As the sun rises on Friday, another competitive weekend kicks off, just like last weekend's collective criticism and abuse of "Independence Day", professional film critics once again collectively spoke out, praising "The Shawshank Redemption", and almost threw the best reviews of the year on the head of this film, almost saying that it is the first in film history.

Nearly similar to last week's bashing, critics' praise has not set off a frenzied ripple effect in the theatrical market.

Perhaps it is the lack of appeal of the film's cast, or the unpleasant title with a hint of religious overtones, or the inappropriate genre of the film, or the aftermath of last week's critics' criticism of "Independence Day" that the audience loved, the market response to "The Shawshank Redemption" can only be described as unusually bland.

On Friday night, which is often the first peak of weekend movie-watching, Parker, a market researcher at a cinema company, walked into a theater in the downtown commercial plaza early to observe the first-line market reaction to "The Shawshank Redemption".

After half past seven, the number of people entering the theater increased significantly, and Parker, through a long period of random interviews and data obtained from the theater side, gradually got a preliminary impression of the films under investigation - the situation was not very good.

It is very obvious that although "Independence Day" has entered the second weekend of its release, it is still strong, accounting for nearly half of the movie-watching proportion!

Of course, this is also in the expectation of the distributor and their company, and the data feedback from "Independence Day" is there, and no one is stupid enough to think that "The Shawshank Redemption" can compete with this film in the box office market.

It's normal for films to be unable to compete with "Independence Day", why is the audience ratio only comparable to some B-grade films? "The Shawshank Redemption" is only the first week of release!

Just as Parker was thinking this, a screening of "The Shawshank Redemption" ended, and the sparse audience came over from the theater, and he hurriedly greeted him and began his routine random interview.

"The film is very exciting, very infectious, and the plot is very good......"

As some viewers had asked during the day, the young man he stopped was full of praise for the film, and Parker asked, "Would you recommend it to the people around you, or bring your family and friends back to watch it?"

"No!" the young man didn't hesitate and gave a direct answer, "Absolutely not!"

"Why?" Parker asked quickly.

"This film is so heavy that it makes people feel uncomfortable, even if you watch a tragedy, you can often find joy in it. ”

The young man frowned tightly, "But 'The Shawshank Redemption' is very depressing, and the people around me go to the theater for entertainment, and they definitely don't want to feel this atmosphere." ”

Parker then asked several more audience members, some of whom had similar opinions, thinking the film was great but would not recommend it to others.

In the box office, attendance and audience number of Fridays, "Independence Day" has always been ahead of the films released at the same time, and early on Saturday morning, Wang Jie got detailed data from the Independence Day studio.

The weekend box office was bound to rebound, and although it wasn't particularly strong, "Independence Day" took the lead in a single day at $15.5 million.

In second place is the just-released "The Shawshank Redemption", which got $5.12 million in a single day, ranking second.

In Wang Jie's view, as long as the single-day performance of "The Shawshank Redemption" can be maintained, it is possible for the box office to exceed $15 million or even $20 million in the first weekend, and it may change the fate of Da Bang Street.

However, this film, which has been dubbed the best and strangest film of all time, cannot be measured by normal cinematic laws, and even the most daring evaluators cannot anticipate its box office trend that does not conform to normal laws at all.

According to the general situation, the professional word-of-mouth is bursting, which will inevitably play a certain role in publicity, coupled with the already good audience reputation and the normal weekend release rules, "The Shawshank Redemption" should usher in a small outbreak on Saturday, at least it can exceed the box office on Friday, but something happened to everyone's surprise, the film's audience reputation and professional ratings are rising, but the box office has fallen sharply.

On Saturday, "The Shawshank Redemption" fell by more than 50 percent, and the single-day box office plummeted to $2.24 million.

This is a subversive schedule, "Independence Day" was belittled by critics to worthless, but it continued to be a hit, and "The Shawshank Redemption" was elevated to a high level in film history, but no one cared about it......

If this situation is only a short-term occurrence, maybe the audience will not care, but ABC and Fox TV have been hype, and it is difficult not to be noticeable, and the disturbance in the past ten days is enough to make very dull fans realize the fact that the movies touted by film critics may not be suitable for them, and the movies they like will not be appreciated by film critics.

Hollywood's major companies have recognized another fact – the relationship between film critics and the market is at best five cents.

That is, this weekend, Paramount and Universal Pictures jointly invested in the preview screening of "Burning Eyebrow" and New Line Pictures' "Detective Plane Head" did not invite film critics to attend, and the interests of the vampire industry were obviously touched.

