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A film made for the general public, a film with a strong personal touch, which one is more likely to appeal to the general audience? The answer to this question is obvious.

Since Friday, "X-Men 2" has dominated this weekend, easily cutting nearly $26 million in one day, vividly reflecting the sequels of blockbuster films and the advantages of super commercial productions, on the other hand, Murphy and Miramax's "Sin City", in the face of the impact of super big productions in the summer, fully exposed the shortcomings of insufficient audiences, and the single-day box office is less than a fraction of that of "X-Men 2", only less than five million dollars.

After consuming a large fan audience and lovers of black cult films, "Sin City" is somewhat lacking in stamina.

In the face of the impact of "X-Men 2", the only thing that can make Murphy and Miramax happy is that the audience reputation and professional reputation of "Sin City" are generally better than that of "X-Men 2".

In particular, the film critics, as in the past, generally take a disparaging stance on a large-budget and big-budget comic film, and the evaluation basically has words such as "vulgar and boring", which is in stark contrast to the attitude of singing praises when "Sin City" was released.

In general, although the reputation of "X-Men 2" is not as explosive as "Sin City", it is not bad in the summer popcorn type of films, especially the fans and comic fans of "X-Men", they generally buy it, and word of mouth is very important to a film, but in many cases, it may not become a key factor in determining the box office of a film, otherwise the top ten films in the North American box office list every year will not be basically occupied by popcorn films, and it will have become the world of Oscars or other award-winning films.

Word-of-mouth can't make up for the congenital defects of a film, such as the audience of the film, why is a niche film called a niche film? It is not a small investment, and its audience may increase due to word-of-mouth, but it will not change substantially.

The most typical, Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction", just looking at the film's reputation and status in film history, how can it be loved by the audience, and the box office will explode.

But the actual situation is that when "Pulp Fiction" was released, there was only a box office of more than $50 million in North America, and after Miramax was pushed into theaters again two years ago, the North American box office barely exceeded $100 million.

This kind of film noir is Murphy's favorite genre, which can also be seen from the type of film he chose to make after coming here, and he used to feel angry about "Pulp Fiction", thinking that such a good film should have a box office, and after coming here, he realized how unrealistic and stupid such an idea is, who stipulates that a good movie must have a good box office? The laws of the film market do not change at all by the will of individuals.

This is undoubtedly the case with Sin City, which has been praised by the media and critics for not making the film a mass work.

Under the impact of "X-Men 2", the box office performance of "Sin City" in the second weekend has been tepid.

On Saturday, "X-Men 2" took a slight drop at the box office after consuming a large fan audience, with a rough report of nearly $23 million on the day, and "Sin City" was not much better, and did not take the opportunity to rebound, and the single-day box office also fell, earning $4.3 million from 2,850 theaters.

Although the box office of the three days of the weekend cannot be counted, such a box office performance has made it several times more difficult for "Sin City" to break 100 million at the North American box office.

The new week arrived, and last weekend's box office statistics were released, and there was no doubt that the box office champion was in doubt, with "X-Men 2" firmly sitting at the top of the box office with $68 million, and "Sin City", which had been in theaters for two weeks, ranked second with a box office of $13.4 million.

That's a 65 percent drop from the first weekend!

However, counting the box office of the previous four working days, the North American box office of "Sin City" has reached $63.5 million, which not only crosses the total cost line of the film, but also will set a new record for Murphy's personal highest North American box office.

In the following week, the weekday box office of "Sin City" dropped to the million-dollar level, and only earned more than $4.4 million in four working days, and when the new weekend arrived, and many more films joined the competition for the summer slot, the number of theaters released was inevitably cut a lot, plummeting to 2,100.

In this case, the film's weekend box office inevitably fell again, and the third weekend fell by more than 60% compared to the next, and the three-day weekend earned less than $5 million.

"Sin City" grossed $72.9 million at the North American box office, setting a record for Murphy's North American box office.

However, such a box office trend basically determines that the film's North American box office is unlikely to break the $100 million mark.

Now after all, it is the summer file, in addition to "X-Men 2", there will be super blockbusters such as "The Matrix 2: Reloaded" and "Finding Nemo" released one after another, and the number of theaters and film scheduling rate of "Sin City" will only be further compressed.

