In the third week of June in 1997, "Batman & Robin" and "My Best Friend's Wedding" came together, and it was widely regarded as a weekend that would change the landscape of Hollywood movies today.

However, when the weekend box office statistics came out, everyone fell through their glasses and could hardly believe their glasses - not because the box office was too good, but because the box office was so low that one suspected that the box office statistics were wrong.

"Batman and Robin" was a big hit, and when more than 3,000 theaters were released simultaneously, it only handed over $40 million at the box office -- the three-day box office data could only compete with the box office of "Independence Day" on the first day of release last year with $36 million, and what is more serious is that this work plummeted by 23 percentage points compared with the box office figure of "Batman Forever" premiere of $52 million, which is almost a devastating blow to a sequel movie.

Before the official release of the movie, people predicted countless possibilities, but only this one was missed: not to mention making history beyond "Independence Day", even the results of its own previous work could not be surpassed.

In the past month, "Batman and Robin" has almost bombarded propaganda, and the entire publicity period has covered every corner of the North American continent with a carpet layout.

There are George Clooney on handsome guys, Uma Thurman on beauty, Arnold Schwarzenegger on focus, Aziwa Gosman on screenplay, Joe Schumacher on director, original comics on stories, Bruce Wayne on characters, and "Batman Forever" on the mass base...... From any point of view, there is no doubt about the success of this work, and even the New York Post boldly predicted that "the only question is: how high this work can be." ”

But the truth is that "Batman & Robin" suffered the strongest box office cold air ever, which was called a "June Winter" box office weekend by the Los Angeles Times, almost catastrophic.

Objectively speaking, the weekend box office data of $40 million is not a bad result for ordinary works, on the contrary, it is enough to win the weekend box office championship in the fierce competition in the summer file. However, for a highly anticipated work, for a work that strives to break records, this result is not only far below expectations, but even a failure.

This ending, which puzzled countless people, immediately sparked heated discussions among the media and audiences, and after investigation, it was found that everything actually had a source: because this is really an extremely bad work.

The media review was only 25 points, which attracted a lot of bad reviews, and Roger Ebert even commented, "This is probably one of the worst comic book adaptations in film history, and even the 'one' is fine." ”

In the film reviews, it is generally commented that not only the story is mentally retarded to the point of intolerability, but it is completely a kindergarten cartoon plot level; And the characters have no quality at all, even if you put aside the character creation in art films, it is far from the image in the original comics: the poison ivy girl who always has a flat mouth can't even say a vase, and the freeze man who is always clumsy and overwhelmed is estimated to be the first villain in history to be stupidly killed, and he always has a face. The smiling and playboy-looking Batman looks like a quarterback in a youth school movie, a Batgirl who is always ignored by the audience but brushes up on her presence in an inopportune situation, and Robin who is always at a loss for what to do......

A quote from the Chicago Tribune echoed the hearts of the critics, "The smiling Batman looks like Iron Man in the wrong armor." In the comments, they said that George's rich second-generation temperament does coincide with Bruce Wayne, but his smile makes the gothic dark Batman look like a little guy playing playing play in kindergarten.

Although hero comic book movies have never had any direct connection with acting, George's image of Batman has attracted a strong backlash, not to mention fans of the original comics, even ordinary audiences are seriously unaccustomed to the soil, and have said that this may be "the stupidest Batman in history".

The theater rating, which represents the audience's reaction, is only a terrible "D-", which is undoubtedly terrible news - even the audience doesn't buy it, how can a commercial blockbuster sell at the box office?

Such a bad pathos is nothing less than a bad thing for "Batman & Robin", which not only explains the box office failure of the opening weekend, but also sets off alarm bells for the future box office of the production.

Judging from the single-day box office of the movie, the single-day box office on Friday was as high as $22 million, which also shows that the previous overwhelming publicity is very effective, attracting a large number of audiences to the cinema for the first time. But the film's poor quality dragged its feet, and no one wanted to go into the cinema to see a "mentally retarded" work, with the single-day box office figure plummeting to $12 million on Saturday and $9 million on Sunday, almost heralding an avalanche of box office declines the following week.

