The performance of comedy movies in the summer has always had an excellent traditional history, such as last year's "Men in Black", 1995's "Ghost Horse Elf", 1994's "Strange Masterpiece in Disguise" and so on. Especially in the 90s, exaggerated comedy represented by Jim Carrey became the mainstream, and the fact that he became a member of the "20 million club" with the outstanding popularity of many works is the best proof of this, although only one work has received such a salary.

However, comedy movies are trapped by the limitations of the subject matter - it is very difficult to amuse the audience, coupled with the limitations of cost, publicity methods, and audience base, there is not much room for comedy movies in the summer file.

"Men in Black", which created an excellent box office record last year, is more of a sci-fi comedy, although it is a comedy, and there is still a difference; And the "Strange Hero in Disguise", who received countless praises four years ago, only won a weekend box office championship. More often, comedy movies are still active in the holiday file, and the atmosphere of Thanksgiving and Christmas makes works such as "Home Alone", "Dumb and Agua", "My Fair Daddy", "Short Man in Charge" and other works have innate advantages, and can often create better box office results.

The disadvantage of comedy movies is also an advantage: they are cheap, but they have a much wider audience than horror movies. This makes comedy movies the best carrier for small and big - Universal Pictures started with comedy movies, and can often exchange 10 million or 20 million investments for more than 100 million North American box office, and then the video tape market is very hot, allowing Universal Pictures to occupy a place in the eight major Hollywood studios.

"Truman's World" is a comedy movie, and the cost of 60 million dollars is already a high-investment and big production, but considering the joining of Hugo, Nicole Kidman, Alexander Lorraine and others, all this is acceptable. However, what kind of box office results this work can create is a huge question mark.

People have enough confidence in Hugo and undoubtedly believe that "Truman's World" can achieve box office success, but in the current situation where the topic of "Psychic Sixth Sense" is boiling, many media have also put forward such a point of view: Comedy movies are Hugo's first attempt - "Sleepless in Seattle" cannot be counted, and the upcoming "Supernatural Sixth Sense" as a horror movie is also Hugo's first attempt, no one knows what kind of sparks Hugo and comedy movies and horror movies will collide, but at least now it can be from " There are some ways to see it at the box office – how receptive are people to Hugo's other images?

This is not a character image, but a stylistic image. To put it simply, the audience has the most suitable image for each actor, Tom Hanks's family man taste, Tom Cruise's creamy little temperament - but after "Mission Impossible", it has transformed into an action hunk, Brad Pitt's sex. Masculine atmosphere, Jim Carrey's exaggerated and funny style, Leonardo DiCaprio's delicate and beautiful teenage appearance - this has also become the biggest cage that shackles his acting career, and so on.

Before that, Hugo had starred in many movies and had a variety of roles, but on the whole, Hugo's intricate temperament between men and boys has become the deepest impression of people. Even though Hugo starred in "Friends" and won an Emmy Award for it, there is still no way to directly connect Hugo and comedy - there is still a difference between humor and comedy, Hugo has a sense of humor, but he does not have a talent for comedy; Similarly, Hugo and the horror movie temperament are not suitable - horror movies in the plasma genre.

Now, "Truman's World" can be a litmus test to see how well Hugo performs in comedy films, and also to see how wide the audience is receptive to Hugo. This will not have much impact on Hugo's future career, even if the two works of "Truman's World" and "The Sixth Sense" fail, with Hugo's current status, he only needs to return to feature films to be able to succeed again, so this is not the focus of media discussion; The Uncrowned Kings are discussing that the success of comedy and horror films will determine the breadth and breadth of Hugo's future career, that is, the limits of Hugo's top superstar.

So, how should "Truman's World" be defined as a box office success?

In terms of horizontal comparison of movies of the same type, the opening box office of "Men in Black" last year was 51 million, while the premiere box office of "Strange Heroes in Disguise" was 23 million, the opening weekend of "Dumb and Ah Gua" received 16 million, and "My Fair Daddy" won 20 million US dollars in the first weekend.

