Four Hundred and Ninety 1 Trigger

'Fast and Furious 5' vs. 'Thor'

In the eyes of industry insiders, this is not a duel at all, not because the themes and styles of the two works are different, but because the distribution strategies of the two works are different from the beginning, and the target audience is also slightly different; more importantly Yes, the temperament and positioning of the two works are inherently different.

The rise of "Speed ​​​​and Passion 5" as a series of movies is already a commonplace: everyone knows that it was originally just a B-level movie on the whim of Universal Pictures, and the investment for the first film was only 3,800. Millions, not even the $100 million minimum standard configuration for commercial blockbusters.

After unexpectedly achieving good box office results, Universal Pictures began to prepare a sequel, but the second film lacked Vin Diesel and the third film lacked Paul Walker, and the box office performance was even worse. Only 60 million US dollars, a loss to the Universal Pictures industry. Universal Pictures, which is not good at making sequels, even ruined "Jurassic Park", let alone "Fast and Furious".

But Universal Pictures really has no trump card.

Although they are ranked among the top six film companies, their consistent strategy is to focus on small and big, and comedy films with an investment of less than 60 million are the mainstream; among the six major film companies, the one with the least investment of over 100 million each year is the Universal Pictures; the one that invests over 100 million works every year with the least profit is also Universal Pictures. If it is not for the surrounding built by Universal Studios, it is the only film studio with a theme park outside of Disney. I am afraid that Universal Pictures It's only a matter of time before the industry falls out of Hollywood's Big Six.

In desperation, "Fast and Furious 4" took off. Universal Pictures, with the mentality of being a dead horse as a living horse doctor, rediscovered Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, and gave a budget of 80 million US dollars. , looking forward to replicating the miracle of the first. In the case that the entire industry is looking down, Universal Pictures has really succeeded.

And so, there's the fifth installment in the series, with the addition of Renly.

"Fast and Furious 5" invested 125 million yuan and truly became a commercial blockbuster. But even so, it is still only the minimum standard. This is the one with the lowest investment among all the works in this summer season, except for "Super 8". Of course, its release time is not the summer file at all, but the spring file, but Even in the spring season, its investment cost is lower than that of Paramount's cartoon "Rango."

In other words, this is the "upstart" who has been used to being poor since he was a child, and suddenly becomes rich, but is not accustomed to the soil and water.

Just look at the positioning of Universal Pictures itself. It avoids the frenzy of the summer season, avoids being crushed by competitors, and ultimately loses all its money; but it is not reconciled to miss the most prosperous and concentrated midsummer frenzy at the box office of the year. "Stealing" some of the box office in other schedules, so they chose the first week of May, the week before the official opening of the summer season.

In the eyes of industry insiders, this schedule has always been ambiguous, stepping on the tail of the spring season, the market still has not recovered, and the east coast in early May is still bitterly cold, which is not conducive to the pulling of the box office; rubbing against the leader of the summer season, the audience Not too enthusiastic, but the media has already begun to warm up, attention is rapidly rising, and simple publicity can achieve multiplied effects.

In this schedule, there have been works such as "How to Train Your Dragon", which had a mediocre opening weekend, but with the subsequent spread of word-of-mouth, they successfully achieved a box office explosion. , but threw himself into the works of the production company who vomited blood; of course, more often, low-cost thriller works such as "Rear Window Horror" and "Entanglement" occupy the schedule and gain popularity.

It can be seen that this is the positioning of Universal Pictures. Lack of confidence, but still holding a bit of luck, continued the good performance of the fourth part, without too much ambition, but still unwilling to give up.

Relatively speaking, "Thor" is menacing and full of confidence.

On the one hand, this is after Disney completed the Marvel acquisition,

Paramount holds one of the last two works produced during the copyright period, and the other is "Captain America". After that, because of the copyright relationship, how will the adaptation of Marvel's works be filmed and how to cooperate? Paramount Mongolia and Disney still need to discuss further, it is not yet known.

The direct result of this is that Paramount hopes to use these two works to finally make a profit, and has concentrated countless resources to promote the two works. The reason is the influence of two Oscar winners, Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins, and Kenneth Branagh is also a well-recognized director, and the box office performance is highly expected.

Disney hopes to further test the market's response through the box office performance of these two works, and then make corresponding adjustments to the next Marvel universe. Naturally, Disney also doesn't mind using its own resources to add some momentum to old rival Paramount.

