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 MXEB, walked into a theater in the downtown commercial plaza early to observe the front-line market reaction to "The Shawshank Redemption."

After half past seven, the number of people entering the theater increased markedly, and after a long period of random visits and the number obtained from the theater line, he gradually got an initial 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 expectations of the distributor and their company, and the feedback from "Independence Day" is there, and no one would be stupid enough to think that "The Shawshank Redemption" can compete with this film in the box office market.

It's normal for films to not be able to compete with "Independence Day", why is the audience ratio only comparable to "The Lion King" and "Forrest Gump"? The latter two have been in theaters for several weeks, and "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 did not hesitate and gave the answer directly, "Absolutely not!" ”

"Why?" Parker asked hurriedly.

"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 terms of box office, attendance, and audience count on Friday, "Independence Day" has always been ahead of the contemporaneous films, and on Saturday morning, Duke got a detailed count from Independence Day Studios.

The weekend box office is bound to rebound, and although the strength is not particularly large, "Independence Day" took the lead in a single day of $15.57 million.

In second place is the just-released "The Shawshank Redemption", which got $5.12 million in a single day, beating the $4.78 million of "The Lion King" and the $4.27 million of "Forrest Gump", and won the second place.

In Duke's view, as long as the single-day performance of "The Shawshank Redemption" can be maintained, it is possible that the box office will 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, plummeting to $2.24 million at the single-day box office, while "Independence Day," "The Lion King" and "Forrest Gump" became relative beneficiaries, earning $16.34 million, $8.22 million and $7.43 million respectively, blowing up all the new releases this week.

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 temporary occurrence, maybe the audience will not care, but Time Warner and News Corp's media have been hyping up the hype, and it is difficult not to attract attention, and the disturbance of 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 "Burning Eyebrow" and New Line Pictures' "Strange Jack in Disguise" 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 multiple alien invasion films, and the theme also reflects American aggression!" -- Le Figaro, France.

"'Independence Day' reflects the delusions and ambitions of director Duke Rosenberg's Greater Americanism!" - Marca, 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

"Duke Rosenberg is crazy and delusional to use sci-fi blockbusters to be strong. traitors to the whole world, and actually wants the national day of all countries to be changed to July 4th! -- The Times, UK.

This film, in just one weekend, Duke caused a sensation far more than the sum of the past few years, film critics all over the world set off a frenzy of criticism of him, and Independence Day Studio, with the help of News Corporation's media throughout the Western world, spread Duke's rebuttal of film critics, causing film critics in the Western world to be excited, eager for Raduc to come out and tie it to the pillar of shame in history.

Criticizing Duke has become the right thing in the film critics' world, and even some film critics who want to argue for him have to become cautious.

Rather than remain silent, Duke continued to build hype for the hype, in an interview with the prestigious NewsWorld Weekly.

"I don't feel bad about the critics, everyone 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 to see my work, and even if the critic doesn't like it, I will still think about the audience's needs first."

As if he was afraid that the fire was not big enough, Duke also deliberately said, "I worked as hard as I could, and I was happy to see that the audience liked this movie except for the critics, so let's ignore those critics, I made 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 $42.96 million, 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 $159.89 million, and Duke won another record in North American film history - the fastest to break $150 million!

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

"The Lion King," which was released for four weeks, ranked second with $16.88 million, "Forrest Gump," which was released for five weeks, ranked third with $14.18 million, and in fourth place was a film called "Weekend Holiday," which Duke didn't remember, with a box office of $9.87 million.

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 Duke thought, "Independence Day" crushed the face that film critics thought was glamorous, and their influence on the market became weaker and weaker, completely exposed to Hollywood and movie fans.

"Independence Day" was also on its first weekend overseas, and although it only appeared in the overseas markets of Western Europe and the English-speaking region, it closed overseas with a total of $75.28 million over the three days of the weekend, which was enough to make all investors laugh from ear to ear.

At the start of a new week, all released films will inevitably begin to decline, and a tough competitor will be welcomed over the weekend, James Cameron's $115 million blockbuster "True Lies." R1152