"Edge of Tomorrow", I really didn't expect that the script Andy said was actually "Edge of Tomorrow"!

According to the context of the previous life, this movie should have been released in 2014, with Tom Cruise as the male protagonist and Emily Blunt as the female lead;

However, it is only 2011, and the script has already been established? Moreover, it is not Brad, nor Tom, it has actually come to his hands? Although it is just a temptation and inquiry of intention, and there is not even a single word, the development trend of things is still very different from the previous life.

Is this a butterfly effect, and the timeline has been disrupted? Or is it just a project at present, and there is still a long way to go before filming and release, maybe, in the final analysis, the work will still be released in 2014, or it will still be in Tom's hands, just Lan Li's cranky thoughts?

However, putting aside the jumpy nature of the disrupted timeline for the time being, the script was blacklisted in 2010, and now Warner Bros. has started to set up the project, and all this is in the past. Returning to the script of "Edge of Tomorrow" itself, I have to say that the blacklist is indeed trustworthy, and Andy's decisiveness is also admirable.

"Edge of Tomorrow" tells the uncomplicated story of a futuristic world in the panic of an alien invasion, where the male protagonist, William Cage, is an officer who can only talk on paper and has never been in combat, and after refusing orders from his superiors, the general throws him into a suicide operation as a deserter, and dies as soon as he enters the battlefield. But unexpectedly, he entered a time loop, repeatedly participating in this suicide attempt, dying again and again until victory.

Similar to the time-space loop or confusion, "Groundhog Day" is undoubtedly a classic, and then there are many works such as "Butterfly Effect", "Source Code", "Ring Messenger", and "Edge of Tomorrow" is also one of them.

In the last life, the film was directed by Doug-Liman (Doug-Liman), the director who shot "spy films" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", known for his sharp editing style and crisp rhythm control, under his direction, the advantages and disadvantages of "Edge of Tomorrow" are very obvious, the urgent and fast pace makes the character not have enough room to play, reduced to a face-painted popcorn hero image, but the rich imagination, the bold fighting style makes the viewing process high/ The tide is repeated, and the whole narrative rhythm is completed in one go, which is addictive.

"Edge of Tomorrow" won a lot of applause from film critics, with a comprehensive media evaluation of 71 points, a freshness index of 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, and an average score of 7.5, which is very gratifying for commercial films, and it was a standout in the summer of 2014, surpassing "Transformers 4", "Godzilla", "X-Men: Reverse the Future", "How to Train Your Dragon 2" and other works, and is considered to be the most outstanding commercial work by film critics in the summer of that year.

But what is surprising is that the reputation of "Edge of Tomorrow" in the audience has been divided, with an IMDB score of eight points, once among the 250 classic films, and the popcorn index has also reached 90%, but the theater score is only disappointing "B+". It can be understood that senior audiences and professional audiences can't put it down and give praise one after another, but ordinary audiences refuse to buy it.

This situation is also directly reflected in the box office data, which can be described as a typical representative of whether it is popular or not.

The film investment is as high as 180 million, but it only achieved a box office of 100 million US dollars in North America, and the overseas box office has swept 270 million thanks to Tom Cruise's strong appeal, but even so, the global box office is only 370 million. Warner Bros. lost nearly 40 million as a result, but fortunately, the movie later performed well in the Blu-ray disc market, and finally barely reached even balance, which can be described as risky and dangerous.

However, considering the film's exceptionally good reputation and Tom Cruise's strong appeal, Warner Bros. still gave the green light and decided on the establishment of a sequel. It's just that the sequel project has been dragging its feet, and it has not been able to be filmed until Lan Li is reborn, and the quality is unknown.

There is no doubt that the script from the blacklist lineup, the quality of the script of "Edge of Tomorrow" has been affirmed, this book adapted from the original Japanese book "Killing Reincarnation", is crisp and neat, the text and drama are concise, the logic is clear, and the story points are complementary to the action scenes, the only regret is that the ending is a little weaker, and the sublimation and afterglow of the ending of the works such as "Groundhog Day" and "Butterfly Effect" are lost.

On the whole, compared with science fiction, this work has achieved an excellent balance between science fiction and action, and focuses on action scenes. In the last life, "Edge of Tomorrow" was widely regarded as Tom Cruise's best work of a decade, even surpassing the fourth and fifth installments of "Mission Impossible", and it's not for nothing.

Since the quality of the finished product is so good, why hasn't the box office of the movie improved? Even if we don't expect 300 million in North America, even the average of 200 million is far from the same, and it barely breaks the threshold of 100 million, which is really a big disappointment.

