In this summer season, who lit the first "fire" in the cinema? It is none other than " Catch a Baby " starring Shen Teng and Ma Li. On July 13, the box office of "Catch a Baby" exceeded 150 million yuan on its first day of screening, strongly winning the championship. It has been more than 2 months since the entire film market, and the single-day box office exceeded 300 million yuan again. At present, this film has become the darling of major movie theaters and is called the local version of "The Truman Show" by audiences. What is the magic power of "Catch a Baby" that can single-handedly "catch" audiences into the cinema?
"Catch a Baby" also "caught" the box office
The summer season has entered the mid-term, but the box office performance has been sluggish. Last weekend, the situation finally turned around - "Catch a Baby" starring Shen Teng and Ma Li " is scheduled to be officially released on July 16, and advance screening will begin on July 13 (last Saturday). The comedy duo of Shen Teng and Ma Li are well-deserved for their reputation. Even during the screening period, "Catch a Baby" has shown strong momentum.
Jinan Times·New Yellow River reporter found that the major movie theaters in Jinan City focused on the film "Catch a Baby": The staff of Shanwen Xinghui Cinema (Harmony Plaza Store) told reporters, "Get the movie." For example, on July 15th, from 10:00 a.m. to 22:00, the movie theater had as many as 20 shows scheduled for "Catch a Baby". Not long after it opened in the morning, 30 tickets for some prime shows were already booked. -40 pictures." She explained that last weekend, more than half of the audience who went to the theater to watch the movie came for "Catch a Baby", and the movie theater allocated half of the screenings to "Catch a Baby." , the film also occupied more than half of the box office share of the market. Coincidentally, even though July 15th is a Monday, Jinan Wanda Cinema (Jingsi Road IMAX store) has scheduled as many as 25 shows per day for "Catch a Baby". After the mall gets off work at 22:00, there are still four shows scheduled at 22:00, 22:30, 23:00, and 23:30. Among them, the latest 23:30 show ends at 1:43 the next day. .
Major theater chains gave "Catch a Baby" the same treatment as the premiere of a commercial blockbuster. It can be seen that the market is very hungry for Shen Teng and Ma Li, and "Catch a Baby" has lived up to expectations. Considerable box office appeal: On July 13, the box office of "Catch a Baby" exceeded 150 million yuan on its first day of screening, strongly winning the championship. For the first time in more than two months, the single-day box office of the entire film market exceeded 300 million yuan. Since the screening started on July 13, "Catch a Baby" has been the "Daily Box Office Champion" and "Next-Day Movie Viewer Top" for three consecutive days. Most viewers are quite satisfied with the homework handed in by Happy Twist. Managers of major cinemas, while lamenting the box office appeal of Shen Teng and Ma Li, also boldly predicted that as long as "Catch a Baby" performs stably, there is basically no problem for the movie's box office to exceed 3 billion yuan, and the top seeded contestants for the mainland summer season championship are tentatively booked. .
The "fixed team" is "united" again
Previously, there were many voices who believed that in the post-epidemic era, the public's consumption interest in cultural and artistic industries such as movies has waned, and the overall film market this year has lacked momentum. This statement is not unreasonable. However, "Catch a Baby" has grossed hundreds of millions at the box office before it was officially released, which also proves the saying "the strong never complain about the environment." "Catch a Baby" has received such enthusiastic feedback from the market. Taken together, there are several reasons.
The production team of "Catch a Baby" is very luxurious and not watered down. Its main creative staff are all the "fixed team" of the Happy Twist series of hit comedy movies. This is a very important point: Yan Fei and Peng Damo are in this role. They are the directors and screenwriters of the film, and several high-quality films produced by Happy Twist such as " Charlotte's Sorrow " and " Xihong City's Richest Man " that are familiar to the audience are all produced by the two people. The male and female protagonists are Shen Teng and Ma Li, the most popular "Shen Ma" combination at the moment. Since most of the movies Shen Teng and Ma Li starred in before have a certain quality guarantee, and the two have high emotional intelligence, they work well together. , making this comedy pair quite popular, and their supporting roles in the film are as natural as a real couple.These golden partners have almost become the box office guarantee of comedy movies. In addition, before "Catch a Baby" was released, it was promoted that the film was the latest copy based on the "Xihong City Universe". The audience still remembers the experience of being amused by films such as "The Richest Man in Xihong City"... It has repeatedly set box office records. The "fixed team" of Miracle has once again "come together", and coupled with the audience's filter, this gives "Catch a Baby" its own inherent advantages.
In addition to its inherent advantages, the production level of videos is also relatively online. "Catch a Baby" still focuses on topics related to "money" that everyone is interested in. However, it is different from the confusion and emptiness of successful people after they have "money" in "Charlotte Troubles", nor is it the trouble of "spending money randomly" on the basis of adhering to morality after becoming rich overnight in "The Richest Man in Xihong City" , "Catch a Baby" makes a deeper exploration around "money".
