The summer of 2012 was definitely the most competitive summer since the turn of the millennium, at least, purely on paper. In the fourth week of June, North America once again ushered in two blockbuster works, Pixar's "Legend of Bravery" and Twentieth Century Fox's "Vampire Hunter Lincoln".

The former is Pixar's annual masterpiece that cost 185 million to create.

"Pixar Productions" has become a benchmark in the industry, absolute quality assurance, in the past few years, an average of one per year, "Food Story", "Robot Wall-E", "Flying House Travel", "Toy Story 3", all of which are applauded and popular, and the box office and awards are soft. But last year, "Cars 2" suffered a Waterloo, word-of-mouth and box office failures, and this year's "Brave Legend" has received countless attention from the industry.

The latter is a wave of works in recent years, and after "Twilight" and "The Hunger Games", another adaptation of works for teenagers.

Although it only cost 70 million, only 78 million was invested in "The Hunger Games" this year, and the production cost of "Twilight" in 2008 was only 37 million. With a new cast of young actors and two crazes of vampires and teenagers, the market prospects of this work are also highly recognized.

Before the unveiling of the summer file, people are also looking forward to whether "Brave Legend" can re-prove Pixar's excellence in terms of word-of-mouth and box office, and on the other hand, whether "Vampire Slayer Lincoln" can replicate the box office miracle of teenage film adaptation and usher in a box office dark horse again.

But after the "Avengers" unveiled the competitive landscape of this year's summer slot, everything changed, and after the tumultuous and ups and downs of the past seven weeks, no one dares to assert that this week's North American weekend box office market will continue to be as usual.

And so it is.

"Legend of Brave" has not been able to make a big splash in word of mouth, at least compared to Pixar's consistent word of mouth, the results can only be regarded as tepid, with a comprehensive media rating of 69 points, a fresh index of 78 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and a popcorn index of only 76 percent, which is better than last year's "Cars 2", but it is still far below expectations.

Although it can't be said that Waterloo or the fiasco, after the defeat of "Cars 2", Pixar still did not be able to recover quickly.

"Vampire Hunter Lincoln", pounced, at least in the early stage, the word of mouth was like this, the media comprehensive evaluation was forty-two points, the freshness index of Rotten Tomatoes was 35 percent, and the popcorn index was 50 percent. However, such an achievement cannot be regarded as an accident, just like what happened to "Twilight" when it was first released.

The question is, what is the impact of the sluggish performance of word-of-mouth on the box office of the premiere, and what is the impact on the subsequent box office?

"Valorant" earned $66 million in three days of its opening weekend, which was almost the same as the opening box office of "Cars 2" and was unsatisfactory, while "Lincoln the Vampire Slayer" delivered a poor result of 16 million, becoming another example of how bad a teen film adaptation can be.

Under the expectation of everyone, the performance of "Valorant" and "Vampire Slayer Lincoln" are very disappointing, although the premiere box office data of "Valorant" is second only to "Avengers" and "Edge of Tomorrow", which is currently the third place in the summer file, but the overall momentum is still lower than expected, and it has failed to show a stronger competitiveness -

This also means that the market shock faced by the "Edge of Tomorrow" is not violent.

At the same time, the topic frenzy of "Today's Show", the shocking revelations of "Hereditary Aristocrats", and the discussion of "Edge of Tomorrow" are rising instead of falling, and they are becoming the most watched works in this year's summer file, successfully surpassing the "Avengers" and leading the way in terms of topic effect.

Last week, Edge of Tomorrow posted a stunning 48 percent drop in the box office of the next week to top the North American weekend box office charts, and this week, expectations naturally started to rise, and as a result, Edge of Tomorrow did not disappoint.

"Twenty-six percent, ultra-low decline!'Edge of Tomorrow' creates another box office miracle!"

"After three weeks of release, the momentum has not decreased, and 'Edge of Tomorrow' is fully catching up with the box office of 'The Avengers' in the same period!"

"Incredible! The box office hit curve is unstoppable, and 'Edge of Tomorrow' is becoming the biggest dark horse in this year's summer file!"

"With a strong performance, 'Edge of Tomorrow' became the most popular work in the summer season in June. ”

"After James Cameron, the third-lowest third-week box office drop in film history, 'Edge of Tomorrow' is writing its own miracle. ”

……

As media reports said, the ultra-low decline of 26 percent set a record for the third lowest decline in the same period in film history - among the large-scale premieres, only two works behind James's works, "Avatar" and "Titanic", compared to "The Avengers" The same period decline is 46%.

Once again, Edge of Tomorrow has shown unrivalled box office potential!