From an afterthought perspective, industry professionals generally believe that the cause of failure was Tom Cruise.

In fact, similar to Johnny Depp of "The Dark Shadow", Tom has also fallen into the trap of a fixed image, starting from the "Minority Report" in 2002 until 2017, Tom starred in sixteen movies, of which eleven are sci-fi action movies with a unified style, after entering the second half of his career, Tom gave up the competition for the Oscar, and also gave up the broadening of the acting path, embarked on the old path of Adam Sandler, constantly repeating himself, and never returning on the road of "action superstar".

Even the "Mission Impossible" series is no exception, in the first three parts, the focus of publicity is "Brother Tom is full of charm", and the focus of publicity in the later parts is always "Brother Tom overcomes the shackles of age and constantly challenges the limit".

Before "Edge of Tomorrow", Tom had just starred in the "Forsaken Battlefield" whose style, type, theme, and story were extremely close, and the reputation of this work was a mess, and the box office was only 89 million.

In other words, "Tom Cruise" is one of the top signboards in the United States today, countless audiences have chosen to enter the cinema because of him, but they have been disappointed again and again, in the process, the recovery of "Mission Impossible 4" has restored some confidence, but then smashed again. To put it simply, "being deceived", that feeling of disappointment makes the audience gradually lose in silence.

In addition, Tom's personal dedication is also one of the important reasons, handsome, handsome, young, vigorous, and energetic, which is an important part of Tom's image brand. In order to continue this image, the film's publicity plan, the role focus of the script, and even the director's shooting techniques will focus on creating such an image of "Tom", but the fact is that Tom was 52 years old when he filmed "Edge of Tomorrow", and the image shaping 20 years ago has remained the same 20 years later, and he has unconsciously fallen behind the times.

Tom's contemporaries of actors, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, etc., have all transformed, and only he is still maintaining the idol image he established when he was "Top Gun".

The two heroines of "Forsaken Battlefield" are 17 and 19 years younger than Tom respectively, and the heroines of "Edge of Tomorrow" are twenty-one years younger than Tom. The fact is that among the works starring Tom, the heroine who has a head-to-head rival with him, the age gap is within ten years, the last time was Demi Moore in 1992, when the two teamed up to star in "Yihai Xiongfeng".

Invisibly, more and more viewers are gradually leaving because of the aesthetic fatigue of Tom's image.

Looking at Tom Cruise's personal box office, since the "War of the Worlds" in 2005, in addition to the "Mission Impossible" series, "Edge of Tomorrow" is the only work with a box office of more than 100 million in North America.

In a way, "Pirates of the Caribbean" has the same effect on Johnny Depp.

This explains the audience feedback of "Edge of Tomorrow" - professional audiences do not look at Tom Cruise, but look at the quality, naturally applaud, and ordinary viewers do not look at the quality, but look at Tom Cruise, feeling surprised, but more disappointed in the "old-fashioned". The negative word-of-mouth effect brought about by the "Lost Battlefield" in 2013 extended to the box office failure of "Edge of Tomorrow" in 2014.

Of course, is there room for improvement in "Edge of Tomorrow" itself? Maybe there is, maybe not, but this is a commercial popcorn movie, and the existence of shortcomings is inevitable, as long as the shortcomings do not affect the smoothness of the entire movie, then it can be forgiven. So, in the final analysis, it's Tom Cruise, and a series of questions derived from Tom:

Publicity positioning, script weight, character building, shooting focus, etc.

But taking a step back, without Tom Cruise, would Edge of Tomorrow still be able to make 100 million at the North American box office?

The cost of the previous work was 180 million, and the publicity expenses were even more ruthless, but judging from what Andy said just now, the budget is only 100 million, and even the promotion of the project is a problem, not to mention other resources. Without Tom, "Edge of Tomorrow" might not have been released until 2014.

In addition to the director, Tom brought the entire production team, just like the "Detective Jack" not long ago. The screenwriter is Christopher-McQuarrie, a screenwriter who made a name for himself as a "very suspect", and is Tom's royal screenwriter, even if he wrote a bad script like "Deadly Companion Brigade" and "Giant Catcher Jack", he still collaborated with Tom in "Hitler", "Mission Impossible", "Detective Jack", "New Mummy" and other works.

In addition, the cinematographer, gaffer, art designer, art director and producer are all part of Tom's royal team.

Without Tom, Edge of Tomorrow would be a completely empty shelf.