From this set of data, it can be seen that it is difficult for comedy movies to burst out with the huge energy of disaster movies, action movies, and science fiction movies, and the box office data fluctuating around 20 million is already a huge success - "Men in Black" is mainly known as science fiction movies. Comedy movies rely more on word-of-mouth, and their long-term best-selling ability is very strong, and can even be comparable to animated movies with family fun. This is also an important reason why comedy films are difficult to stand out - only works with outstanding word-of-mouth and pleasing audiences can stand out in the long-term competition.

Since entering the summer season this year, although the two movies "Heaven and Earth Collision" and "Godzilla" have not been able to show the box office momentum of "Independence Day" and "Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World", the box office of both works is very good. "Heaven and Earth Collision" premiered at a box office of 41 million and won the championship for two consecutive weeks; "Godzilla" debuted at a box office of 44 million, and it also won the championship in two weeks.

It can be seen that the premiere box office of these two disaster blockbusters is 40 million, which is not really able to meet everyone's expectations compared to the investment level. In particular, "Godzilla", Roland Emmerich's work released again after "Independence Day", once again showed his demeanor as a master of disaster, but it suffered from both word-of-mouth and the audience.

The media rating was only 32 points, the theater score was only a "C", and most importantly, the box office did not show a strong momentum - the opening weekend box office was only on the same level as the "Independence Day" on July 4, which was $36 million, which was a real disappointment.

Many media outlets began to eagerly criticize Roland, making the reputation of "Godzilla" slide further into the abyss, which is also expected before the release of the movie - after "Independence Day" created an insurmountable peak, people are bound to expect more from "Godzilla", once the actual is lower than expected, the surging disappointment will make the feedback fluctuate greatly.

To add insult to injury, "Godzilla" is about to face the impact of "Truman's world" after barely holding the championship for two consecutive weeks, which is not good news for Roland.

Compared with the box office results of comedy films in previous years, and then compared with the box office energy of this year's summer files, as well as referring to Hugo's strong box office attraction to the audience, major media have given relatively close data in terms of premiere box office predictions.

The Los Angeles Times believes that the film will reach $31 million at the box office for its premiere, and media outlets that support this view include the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and others. The New York Post, on the other hand, believes that the premiere figure should be around 25 million, and the media that are close to this figure include the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, and so on.

The highest prediction is the Seattle Times, which says that "Truman's World" is capable of taking $33 million at the box office, while the lowest prediction is that of the Daily News, where the $22 million opening is their speculation.

It can be seen from the speculation data of the media that even if there is a controversy about the "supernatural sixth sense", people still give full affirmation to Hugo's box office ability, not to mention that this comedy movie is a collaboration between Hugo and "mentor" Peter Weir after ten years, which makes people look forward to it.

Although the predictions of the uncrowned kings are relatively different, they have actually set a new high for comedy movies. The current record for the highest box office for the premiere of a comedy film is $51 million for "Men in Black", followed by $26 million for "True Lies" and $25 million for "Fat Professor."

Although "Men in Black" and "True Lies" are both classified as comedy films, it is well known that the success of these two works is not because of the "comedy" part. So, the box office record for the premiere of a truly pure comedy film is $25 million for "Fat Professor."

In other words, everyone is optimistic that Hugo will break the record again and set a comedy movie premiere. Even in the face of a series of adverse circumstances, people still expressed such views, which shows the confidence of the North American market in Hugo at present. However, the media's predictions are also relatively conservative, the overall gap is not large, and everyone's views are almost the same, which also shows the current media reservations about "comedy movies".

Even Paramount Pictures is no exception, announcing its own internal box office estimate: $30 million.

It's a decent number, but it's also what Paramount Pictures expects from "Truman's World" — in other words, as long as the premiere box office reaches this number, Paramount Pictures can breathe a sigh of relief. The $30 million forecast is basically consistent with the overall trend of the media, and it can also be seen that the attitude of the entire North American market is relatively uniform.

However, the prediction is just a prediction, and the real results will still need to wait for the release of the movie to know. On June 1, 1998, it was a Monday, and "Truman's World" was lit up in Los Angeles amidst countless hot topics. The National Theatre held a grand premiere ceremony to build momentum for the nationwide screening that will begin this Friday.

Under the watchful eye, Hugo took to the stage with his new challenge.