Author | Li Xunhuan
Editor | Chimu Bottle
Once again, Jackie Chan's new film has been dubbed the "big hit". Before
was released on July 10, " legend " "directed by Tang Jili + starring Jackie Chan" had been screened for nearly a week. However, while it received more than 35 million views at the box office, it also faced a severely polarized reputation. Some viewers think this is a typical summer family carnival and Jackie Chan Kung Fu comedy, and the scenes of galloping horses are worth the price of admission. Others think this is a masterpiece that is disguised as a sequel to "The Myth of ". A bad movie that will make them dig their toes into the ground.
The reviews released after nearly one million viewers entered the theater, and the short comments spread by word of mouth in Moments, affected the box office performance of "Legend" on the first day of release.
html On the day it was released on July 10, the box office of "Legend" was only 6.669 million. was about one-tenth of the same-day box office of the one-week-old movie "Silence", which was also the worst performance for a "Jackie Chan-starring" movie in the past five years.
According to data from Maoyan Professional Edition, "Legend" has a predicted total box office of 104 million, but in the next two days, in addition to the strong box office of "Silent Kill", "Legend" will also be defeated by the menacing "Despicable Me 4" Taking away some of the scheduled films, not to mention that "Catch a Baby" will start large-scale screenings nationwide this Saturday, it is unlikely that the total box office of "Legend" will exceed the 100 million mark.
Whether it is Bona Pictures, which has invested hundreds of millions, or Jackie Chan and the fans who love Jackie Chan movies, this seems to be an unacceptable thing.
Some netizens in the Douban voting group believe that Jackie Chan's new film is based on the formula that "the film studio's share is one-third of the movie's box office" and the recent report from The Hollywood Reporter that "Legend cost US$5,000" (approximately 350 million yuan). Blood loss of 200-300 million. As early as 2019, some Zhihu netizens asked "Why are Jackie Chan's movies so tepid now?"
But one thing that makes Jackie Chan’s movies different from most mainland movies is that they have huge overseas copyright income. The copyrights of movies starring Jackie Chan can often be sold to dozens or even hundreds of countries, bringing income ranging from millions of dollars to tens of millions of dollars to the film producers. Many films have production costs covered before they are released. This is why the public thinks that Jackie Chan's movies are always "hitting the streets", but Jackie Chan always gets a lot of film appointments.
Although the last movie starring Jackie Chan was "very popular", it can be traced back to 2017's " British Showdown " and " Kung Fu Yoga ", but from an industry perspective, the global copyright sales ability of Jackie Chan's movies, It is definitely worth learning from mainland films. If you want to break the box office record of "Changjin Lake" and raise the box office of a single film to more than 800 million US dollars, global film distribution is an unavoidable hurdle.
"Legend" has been in the cold, and has its box office and word-of-mouth hits the market?
"Jackie Chan movies hit the streets" is no longer a new term.
Starting from the 2017 Lunar New Year release of ": ", every time a new Jackie Chan movie is released, the media will always use such a name.
In terms of box office alone, "Blood of the Machine" in 2017 was 305 million, the Spring Festival film "Detective Pu Songling" in 2019 was 160 million, the National Day film " Pioneer " in 2020 was 294 million, and " Dragon Horse Spirit" in 23 》210 million, in the current movie market where a box office of more than one billion is required to be considered a hit, it is indeed not outstanding.
If you compare Jackie Chan's past movies, you will find that he became famous in 1978 when he starred in "Drunken Master". As of 2017, "Kung Fu Yoga" has earned 1.748 billion in box office. In most years of the past 40 years, he has been in the top five box office. There are many figures who have won annual awards. In last year's movie market, "The Spirit of Dragon and Horse" starring Jackie Chan ranked outside the 50th place, and "Legend" released yesterday is no exception. Some people have dubbed Jackie Chan "box office poison" because of this.
According to data released by "The Hollywood Reporter", the cost of "Legend" is US$50 million (approximately RMB 348 million). The first producer, Bona, once announced the estimated cost of "Legend" when "Legend" was in production. The total investment was 290 million, , but then Bona significantly reduced its investment in "Legend".
Bona's announcement again on January 11 this year showed that the estimated publicity and distribution cost of "Legend" is 150 million. At that time, there were rumors in the industry that "Legend" would be scheduled for the Spring Festival this year, competing with films such as "Hot and Furious" and "Flying Life 2". However, "Legend" did not enter the Spring Festival schedule, but chose the summer release. Released.
