readx;?“ "Fury Road" is just the premiere weekend, but the discussion has begun to break the table, and many actors have begun to show their hearts to Lance, it seems that this work is still in theaters, and people are already aiming for Lance's next work, so sought-after that no one in the entire Hollywood can beat it, and an invisible undercurrent is surging. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

However, "Fury Road" has clearly met a strong opponent, and "Banshee in the Water", which will be released this week, has shown no less momentum as the topic.

Warner Bros. has a total of three giants in this summer's file, "Poseidon", "Superman Returns" and "Banshee in Water", among which "Banshee in Water" is the most special. Although the investment of this work is only 75 million, it is not comparable to the other two works, but Warner Bros. has put a lot of effort into the production stage, and obviously has strong confidence in it.

"Banshee in the Water" was actually a Disney project at first, but later M. Knight Shyamalan left Disney with the project and defected to Warner Bros. due to creative differences. Knight's "The Sixth Sense" is still a classic after many years, and it still holds the record for single-year video tape and DVD rentals - 80 million rentals in 2000, and this film is one of only four horror films in film history to be nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture, so Warner Bros. takes it very seriously.

The cost of "Banshee in the Water" did not break the threshold of 100 million, but as a thriller and suspense work, it is definitely enough to rank among the most expensive in film history, and the production cast is even more huge"The success curve.

Needless to say, Paul naturally has strong connections in the circle, and he is even known as a golden supporting role, perhaps with average box office appeal, but the audience popularity is very good. This solo lead is a little worrying, but more full of expectations, because this is Paul's first time as the leading actor in a commercial work, and it can be regarded as a major breakthrough in his career.

As a newcomer, Bryce's official film debut is the "Mystery Village" with Knight, but she is more known for her background - she is the daughter of the great director Ron Howard, not only that, but her mother, uncle, grandparents and grandmothers are all well-known stars in the film industry, and her connections in the circle are impressive.

Although Bryce was unwilling to accept her father's shadow and changed her surname to "Dallas" when she was in college, and her cooperation with Knight was entirely because the director took a fancy to her performance in the Broadway stage play, "Banshee in Water" is a commercial blockbuster, and Warner Bros. naturally will not easily let go of Bryce's network role - not on the surface.

As early as the "Da Vinci Code" promotion period, Tom Hanks mentioned "Banshee in Water" in an interview, saying that he was particularly looking forward to this work, "Shyamalan is a very special director, his control of horror movies is different, and he can often touch the fragility of human nature compared to fright. ”

At the internal preview screening of "Banshee in the Water" in May, it was even more star-studded, with Jim Carrey, Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Matthew McConaughey, Michael Keaton, Renee Zellweger, ...... Even Cate Blanchett was on the scene, not to mention film critics and journalists, all of whom were top names in the industry. is just an internal test screening, which has made the headlines of the entertainment version, and even under the bombardment of many works in the summer file, "Banshee in the Water" has always maintained the hot topic and has not fallen behind.

After the test screening, there were rumors in the circle that the quality of this work was excellent, and Warner Bros. was full of confidence that Knight had once again shot an absolutely good work. Maybe it's not Oscar-level, but it's really a summer box office hit; Moreover, the horror films in this year's summer file are almost extinct, and the market for this genre is completely in a vacuum, and it is not impossible for "Banshee in the Water" to usher in a full-scale outbreak.

After entering June, Warner Bros. held an event, "Discover the Siren Around You", calling on every audience to actively discover the mysterious events about water around them, shoot or record them, upload them to the Internet, and the top 10 creators of the final hit rate will win the opportunity to go to Los Angeles to participate in the premiere of "Banshee in the Water".

Warner Bros.'s publicity department sent a team to shoot five "in-house" videos, which were uploaded to increase the sense of participation in the event. They even invited Steve Martin and Vince Vaughn to shoot two short films and upload them, which created a lot of buzz.

After the event was in full swing, it did attract a lot of conversation, especially people's expectations for M-Knight Shyamalan, which gradually climbed with the promotion of publicity, coupled with the excellent internal reputation so far, many reporters began to get excited, and they have focused their attention on the showdown in the third week of July.

"M-Knight Shyamalan vs. Lancelot Strello, the former genius and the current genius, who will have the last laugh?" This article, written by Entertainment Weekly, represents the general rhetoric of watching a good show in the circle.