Also on this weekend, "Independence Day" started its overseas journey, taking the lead in landing in the United Kingdom, France, New Zealand, Spain, Australia and other overseas markets, and the film's reaction was like a copy of North America, triggering a boom in audience ticket purchases, while being frantically criticized by countless foreign film critics.

"Independence Day is a concoction of films about alien invasions, and the themes also reflect American aggression!" – Le Figaro.

"'Independence Day' reflects the delusions and ambitions of director William Rothschild and the Great Americanism!" - Marca newspaper, Spain.

"The pre-war speech of the President of the United States in the film is the most sensational dialogue in the history of Hollywood!" - BBC.

"William Rothschild is crazy, he wants to rape the whole world with a sci-fi blockbuster, and he actually wants the national day of all countries to be changed to July 4!" - The Times, UK.

In this film, in just one weekend, Wang Jie has caused a sensation far more than the sum of the past few years, and film critics around the world have set off a frenzy of criticism of him.

Attacking Wang Jie has become politically correct in the film critics' circles, and even some film critics who want to argue for him have to become cautious.

Wang Jie did not remain silent because of this, but continued to build momentum for the hype, saying so in an exclusive interview with ABC.

"I don't feel bad about the critics, anybody has to accept the idea of the free market, if people don't want to buy my product, then I won't make it, but the audience has repeatedly shown that they love my work, and even if the critics don't like it, I will still think about the audience's needs first. ”

seems to be afraid that the fire is not big enough, Wang Jie also deliberately said: "I work as hard as I can, I am very happy to see that the audience likes this movie except for the film critics, so let's ignore those film critics, I make movies to make the audience like them." ”

Critics gritted their teeth and lashed out the most vicious attacks at the continued heat of "Independence Day," but they couldn't stop "Independence Day" from setting off a Jurassic Park-like movie-going frenzy in the region where it was released.

Especially in North America, the louder the critics' criticism, the higher the box office figures for "Independence Day," and the more praise they have for "The Shawshank Redemption," the less popular the film becomes.

When the box office of the new weekend came out, the North American film critics were silent for a while, and then set off a wave of even greater criticism, but these all seemed so pale in the face of the box office numbers of "Independence Day".

The North American box office of "Independence Day" in the second weekend was as high as 43 million US dollars, which not only killed all the films released at the same time, but even exceeded the first-week box office figures of most films, and the total North American box office of the film reached 160 million US dollars, and Wang Jie won another North American film history record - the fastest to break 150 million US dollars!

This result also deservedly won the top spot in the North American weekly box office charts!

Standing at the top and looking down, there is no shadow of the newly released film in the second or third position.

And "The Shawshank Redemption", which was sought after by countless film critics, fell again and again at the box office two days after the weekend, and finally ranked fifth with $8.57 million.

Just like Wang Jie thought, "Independence Day" crushed the face that film critics thought was glamorous with its hot results, making their influence on the market weaker and weaker, and completely exposed to Hollywood and movie fans.

"Independence Day" was also on a high pitch in its first weekend overseas, and although it only appeared in Western Europe and English-speaking markets, it ended up with a total of $75.28 million over the three days of the weekend, which was enough to make both Luen Mei and Fox laugh from ear to ear.

After two consecutive days of a single-day box office of no more than $2 million, the theater chain was under pressure from many companies such as United States, Walt Disney and Twentieth Century Fox, and such a box office was not convincing, even if Sony Columbia wore out his mouth and even the CEO himself went into battle, the number of theaters of "The Shawshank Redemption" still shrank sharply, from 1,600 to more than 900.

Immediately afterwards, Sony Columbia Pictures reduced the scale of publicity and marketing of this film, and the film has been completely saved in theaters, and now Sony is no longer thinking about whether it can make a profit, but how to lose less.

Wang Jie just paid a little attention and threw it aside, if it continues to develop according to the current trend, "The Shawshank Redemption" will inevitably take ten years or more to recover its cost as it once was.

The screening of "Independence Day" entered its third weekend, and although the weekend box office result of $24.57 million was lost to the $28.56 million of Disney's "True Lies" and lost the top spot at the box office, it rushed into the $200 million mark in one fell swoop.

