The North American box office champion last weekend was still won by " Deadpool and Wolverine ". The Marvel superhero movie earned US$54 million in its third weekend after its release, bringing its total North American box office to US$494 million, and its global box office has exceeded the billion-dollar mark. It is worth mentioning that the romance film " Love, So Far " starring Blake Lively, wife of "Deadpool" Ryan Reynolds, had a brilliant opening, with a box office of only US$4 million. The difference ranked second.
"Deadpool and Wolverine" poster
The opening of "Love Ends Here" far exceeded expectations
"Love Ends Here" was released in 3,611 theaters over the weekend and took an astonishing $50 million at the box office. Even the publisher Sony Pictures didn't expect it to achieve such good results. This is the first time since Bruce Willis's "Die Hard 2" and Demi Moore's "The Ghost Story" in 1990 that actors and actresses have split up to compete for the weekend box office championship. Rare situation.
"Love Ends Here" poster
"Love Ends Here" cost only 25 million US dollars to produce. It is adapted from the best-selling novel of the same name and tells the story of a man and woman from meeting, falling in love, getting married to breaking up. The author Colleen Hoover may be a relatively unfamiliar name to Chinese readers, but in the past few years, she has definitely become one of the hottest best-selling authors in Europe and the United States. Statistics show that Hoover alone accounts for 8 of the 25 best-selling English books in the world in 2022, and has already overshadowed best-selling authors such as James Patterson and J.K. Rowling.
Colin, who was born in 1979, was originally an ordinary woman living in Texas, USA. She got married early in her early 20s and had three children with her husband, Hoover, who was a truck driver. She usually worked in a social welfare institution. Hold a clerical job. In 2011, she used her spare time to write and complete the love novel "Because I Love You Deeply, So Let Me Go". It became an unexpected hit after publishing it at her own expense the following year, which also transformed her into a full-time writer, and she was out of control.
Colin Hoover writes at a fast pace, basically publishing three novels a year. However, before 2021, although her books can also be on the bestseller list, the readership is relatively narrow and concentrated in the United States. The reason why she really became popular is that during the epidemic, someone promoted her 2016 book "Love Ends Here" on the overseas version of Douyin's book sharing community "booktok". After that, the novel became a phenomenal best-seller, and it also attracted the attention of director Justin Bertoni, who had made the romance film "Five Feet Apart". He bought the film rights of the novel with his own money, and also starred in the male protagonist. Protagonist.
From the perspective of hindsight, the astonishing box office success of "Love Ends Here" is obviously driven by loyal fans of the original novel. As many as 84% of the film's first weekend audience were women, and the gender gap is truly astonishing. Unlike the Chinese film market, which has been dominated by female audiences in recent years, the North American film market has always been dominated by young men. Last year's "Barbie " and Taylor Swift's concert movie both successfully stimulated the enthusiasm of North American female audiences for watching movies, and ultimately achieved high box office returns. This time "Love Ends Here" is probably the same.
Stills of "Love Ends Here"
On the other hand, the story of "Love Ends Here" does not break away from the conventions of ordinary romance novels. In addition, it does not criticize the male protagonist's domestic violence tendency enough, so it has been criticized by many women. Audience boycott. Therefore, its stamina at the box office is still a question mark.
The game-adapted movie " Borderlands " was a complete failure.
Another new film released on a large scale, both the capital invested and the box office results were in sharp contrast to "Love Ends Here". That is the action comedy "Borderlands" directed by Eli Roth and starring Cate Blanchett.
"Borderlands" poster
"Borderlands" is adapted from the world-wide best-selling first-person shooter game. It stands to reason that its mass base should be larger than that of "Love Ends Here". Coupled with the support of big-name actors such as Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black, the production cost was as high as 110 million US dollars. In addition, the distributor Lionsgate Pictures is said to have invested approximately US$30 million in promotion and distribution. It can be seen from this that there are no deficiencies in its innate conditions in all aspects.
However, after "Borderland" was released, film critics and audiences did not buy it, which shows that its quality is really worrying. The film's freshness rating on the film review website "Rotten Tomatoes" was zero when it first opened, and then slowly rose to 9%, and was unanimously criticized by the media. In particular, some film critics who claim to be players of the game pointedly pointed out that the adaptation of "Borderlands" was a complete failure. Even the choice of 55-year-old Cate Blanchett to play the lead female role was completely inconsistent. The original character design seems quite lacking in sincerity. It's no wonder that "Borderland" only earned $8.8 million at the box office after being released in 3,125 North American theaters over the weekend.
"Borderland" stills
High-quality IP and family movies are still the main box office driving forces
Overall, the total North American box office this weekend was about 159 million U.S. dollars, an increase of 36% over the same period last year, which also makes the total box office so far this year The year-on-year box office decline decreased to 16%. This is good news for all walks of life in Hollywood. Needless to say, the box office performance of this year's North American summer season started low but then moved high, and in the end, everyone from all walks of life was satisfied. In response, the "Hollywood Reporter" published on August 7 published a special article "How Summer Box Office Turned from Tragedy to Miracle" to analyze the causes and consequences of this phenomenon.
As we all know, due to the general strike of the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild of America in 2023, there will be a gap in the supply of new films this year. The North American film market has been sluggish throughout the first half of the year. In particular, box office revenue in the second quarter dropped by nearly 28% year-on-year, causing many people to worry that the epidemic and streaming media have completely changed the entire movie ecosystem, and that the theater industry will never recover. Fortunately, after entering June, the haze gradually dissipated. Sony Pictures' " Jedi Men 4", Paramount's " A Quiet Place: Invasion Day", Disney's " Inside Out 2", Universal Pictures' " Despicable Me 4" and " " tornado ", Neon Pictures' horror film "Monster Long Legs" and Disney's "Deadpool and Wolverine" were released one after another, bringing the North American box office revenue gap back to 16.4% year-on-year in 2024.
At present, it seems that high-quality IP movies and family movies will continue to be the main driving force at the North American box office for a long time to come. As Disney Group Co-Chairman Alan Bergman said: "We had a great summer, which proves that when you put out high-quality movies, audiences are still very happy to go to theaters to watch them. Looking forward, we are encouraged by our momentum and hope that the industry as a whole can maintain this momentum."
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