last week coincided with the Independence Day of the United States. This period has always been a hot spot in the North American film market and can be called the hottest among the hottest. This year, led by the two sequel animated films " Despicable Me 4" and " Inside Out 2", the Independence Day schedule achieved good results, which further boosted the popularity of the summer movie.
"Despicable Me 4" was well received by the audience for being "not preachy"
The biggest new film released on Independence Day this year is the animated film "Despicable Me 4" produced by Universal Pictures and produced by Illumination Entertainment Studio. ) none other than. The film was released in 4,428 theaters in North America on July 3, local time, and earned an opening box office of US$74.98 million; if calculated based on the five opening days of the first week, it was US$122 million, exceeding previous market expectations.
"Despicable Me 4" poster
This film is the sixth film in the "Minions" universe. North American audiences have no aesthetic fatigue with it. They gave the film an A-level post-screening score, which is better than the previous film. Despicable Me 3's A-level is half a level higher. In fact, among the six movies in the "Minions" universe, only "Despicable Me 3" is rated A-, and the other five are all rated A, which shows that the audience has always loved it since its release 14 years ago. - In sharp contrast, "Despicable Me 4" has a freshness rating of only 53% on the film review website "Rotten Tomatoes", which is below the passing line and is regarded as a bad film by professional film critics.
The reason why the audience enjoys it is partly due to the charm of "Minions" itself. The producer, Illumination Entertainment, entertains for the sake of entertainment, and the attitude of not preaching or feeding chicken soup in family movies may also be partly responsible. Many American media, in their analysis articles talking about the box office success of the "Despicable Me" series, cited the opinions of local American audiences on social media: people especially appreciate its "detached from real life" feature, emphasizing that the current situation in the United States is due to The presidential election is noisy and impetuous, and the social atmosphere tends to be divided; therefore, audiences hope to temporarily escape reality in the movie world. On the contrary, many Hollywood animations represented by Disney now emphasize progressive consciousness and social mission, placing entertainment and storytelling in a secondary position, which is in sharp contrast to the pure entertainment of "Minions". "I don't need a movie to teach me how to be a human being. It's a pity that movies like "Despicable Me 4" are becoming less and less now." Some American netizens said this.
In terms of "breaking away from real life", one of the magic weapons of the "Minion" universe is "time freezing". In other words, 14 years have actually passed since the first part of the series was released in 2010, but the characters in the movie have not grown up with the passage of time. Director Chris Renaud said that they chose an approach similar to the animated series "The Simpsons", where the characters were frozen within a fixed period of time and their ages remained the same. Although this means that the audience cannot see the plot of the characters going through life stages such as adolescence, it also means that for relatively nostalgic audiences, the characters and stories they are already familiar with can remain unchanged. , don’t worry about the impact of time on the character. If we want to analyze it from an ideological perspective, we can say that this is a tendency of conservatism and conservativeness, which is exactly the opposite of the progressive orientation that Disney has emphasized in recent years to keep pace with the times.
Stills from "Inside Out 2"
Speaking of Disney, the second-ranked film during the Independence Day weekend happened to be its production of "Inside Out 2." Although the film has been released for four weeks, it still has strong stamina, with a weekend box office of US$30 million, surpassing two other large-scale new films. The North American box office of "Inside Out 2" has exceeded the $500 million mark, becoming the fastest among all animated films in history to do so, three days earlier than Pixar Animation's "The Incredibles 2" in 2018. Cross this threshold. Currently, "Inside Out 2" is the third-highest-grossing animated film in North American box office history, and the sixth-highest-grossing animated film worldwide.
In other words, the top two on the weekend box office list for this important period are both animated films.It’s no wonder that some box office analysis experts joked: If there were no animated movies, could North American theaters survive? So far in 2024, the total box office of animated films in North America has reached US$1 billion, accounting for more than a quarter of the total box office; for the whole of 2023, animated films will account for only 18% of the total box office in North America.
In addition, 90% of the total box office this weekend came from sequels or series of works, and " Barbie ", "Oppenheimer" and "Sound of Liberty" that were popular in the same period last year were all original works. The latter situation has led box office analysts to assert that to regain the favor of audiences, Hollywood needs to increase the production of original movies, because North American audiences have grown tired of endless series. However, things are obviously very different this year. Most of the original movies such as "The Runaway Player" have average box office, but the series of movies have become the box office drivers by relying on family fun elements that are suitable for all ages. All in all, the tastes of North American audiences are becoming increasingly elusive, and it is increasingly difficult for a film to achieve commercial success.
The recovery of the North American summer season drives global box office growth
Another highly anticipated new film released last weekend was the horror film "Maxxine" produced by a24. The film is the third part of the "x" series trilogy. Like the previous two films, it is still directed by Tee West and stars Mia Goss. It opened with US$6.7 million in 3,120 theaters over the three weekends. box office. Although it was the best in the series, due to the schedule effect of Independence Day and its good reputation, this result was actually lower than market expectations.
Another new film is "Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot" produced by Angel Pictures, which made a blockbuster hit with "Sound of Freedom" last year. Last year, also on the Independence Day schedule, they launched "Sounds of Freedom" with implicit patriotic themes, which aroused the enthusiasm of audiences in the central United States and created a box office miracle. This year's "Problem Children of Rat Run" not only follows the title of the previous film, but also follows a similar real-life theme. It tells the heartwarming story of a pastor in Texas who adopts disadvantaged children. However, it only received $3.14 million at the box office at the opening. . Compared to the $14.2 million opening box office of "Sound of Liberty", it's really a world of difference.
Overall, this summer season, or the overall box office situation of North American movies this year, has improved greatly. Moreover, this trend not only appears in the United States, but also radiates to other film markets.
In the first half of last week, from June 30 to July 3, the French held the 39th National Film Festival (la fete du cinéma). Similar to the "Movie Day" event in the United States, its main focus is a low-price promotion, with tickets for all movies and all time periods (but excluding 3D movies and other special screenings) in participating cinemas across France for four days. The price is uniformly 5 euros per ticket.
In the end, a total of 4.65 million people entered the venue over the four days, which not only set a new record for previous National Film Festival events, but also saw a significant increase of 50% compared to 2023. On Sunday, June 30 alone, 1.45 million movie tickets were sold. Almost one in 50 French people watched a movie that day, making it the most popular day for moviegoers in France since 2019.
" The Count of Monte Cristo " poster
It is worth mentioning that this year's National Film Festival coincides with the French parliamentary election and the European Cup, but these cannot stop the French people's enthusiasm for watching movies. Films popular with French audiences include the imported film "Inside Out 2" and the new version of the French domestic blockbuster "The Count of Monte Cristo."
At almost the same time, on the other side of the world in Mexico, the audience also showed great enthusiasm for "Inside Out 2". The current box office has reached about 1.5 billion Mexican pesos ($81.8 million), which has surpassed "The Avengers" 4"'s box office total in Mexico that year was second only to the US$85.3 million of "Super Mario Bros. Movie". I believe it will take the top spot at the Mexican box office soon. From a global perspective, Mexico accounts for nearly 10% of the global box office of "Inside Out 2" of more than US$1.2 billion, ranking first among all overseas markets.
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