The media of United America and Twentieth Century Fox rejoiced at this achievement, and were eager to publicize it to every corner of the world, so as to build momentum for "Independence Day", which has landed in overseas markets one after another, while film critics continued to lash out at it, believing that "Independence Day" could be a big hit, but Wang Jie used the most shameful means to obtain it, and the film had no connotation, but also artistic, and some were just technical show-offs and show-offs.

Even, Roger Albert asserted in his column that William and "Independence Day" are the biggest favorites for next year's Golden Raspberry Awards!

In his Chicago studio, Roger Albert was on the phone to a friend, and the person on the other end of the phone was John Wilson, the founder of the Golden Raspberry Award.

"John, we have the responsibility and obligation to remind Hollywood to avoid over-commercialization of movies! What the world needs is "The Shawshank Redemption", not a bad movie like "Independence Day"! Please think about it, my friend, there can't be a worse film than "Independence Day" this year, and there can't be a worse director than King William Rothschild!"

"Roger, I promise, I'll seriously consider it, but it's ...... for a Hollywood supertycoon"

Hearing the other party's slightly apprehensive voice, Roger Albert changed his serious tone, "This is saving William's directorial career, we can't watch a former super director go astray......"

Judging from the tone alone, it seems that he is really thinking about Wang Jie's directorial career.

Hanging up the phone, Roger Albert sat behind his desk, his gloomy face was unusually ugly, he could pretend not to see the box office of "Independence Day", or he could pretend not to care about the box office of "Independence Day", and only watch the film from an artistic point of view, seeking psychological comfort that this is just a bad movie.

However, the young director viciously trampled on his dignity and that of many film critics, and although he spoke out less and less after the first weekend, it could be seen that the other party and the film company behind him were clearly borrowing their criticism to hype the movie!

Trampling on their dignity and using their dignity to benefit from it? How many people can endure this kind of thing?

What's more, Wang Jie's behavior also directly touched the interests of the film critic industry, not to talk about other people, just to say that he himself, would have participated in the test screenings of "Burning Eyebrow Pursuit" and "Detective Plane Head", so as to get a lot of income, but after the big sale of "Independence Day" and Wang Jie's remarks against film critics, the film company canceled the test screening invitation to film critics......

That's a substantial monetary loss!

How many years has it been? How many years have there been no directors who have openly confronted the film critics?

With frowning brows, Roger Albert carefully recalled that when they attacked George Lucas, the other party only made a fortune in silence; when criticizing Ridley Scott, the British did not reply to a single tough word; and James Cameron, who is recognized as the most foul-tempered director in the industry, did not really confront film critics......

Since the fifties and sixties, more than 95 percent of directors have chosen to endure criticism from film critics, or turn a blind eye and ignore it.

And this time, the reason why Wang Jie chose to stand up is very simple, as long as he can detonate the topic and pull the box office figures, he doesn't care about the feelings of those film critics.

Of course, to become a public enemy of film critics, you must also have a strong enough psychological quality, otherwise those satirical comments can make people crazy.

Time slowly entered the end of December, the North American box office of "Independence Day" just exceeded 250 million US dollars, and when it was trying to climb towards 300 million US dollars, the overseas box office of the film also exceeded 250 million US dollars!

The global box office added up to $500 million, which is already one of the top box office results in film history, and in January 1995, even the media that used to criticize Wang Jie and "Independence Day" turned the wind and began to throw all kinds of praise words at his head.

Sony Columbia Pictures calls to the major theater companies again, because "Independence Day" occupies the number of theaters that "The Shawshank Redemption" has shrunk again.

The latter's North American screening scale has been reduced to 212, and the single-day box office is only a little more than $100,000, and the North American box office is struggling to move towards $15 million, and Sony Columbia Pictures has also encountered great trouble with overseas distribution, including mainstream film markets such as the United Kingdom and Australia, which refused to release the film in December, when the market is relatively hot.

In three days over the weekend, 1,897 theaters, "Independence Day" reported $17.81 million, and the North American box office totaled $289.28 million, which is about to break 300 million!

And along with the film's rising box office, there are countless congratulations, as well as even more crazy critics' criticism and abuse.

Of course, congratulations or something, Wang Jie will accept it, as for the film critics?

Wang Jie let his media and their confrontation basically achieve the desired effect, and he did not take the initiative to read film reviews to find a habit of abuse, and automatically blocked those barking voices.

The winner has his own reserve and pride, who will deal with a group of mad dogs.

In late January, a little more than 8 weeks after "Independence Day" landed in North American theaters, the North American box office of "Independence Day" officially exceeded $300 million!