professor Fat."
In other words, everyone is optimistic that Hugo will break the record again and create the best premiere performance of a comedy movie. Even under a series of unfavorable circumstances, people still express such opinions, which shows the current confidence in Hugo in the North American market. However, the media's predictions are relatively conservative, the overall gap is not big, and everyone's views are almost consistent, which also shows the current media's reserved attitude towards "comedy movies".
Even the attitude of Paramount Pictures is no exception, they announced their own internal opening box office forecast data: 30 million US dollars.
This data is quite satisfactory, but it is also the expected value of Paramount Pictures for "The Truman Show"-in other words, as long as the premiere box office reaches this data, Paramount Pictures can breathe a sigh of relief. The forecast of 30 million US dollars is basically consistent with the overall trend of the media, and it can also be seen that the current attitude of the entire North American market is relatively unified.
However, predictions are just predictions, and the real results still need to be known after the movie is released. On June 1, 1998, it was a Monday, and "The Truman Show" debuted amidst countless heated discussions in Los Angeles. The National Theater held a grand premiere ceremony to build momentum for the upcoming nationwide release this Friday.
With all eyes on, Hugo took to the stage with a new challenge of his own.