No matter how much work Miramax does, it can't change this inevitable pattern, not to mention anything else, if the theater side is asked to choose between "The Matrix 2: Reloaded" and a film with a limited audience, fools will know who to choose.

In two weeks, Murphy also carried out routine promotional activities in some large and medium-sized cities in North America in accordance with the publicity plan formulated by Miramax, and after "Sin City" got a good first week box office in North America, Disney's label Bowell International, which is responsible for overseas distribution, also pushed the film into several major overseas markets, and the main actors led by Robert Downey Jr. and James Franco also started an overseas promotion journey.

However, Murphy did not go, and the publicity was still dominated by actors.

Compared with North America, the overseas response of "Sin City" is much worse, Frank Miller's comic book influence is mainly concentrated in North America, the number of overseas fans is limited, and the scale of the film is too large, and it is rated as restricted in individual countries and regions, which will significantly affect overseas box office performance.

The UK box office was only $2 million in the first week, France was slightly better, only in the early $2 million, and Germany, another major European film market, was even worse.

The best performance in the overseas market that has been opened is Australia, the birthplace of large-scale plasma tablets is Australia, where people are more receptive to large-scale scenes, and it broke out for $4.8 million in the first weekend.

Overall, Sin City's overseas screening performance was not outstanding.

While the film grossed more than $75 million at the North American box office, "Sin City" earned more than $16 million in the 26 overseas markets where it had already opened.

"The overseas box office is definitely not as good as the North American box office,"

By the pool in his backyard, Murphy sat under a parasol, a pair of oversized black superlights covering half of his face, "I'll be content with 50 million dollars." ”

He stretched his long back, "Bill, how much of my share has arrived?" ”

"It's time to arrive." Bill Rothes first said a bit of nonsense, and then said in detail, "Fox Searchlight has paid off all the dividends of "Chainsaw", and the dividends of "Planet of Terror" Miramax have basically been paid, and the rest of these two projects are long-term small dividends. ”

"Oh, yes." He added, "There's also a union cut, but that's a small amount for you. ”

Murphy nodded, and although he quit the directors' union, he was still a member of the writers' union.

With these shares in his account, plus the profits from investing in Saw 2, he can be said to be a veritable multi-millionaire.

Where is the best place to spend this money? must have bought the movie rights of the superheroes in the hands of Marvel Comics, and finally let them fight together.

After the premiere of "X-Men 2", Murphy did not completely give up and continued to contact Marvel Comics, but unfortunately the results were very unsatisfactory, Marvel Comics was extremely resolute, and seemed to have absorbed the lessons of "Spider-Man" and "X-Men", saying that he would not sell the film rights of his well-known heroes.

For those less well-known comics, if Murphy's price is tempting, they can consider partnering with Stanton Studios.

Like well-known heroes such as Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, etc., Marvel Comics also offered Murphy a price of 1.5 billion US dollars, which is clearly determined not to sell.

Not to mention whether the money is worth it or not, with such a large sum of money, Murphy has nowhere to collect it.

But Murphy didn't give up completely, and found a lot of information about amazing superheroes to see if he could find the type that made him have memories in the unknown ranks.

"It's very difficult for Marvel Comics over there, they've been invested in for a long time, and now they're not short of money, and it's said they're also preparing their own superhero movie." Bill Rothes tapped lightly on the arm of his chair and reminded, "Marvel Comics lacks a distribution channel!" ”

Hearing this, Murphy sighed, his movies have to rely on other companies for distribution, what can he do to impress Marvel Comics?

Anyone with a discerning eye can see that even if he wants to sell himself, he will only sell it to a large company with a wide distribution channel and a complete industrial platform, just like DC Comics.

What can an individual like him, or a company like Stanton Studios, bring to Marvel Comics?

"Murphy, Harvey and Frank Miller talked to me yesterday," Bill Rosis suddenly changed the subject, "wanting to push Sin City 2 into the prep stage as soon as possible." ”

"In such a hurry?" Murphy took off his sunglasses and asked, "What do you think?" ”

Without hesitation, Bill Rothes said, "I think it's better to push it off!" (To be continued.) )