Behind this box office tragedy, it is worth noting that even though the previous publicity battle completely occupied everyone's attention, the box office on the first day was only $22 million, which cannot even be compared with the Friday box office after the "Independence Day" broke out on Thursday, which is undoubtedly the biggest question about George Clooney's box office appeal:

As a sex that calls for wind and rain on a small screen. Feeling the male god, no one will deny George's charm, even compared with Hugo, Brad, Tom and others, he is definitely not weak; But George clearly has a long way to go to turn that glamour into a driving force for audiences to get into the cinema, and he can't even match Brad, let alone challenge Hugo's hegemony – a claim that now seems like a joke.

It's like a bucket of ice water, which quickly cools down the overheated brains of major Hollywood studios, and they all question themselves, "Can George really compete with Hugo?" ”

Ninety-five million dollars? No, it's 40 million dollars.

The opening weekend of "Batman and Robin" was a disaster, especially after the vigorous and boiling farce in the early stage, which made the disaster even more embarrassing, and even Warner Bros. himself was completely panicked. There are still some people in the company who are looking forward to the movie's decline the following week, hoping that fans of Batman's original comics will walk into the cinema, but they are doomed to disappointment, and the 70% collapse drop in the next week has completely declared the death penalty of the movie.

Who would have thought? "Batman Forever" created brilliance, while the sequel "Batman & Robin" was nailed to the pillar of shame.

The Avengers, the title is spreading more and more widely in the circle - as a kind of irony, and even for a long time it has become the title of Joe, George, Arnold, Umma, Chris and others, George is Iron Man, Arnold is Hulk, Uma is Black Widow, Chris is Hawkeye, and director Joe is the director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The menacing Avengers lasted only one day - Friday's premiere day, and then went straight to the ground, such an ending that even Hollywood's top screenwriters couldn't write, even more exciting than "Batman and Robin" The return of the king surpassed "Independence Day".

Interestingly, the box office premiere of "My Best Friend's Wedding" added a touch of dark humor to the situation.

The romantic comedy, which cost only $38 million, was released in 2,100 theaters and delivered an excellent box office result of $22 million - and it was created in a strong confrontation with "Batman and Robin" on the same schedule, which is almost amazing.

In addition, in stark contrast to its direct competitors, the media comprehensive reviews and theater scores have both achieved a reversal, and praise for Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz is endless. All this seems to foreshadow that "My Best Friend's Wedding" has accomplished an impossible task, and in the form of a romantic comedy, it has triumphed in the confrontation with superhero comic book movies.

For reference, the box office of "Life and Death 2" fell by as much as 54% in the second week, and the weekend box office was less than $7 million, and the cumulative box office has just crossed the $30 million threshold. This also means that the $130 million investment in this sequel film is about to come to naught.

Faced with such a situation, it couldn't be simpler for major film companies to make a decision.

Warner Bros. immediately removed the position of "Batman and Robin" as the publicity director, and internally announced that the adaptation of Batman would be shelved and would not be talked about again in the short term. Barry Meyer even visited the "L.A. Confidential" crew in person to express his condolences for the hard work of the crew.

Warner Bros., Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, and Sony Columbia Pictures teamed up to ban Uma, and after that, Uma was left in such a long window with no end in sight that many people almost forgot that there was once such an actress in the circle.

Even Joe Schumacher, George Clooney and Arnold Schwarzenegger have been badly affected. Joe faced a situation of no film to shoot for the next three years; After Arnold withstood such a blow, he completely collapsed, and in 1994, "True Lies" became his last glory, and since then, although he has continued to have film contracts, the box office results have never been satisfactory, and he has been silent for many years; After suffering such a blow, George returned to the field of TV dramas and entered a dormant period again.

Ambition was ruthlessly extinguished just before it had time to emerge at the tip of the iceberg. Is this a tragedy, or a comedy? If understood from the perspective of the Avengers, this is actually a comedy.