It’s no surprise that the “Minions” is here, and in time for the U.S. Fourth of July, the box office is soaring.
Over the three-day weekend, “Minions: The Rise of Gru” (Minions: The Rise of Gru), produced by Universal Pictures’ Illumination Entertainment, opened in 4,391 theaters in North America and took in $109 million, refreshing the best opening for an animated movie in the epidemic era ($72.1 million) held by “Sonic the Hedgehog 2”.
As the fifth installment of the “Godfather” series, the film has been postponed several times due to the epidemic, but the result has also aroused stronger interest from the audience. Last Thursday’s spot screenings got quite a good box office, not only is the epidemic era of all animated films ranked first, and even in the entire history of American cinema, but also second only to “Incredibles 2” and “Toy Story 4”. Outside of the box office, word of mouth is also very good, currently on “Rotten Tomatoes” has 71% of the critics favorable rating and 91% of the audience favorable rating, a significant increase over the first film released in 2015.
The “Little Yellow Eyes: The Prequel” has 71% of critics and 91% of viewers on Rotten Tomatoes in the face of such results, the most embarrassing I’m afraid it is the previously released Pixar works “Light Years”. The same animation film, the same IP support, but the film was released three weeks cumulative total box office in North America only 105 million dollars. This makes one wonder if Disney, which has always dominated the American animation landscape, has lost its original advantage. In fact, Disney’s defeat at the box office is not only reflected in the animation piece. Back in 2019 before the epidemic, the North American annual box office top ten works, from the first to the sixth plus the eighth place, all produced by Disney; further years before, the situation is roughly the same. With the acquisition of quality assets such as Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm in the first decade of the new millennium, Disney has broken the traditional situation of the Hollywood herd and has truly become a dominant player.
However, with the arrival of the epidemic, theaters closed and the streaming revolution accelerated, the original trend was completely reversed. 2020 in the top ten of the annual box office in North America, Disney only a “Star Wars” in fifth place. The situation was slightly better last year, with three titles such as “Shang Qi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” and “Black Widow”. If the box office results in 2020 and 2021, because of the epidemic, are not fully counted. By the first half of this year, the whole of North America has basically out of the epidemic impact, gradually restored to the normal order of the past, but the current box office list of the top ten films, Disney still only “Dr. Strange 2” and “Lightyear is the legend of” the two, to replicate the top ten again in 2019 accounted for seven of the hegemony, I’m afraid this year is not very likely.
Of course, from another perspective, Disney box office results backward at the same time, its streaming platform Disney + career in this period of time or made great progress. I’m afraid it will take a little longer to see the pros and cons of this.
This past June, the North American box office total reached $980 million, the best single-month result of the entire epidemic era. And this past weekend, thanks to the strong box office push of “Little Yellow Eyes”, the total North American box office reached $175 million in these three days. In addition to “Little Yellow Eyes”, the second to fifth place “The Mighty 2”, “Elvis”, “Jurassic World 3” and “BlackBerry” also got at least $12 million at the box office, and the genre of the film is relatively diverse – both original works and blockbuster series, for men, women and children of various groups of audiences. There are different types of films – both original works and blockbusters – that appeal to a variety of audiences, both young and old.