The most direct manifestation is that there is a one-week buffer between the release of "Pirates of the Caribbean 4" and "Thor". With this year's blockbuster crowded together, and the need to avoid the "Harry Potter" finale, Disney's move is already very rare.

On the other hand, this is the forward of this year's superhero blockbuster, and it will be the first to appear in the market. The market performance is undoubtedly attracting attention. Even the competitors Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, etc. will carefully wait and see, and then promote their own works. Tactics are fine-tuned.

The first person to eat crabs may be a good thing or a bad thing.

It is no exaggeration to say that "Thor" is a work that focuses on all the focuses. Thanks to the rave reviews of the internal preview in the early stage, it can be seen that Paramount is full of confidence, and the industry is looking forward to this work. The strong outbreak of , and some people even predict that the box office of the premiere of this work can exceed the threshold of 100 million.

Although it is no longer news that the opening weekend box office broke 100 million, especially in the past three years, regardless of the follow-up box office endurance, more and more works have concentrated their firepower on the first film under strong marketing and publicity. The shocking energy broke out in the weekend, and all of them have achieved such excellent results; but compared to the entire market, it is still a minority. So far, only seventeen works have achieved such results.

Now, "Thor" is expected to become the eighteenth part, which shows that people's expectations are worth it.

In other words, although "Fast and Furious 5" and "Thor" were released one after the other, before that, people did not put the two works on the same scale at all, it seems that they are completely two different quantities. The opponents of the level are not right, not even the opponents, just two works with close release times.

But after the news of "Vanity Fair" came out, the whole of North America was in a frenzy.

First, Renly and Chris's ex-roommate duel, and then Renly and Natalie's new generation of acting duel, breaking away from the constraints of the work itself, gradually evolved into a personal duel, and the fire of gossip began to burn in an instant. Especially the latter, like a powder keg, it ignites at one point.

The controversy over "Stupid Gate" is undoubtedly the biggest hot spot in this year's awards season. It even gave Annette Bening the hope of winning the award, but it ended with Natalie's victory. Now, the Oscar awards have been settled, but it does not mean that the investigation by the media is over.

If everything in the substitute door has been confirmed, then is Natalie "stealing" a statuette? Even if not, Natalie's lying behavior is bound to be condemned by industry insiders. There is no doubt that this matter will be like a dog skin plaster for a long time. It will always follow Natalie, and it will not be torn off.

I just didn't expect the opportunity to come so quickly.

Strictly speaking, the substitute door has no direct relationship with Renly. Not only is he not a party, he is not even an indirect participant, but the indirect relationship is inextricably linked. It is no exaggeration to say that without Renly, maybe the substitute The door won't come out at all.

Now, Renly and Natalie are once again involved, and they are directly confronting each other. Even if neither of them is the absolute protagonist of the film, the media still recklessly focuses on the two of them. , can't wait to swarm towards the two people again.

"Wow, this question shouldn't be asked of me." When Natalie was besieged by reporters and asked about this summer matchup, she showed a bright smile, "I'm not the one who shoulders the burden of the box office. ." The wise Natalie, with a gleam of wisdom in her eyes, can always easily turn the crisis into an invisible state.

Not to shirk responsibility, but to make fun of the current situation of the summer vacation. In the summer of 2011, men were still in power and women's films survived. "Thor" is a typical summer work, a superhero movie aimed at male audiences; of course, this The sentence is also a pun, emphasizing that he is not the protagonist, and then avoiding the muzzle where the firepower is most concentrated.

"I'm on my honeymoon now, and I'm enjoying a rare time with my baby." Not long ago, Natalie had just finished giving birth. She raised this topic again, and the reporters couldn't continue to ask questions harshly. It was brilliant. In the end, he also concluded, "It is a kind of affirmation that the works that I starred in can be listed in the summer archives. The next thing is left to professionals to decide."

Forty or two, Natalie easily avoided the edge with the topic of children.

"So, do you have confidence in Thor's box office?" The reporters naturally couldn't easily let Natalie go, repeating the same question over and over again, swearing to stop until the goal was achieved.

Natalie didn't seem flustered at all, her smile became more and more beautiful, exuding the brilliance of motherhood, "Of course, why not, otherwise I wouldn't have made this movie."

So, the media reported this: "Natalie Portman: I am confident in Thor's box office"