Without the huge admission fee and ticket subsidy for the Spring Festival, the publicity and distribution cost of "Legend" has been reduced from the estimated 150 million to 40 million, while the production cost is 110 million, and the total cost is about 150 million. Judging from the blockbuster slate announced by Bona during the Shanghai Film Festival and related interviews with Yu Dong, this fund should be invested in the production of films such as "Operation Dragon". Although film companies such as China and Emperor also invested, judging from Bona's position as the number one producer after significantly reducing investment, the investment of these film companies is not high, and it is not the "more than 300 million investment" reported online. , 1 billion return."
Although the famous scene of thousands of horses galloping looks expensive, the actual cost and production effect are another matter. Judging from the long list of thanks and early reports after the screening of "Legend", "Legend" has received strong support from the Xinjiang government and local herders. It can hardly be said to be market price, but closer to resource replacement.
is limited to the level of director Tang Jili in recent years. This action scene with thousands of horses galloping did not make the audience feel excited. In terms of the realism on the battlefield, it is not as good as Chen Kexin's " vote for fame ". In terms of the shock of the big scene The feeling is far inferior to Wu Ershan's "Fengshen Part 1: Chao Ge Fengyun".
The poor effects of scenes such as circus are also a microcosm of Jackie Chan's movies in recent years. Looking at the major platforms dominated by Douban, the main drawbacks are that Jackie Chan has fewer action scenes, the young actors such as Yang Yang, Zhang Yixing, and Allen who collaborate with him are not up to standard, the laughs are awkward, the special effects are false, and the most fatal " The story is terrible."
In April last year, when "The Spirit of Dragon and Horse" was on the road show at Zhongchuan, a student confronted Jackie Chan and pointed out the shortcomings of the film and expressed that he wanted to refund the ticket. Later, "Jackie Chan was asked to refund the ticket on the spot" became the top trending search.
Jackie Chan is also well aware of these shortcomings. He expressed his responsibility as a senior filmmaker on more than one occasion. He often cooperated with local governments and cultural and tourism departments when filming movies, and led younger generation movie actors to film. He even complained about his inability to film in "Vanguard". I can only move by climbing stairs.
html In 2023, "Sandstorm" was 5.0 on Douban, "Spirit of Dragon and Horse" was 5.3 on Douban, and "Vanguard" was 4.4 on Douban in 2020... The last time a live-action movie starring Jackie Chan achieved a passing grade or above on Douban was back in 2017. "The Showdown between England".This "Legend", which is called the "sequel to "The Myth"", has not escaped criticism from the audience. Judging from the ratings of Jackie Chan's movies in the past few years and the real evaluation of the current movies on major platforms, the Douban of "Legend" It's hard to score more than 6 points. The two biggest drawbacks of are story and special effects.
When "The Myth" used time-travel settings to tell love stories more than ten years ago, it was still synonymous with novelty. But today, more than ten years later, there are at least a thousand ways of time-travel, and the story logic and character logic are both different. It’s hard to convince an audience.
Before the release of "Legend", one of the focus of the film's promotion was to use AI to restore the 27-year-old Jackie Chan.
ai The special effect of age reduction is very common in domestic and foreign movies, especially big-budget movies, such as "The Irishman" directed by Martin Scorsese, which reduced the age of actors such as De Niro, and " Gemini" directed by Ang Lee. "Killer " reproduced a 23-year-old Will Smith, and " The Wandering Earth 2" directed by Fan Guo also used AI to create a young Andy Lau.
"Legend" director Tang Jili also mentioned this in an interview. He said that compared to "Gemini Man", which made faces frame by frame, "Legend", which used technologies such as deep forgery, AI learning and 3D, effectively controlled the cost, only 20%-30% of it.
But perhaps due to the lower cost, the AI version of young Jackie Chan in "Legend" is not very effective, and the facial expression is very stiff. Many viewers mentioned the "fake face" and the "uncanny valley effect" in their reviews.
The box office is not enough, so I have to collect the copyright. Kung Fu Superstar, I can’t accept it.
But even so, it cannot be said that Jackie Chan’s movies are equated with “box office reputation and word-of-mouth hits”. Jackie Chan has made many contributions in increasing the film market, surpassing the 100 million mark in the number of films, and supporting young actors.