$52.5 million, in its third week of release, "Edge of Tomorrow" achieved box office data over the three days of the weekend, ranking third on the list of film history records. The champion is 68 million for "Avatar" and the runner-up is 55 million for "The Avengers".

As the media said, "Edge of Tomorrow" is above the data of the same period, the second week of release surpassed "The Hunger Games", and the third week of release is approaching "The Avengers", and the ferocity of the entire upward curve can be called against the sky!

In the case of the opening weekend squeezed into the super schedule, all the media, all the insiders, no one is optimistic about the box office prospects of this work, and even Warner Bros. itself seems to be less confident and less confident, but in the end, this work has copied the miracle of the two works "Avatar" and "Titanic" after their release, and the box office development curve is getting stronger and stronger, creating history step by step.

The question is, how far will the "Edge of Tomorrow" finally land?

In the fourth week of June, "Valorant" won the North American weekend box office charts, while "Edge of Tomorrow" fell to second place, followed by "Madagascar 3", "Lincoln the Vampire Slayer", "Prometheus" and "Snow White and the Huntsman".

Among them, the weekend box office of "Prometheus" has fallen below 10 million, only 9 million US dollars, and the cumulative box office in three weeks of release will exceed 100 million, which is really disappointing for Twentieth Century Fox, which has great expectations.

And the other works that are ranked after it have even worse box office figures.

Tom Cruise's "Rock 'n' Roll Age" fell by as much as 47 percent the next week, accumulating 28 million at the box office, which has doomed 75 million investments to the fate of losing all their money.

Will Smith's "Men in Black 3" has a cumulative box office of 160 million in five weeks of release, but the investment of up to 225 million and expensive publicity costs make the road to profitability extremely difficult for this work.

Johnny Depp's "Black Shadow" has a cumulative box office of 75 million in seven weeks, and the overseas market is also in a downturn, and the production cost of 150 million is estimated to be pinned on the video rental market.

However, the biggest dud in this year's summer file is the "Super Battleship", with an investment of 200 million, the current cumulative box office is only 60 million, and the weekend box office has fallen to 500,000 US dollars. Not surprisingly, this work was the biggest fiasco of the whole of 2012-

Later, after the "alien battlefield" landed in North America, professionals realized that they were still too young and blind, and the conclusions were made too early.

In the gloom and gloom, even the "brave legend" that successfully won the championship could not arouse the enthusiasm of the media, and all eyes were focused on the "edge of tomorrow", just look at the headlines of the entertainment pages of major newspapers and magazines: it was clear that it had slipped to second place, but the headlines were all "edge of tomorrow".

Three weeks after its release, the cumulative box office of this commercial popcorn blockbuster starring Lan Li has reached 370 million US dollars, and it is already close to 400 million!

What's even more terrifying is that in the comparison of box office data in the same period, "Edge of Tomorrow" has quietly narrowed the distance with "Batman: The Dark Knight", and the gap between the two is only about 20 million, which also means that the North American 500 million of "Edge of Tomorrow" is gradually evolving into a possibility, and judging from the box office decline in the third week, the probability is still growing!

Warner Bros. was already smiling from ear to ear, even for themselves, such an achievement was extremely gratifying, let alone compared to the bleakness and grievances of Universal Pictures.

Last September, Warner Bros. paid $10 million to invite Lan Li to join Edge of Tomorrow, which has now become the industry's most praised investment, compared to Universal Pictures' slow refusal to offer a higher salary, choosing Vin Diesel and changing the production plan for the sequel, now seems extremely stupid.

However, this is an insignificant account, and everyone has their own decisions in their minds. More importantly, the box office sweeping mode of "Edge of Tomorrow" has not stopped.

In the fifth week of June, a total of four large-scale productions were released, all of which were screened in more than 2,000 theaters, including "Teddy Bear", "Magic Mike", "Black Mad Woman's Witness Protection Plan", and "Sister Falling from the Sky".

Although the "teddy bear" with the highest cost of the four works is only 50 million US dollars, the competition between them is still highly anticipated.

Sure enough, "Teddy Bear" and "Magic Mike" both came out of the encirclement, not only in terms of word-of-mouth received good reviews, but also in the box office to hand over a satisfactory answer, the summer file is about to be unveiled for two months, before the arrival of the Independence Day schedule, the market finally came out of the good news of recovery, this abnormal summer gradually returned to the normal track.

However, in the midst of this hustle and bustle, the box office trend of "Edge of Tomorrow" is still the most eye-catching, and after a staggering drop for the third week in a row, this work has undoubtedly become the hit of the year in 2012!