In 1999, Knight was released with a "supernatural sixth sense", which was only the second film of his directorial career, which earned him Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, and many exclaimed that he would return to the glory of horror films. But after that, Knight began to go all the way downhill, "Immortal Tribulation", "Heavenly Omen", and "Mysterious Village", and the three works hit the streets in a row, which pushed Knight to an extremely disadvantageous position.

The 2004 "Mystery Village" can be said to be highly anticipated, gathering William Hurt, Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien-Brody (Adrien-Brody), Sigourney Weaver (Sigourney-Weaver) The huge cast cast was thought to be definitely a box office bomb in the summer before its release, but it turned out to be a box office dud, with only 44 points in the media comprehensive evaluation and only 43% on Rotten Tomatoes. It received 114 million at the North American box office, and due to the good performance of the overseas box office, Disney only lost less than 10 million in the end.

However, the "Mystery Village" has led a frenzy of questioning throughout North America, and the "Wall Street Journal" directly criticized that "the director full of spirituality in 'The Sixth Sense' has disappeared, and the shortcomings in picture composition, rhythm control, scene scheduling and actor training have been exposed, and the most puzzling thing is why Shyamalan has suppressed the high/tide reversal that should have erupted every time, and treated it like boiled water." Let's start to think, after stripping away the excellent elements of the original script of 'The Sixth Sense', how much of Shyamalan's directorial talent is left? ”

The Los Angeles Times mercilessly declared, "The fall of a generation of genius." ”

This also pushed Knight's career to the edge of a cliff, and it can be said that the "Water Banshee" project is Knight's last chance to either redeem himself or slide into the abyss. This is also the reason why he and Disney have a dispute - Disney has experienced three consecutive failures, refusing to give Knight the green light all the way, and Knight also knows that this is his lifeline, so he naturally refuses to give an inch, and the two sides continue to conflict during the discussion, which directly leads to Knight taking the entire project to Warner Bros.

Judging from the current internal feedback and publicity of Warner Bros., they are full of confidence, so "Entertainment Weekly" can't help but exclaim that "Banshee in Water" is very promising to become a pedal for Knight's re-emergence.

Hollywood has always had a saying that "nothing more than three", that is, a famous artist has three chances of serious fiasco, and only when three red lights are lit in a row will this really announce that there is no day to turn over, and before that, the recovery of a work can return to the top. That being said, the stakes are not so easy to articulate, just as "Pulp Fiction" is to John Travolta and "Iron Man" is to Robert Downey Jr., a single work sweeps away the Shen Ke of the past decade.

So, does "Banshee in the Water" have any hope of becoming Knight's "pulp fiction"? Or will it become Knight's "Cut Throat Island"?

Obviously, the biggest rival in front of Knight is undoubtedly Lance's "Fury Road". Not only because Lance is the best director in the past few years, but also because the opening weekend of Fury Road was a shocking one, whether "Banshee in the Water" can replicate the feat of "Fury Road" defeating Pirates of the Caribbean 2 last week has become the biggest attraction of the week.

"Banshee in the Water" is very important to Knight and to Warner Bros., Warner Bros. does not dare to take it lightly, and the powerful propaganda force is almost all in the attack. But even so, in the face of the absolute strength of "Fury Road", "Banshee in the Water" still struggled to gain too much upper hand, which made Warner Bros. tense up and down.

Barry Meyer couldn't be clearer that the miracle of "Fury Road" relies on the sword to go sideways, and the publicity effect of the viral video is far beyond imagination, and now the "Banshee in the Water" relies on the competition in all directions, and it is bound to be difficult to make a difference. They have to be a surprise winner.

The propaganda department had considered directly highlighting Blythe's family background to create a flashpoint to attract attention, but Barry thought it was a drink to quench his thirst, first, these flashpoints would not necessarily become the focus, second, they would sacrifice their close friendship with Ron Howard, and third, the previous platform of Tom Hanks and others would be in vain - people could see at a glance that they were friendly canvassing. Hiding Blythe's identity allows Warner Bros. to create a "good reputation" momentum that can play a role.

Picking up the New York Post on his desk, which was the focus of "The Tonight Show," Barry fell into deep thought. (To be continued.) )