Compared with mainland films that only rely on the mainland market, a major feature of Jackie Chan's films is their huge overseas copyright income, which is also an important reason for his continuous film contracts over the years.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Jackie Chan's movies were synonymous with blockbusters. Wang Jing once said on "The Round Table" that if the names of Stephen Chow and Andy Lau and the title of the film "The Tricky Expert" were put there, it would have already started before filming started. Sold. Although this is a portrayal of the barbaric growth of gangs in the golden age of Hong Kong films, it is also a reflection of the box office appeal of Hong Kong films and Hong Kong stars.
Jackie Chan's movies are even worse. In addition to Hong Kong and Taiwan, which are well known to be very popular, can be found in Golden Harvest and Jackie Chan movies from European countries such as the United Kingdom, France, and Italy, to Japan and South Korea, the two major East Asian ticket warehouses, to some countries in the Middle East, South Africa, and South Asia. Figure , in many countries in South Africa and South America, discs of Jackie Chan movies can be sold better than many Hollywood movies. Russian audiences are familiar with movies such as "Red Zone", and they have even watched "The Adventures of Jackie Chan".
"Cannonball Run", a collaboration between Jackie Chan and Hollywood in the 1980s, set a record for the highest box office of an independent film in the United States. By the 1990s, the copyright price of Jackie Chan's movies had skyrocketed. Some North American film studios sold the films as Purchased the rights to five Jackie Chan films including "Human Torch" for US$40 million.
After Jackie Chan entered Hollywood, he joined the US$20 million salary club in just a few years. When the "Rush Hour" series was the most popular, the global box office of "Rush Hour 2" alone was US$347 million, which was equivalent to 28.7 at the exchange rate at the time. 100 million yuan (excluding related income from copyrights and discs). In terms of the mainland market, this box office record was not broken until 2016 by Stephen Chow's "The Mermaid".
From making a name for himself in Hong Kong, to selling the copyright of Golden Harvest, and then to global distribution in Hollywood, Jackie Chan has been the box office guarantee of Chinese-language films for decades. Film producers from dozens of countries and hundreds of countries have also purchased dozens of his films. year movie rights. The only one that can compete with in terms of overseas copyright sales and box office is Jet Li, who has been out of the film market for many years.
In the past ten years, although the box office and copyright income of Jackie Chan's movies are mostly not as good as those at their peak in the beginning of this century, they can still sell millions of dollars in box office in countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and the copyright income in a single country is more than 100,000. Even hundreds of thousands of dollars, dozens or hundreds of countries add up, it is very considerable.
"Zodiac" broke box office records for Chinese films in Russia, Singapore, Malaysia and other countries; the copyright fee for "Police Story 2013" exceeded US$30 million; the 15-year copyright for "Arch of Heroes" was sold to more than 70 countries and Region; 2016's "Escape" made money before it was released; 2017's "British Showdown" had a North American box office of 34 million U.S. dollars, and the Sino-Indian co-production "Kung Fu Yoga" had a mainland box office of 1.748 billion...
The investment is too large and difficult to recover The cost is not without cost. For example, "Vanguard" was released during the National Day release in 2020. However, the copyright of this film was sold to 145 countries and regions, making it the top Chinese-language film that year. Last year's "The Spirit of Dragon and Horse" did not do well at the box office in the mainland, but its overseas copyright income was not low. Before "Legend" was released, the copyright income had already reached more than 5 million US dollars.
At the 77th Cannes International Film Festival held in mid-May this year, film producers from many countries would ask the Hong Kong distributors at the booth if they had any new Jackie Chan films. For these countries, Jackie Chan has become the golden age of Hong Kong movies. The brand established in the 1960s and the global kung fu superstar status that emerged from Hollywood still applies.
There are also many films to be broadcast and in the preparation and production stages. "P Plan" starring Jackie Chan was sold in more than 50 countries and regions at Cannes this year. Following "The Spirit of Dragon and Horse" by director Yang Zi and Hairun Pictures, The collaborative project "Bad Guys" was approved last year, and the "Kung Fu Kid" ("Kung Fu Dreams 2"), a collaboration with Sony Pictures, has been scheduled to be released in North America on May 30, 2025.
In recent years, movies by Guo Fan, Wu Jing, Jia Ling and others have repeatedly broken box office records in various aspects. However, whether it is global box office revenue or the number of copyrights sold, they are still far behind Jackie Chan's movies.
From this perspective, even though Jackie Chan has "stopped being the big brother for many years" in the mainland, Chinese movies still have to call him "Jackie Chan big brother". I just don’t know, when will I be able to fight like my big brother after going to sea?