The story of "Catch a Baby" reminds many people of the classic movie "The Truman Show": The poverty of Ma Jiye's (played by Shi Pengyuan) family is unimaginable: the whole family is crowded into a shabby old house in the wealthy Xihong City. In the yard, the family has only four walls and the roof leaks. His father Ma Chenggang (played by Shen Teng) has to drive a donkey to the market every once in a while to sell his goods. He is reluctant to throw away his shoes even after they are glued open, while his mother Chunlan (played by Ma Li) and her paralyzed grandma (played by Ma Li) are reluctant to throw them away. Sa Rina) takes care of Ma Jiye at home.
In fact, Lao Ma is the richest man in the city. The reason why he pretends to be poor is because his eldest son Ma Dajun (played by Zhang Zidong) has become an unlearned "waste". He decided to use the method of "poor raising a son" Then "practice" the "trumpet" of my younger son. This seemingly dilapidated old house also has an underground floor. Ma Chenggang specially organized various education experts to use a high-level team to escort Ma Jiye to "moisten things silently" - Xiao Ma seems to be running to school every day, but in fact, there are people around him all the time. There are security guards following in disguise; the owner of the newsstand is a liberal arts expert and recommends carefully selected books to Xiao Ma; the carpenter is a science expert and asks Xiao Ma questions from time to time, all of which are classic mathematics problems; Xiao Ma encounters them by chance The foreign tourists asking for directions are foreign teachers; the meals we eat every day are specially prepared by the chef hiding in the basement using a method similar to "shredded sea cucumbers disguised as fungus". Even the grandma is played by Mr. Li, a gold medal education expert... The wealthy Ma Chenggang has been pretending to be poor for more than ten years just to train Ma Jiye into an all-round academic master version of the twenty-four filial sons.
Just like in "The Truman Show", Truman gradually discovered the falseness and absurdity of life. As Ma Jiye grew older, he gradually gained the ability to think. He found that everything around him seemed to be arranged. Whenever he made some more subjective actions, it seemed that everything around him could pull him back on track. In order to escape control, he made the only choice in his life where he decided to take the college entrance examination...
"Charlotte Troubles" and "The Richest Man in Xihong City" are both relatively fictional stories, but equally They are both stories about small people changing their destiny. The former is about an ordinary person, Charlotte, who always feels that his talent is not appreciated. He travels through time and space to catch up with Hanhua and realize his music dream. The latter is the failed football player Wang Duoyu who wants to "squander" 1 billion in order to get more money. "Catch a Baby" goes in the opposite direction. The film sets up the concept of rich people pretending to be poor, which makes the film a bit absurd while being funny. The audience needs to sit in the theater in person to feel the effect of the setting of this local version of "The Truman Show".
A serious story disguised as a comedy
In addition to the superficial aspects related to "money", the other core content of "Catch a Baby" is a more serious educational issue.
In recent years, there have been many movies focusing on educational issues in theaters: " Galaxy Tutorial " written and starred by Deng Chao, released in 2019, " Mozart in Outer Space " directed and written by Chen Sicheng, released in 2022, The "School Dad " starring Huang Bo will be released in 2023, as well as " Zhu Tong lost his super power in the third grade " and "Youth Diary" released this year... The cleverness of "Catch a Baby" is that , uses comedy as the surface, and captures an extreme education method of parents who want their children to succeed: parents objectify the child as an individual according to their own ideas, and invest in the act of raising children. As the title of the film indicates, the parents in the film have a certain amount of power precisely because they have mastered wealth. It seems that they really treat their children as "dolls" in the claw machine. They move their claws to whatever part they want to grab. Which part. The film depicts the powerful controlling desire of parents in the movie in an extremely terrifying way. Since his son's interests did not meet his expectations, he tried every means to suppress him. In contrast to his son, who has almost completely lost his sense of autonomy, he is proud of the success of his education.
When Ma Jiye exchanged a blank paper for the college entrance examination for a moment of freedom, and through his own efforts, he entered the basement of the old house and saw the surveillance equipment and the photos of gold-medal teachers on the wall. Ma Jiye was stunned and suddenly realized. Facing his parents, he could only ask: Which teacher are you two? When Ma Jiye wanted to escape the shackles and run towards a free life like Truman, Ma Chenggang also showed grievance and anger, so much so that he wanted to have another baby with his wife and continue to "practice the trumpet".
has the setting of a wealthy father as a premise, allowing Ma Jiye, who was once controlled, to have a way out in his life after breaking free from restraint, but many children in reality do not have this opportunity. As the saying goes, the core of comedy is tragedy, and "Catch a Baby" fully reflects this.
Source: Jinan Times
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