“RRR”: Why can it become the global box office champion?

Recently, a little-known Indian film “RRR” has become a new favorite in the overseas film market.

Since the beginning of the painting, the film has been running counterattacks all the way, winning the championship of the global weekend box office list last week, and setting a number of box office records at the same time.

However, on the other hand, the plot of “RRR” can be described as eye-popping.

In the film, two male protagonists who are born with divine power rise up to save their compatriots and lead a group of beasts and children to fight against the British colonists.

The popularity of such a magical film is hard not to make the rhinoceros curious.

Sweeping the global market

According to the BoxOfficeMojo website, “RRR” premiered in 21 countries and regions last week, beating Hollywood new film “The Lost City” and DC superhero blockbuster “The Batman” to top the global weekend box office with $63.99 million in its first week.

Among them, in India alone, the film earned about $46 million at the box office in its first week.

This figure is second only to “Baahubali 2: The Conclusion‎”, which created the second-highest opening week in Indian film history.

In terms of overseas markets, “RRR” also created the second-highest record in history, only lower than “Baahubali 2: The Conclusion‎”, and won the overseas box office of 16 million US dollars.

In addition to the main North American market, which contributed as much as $9.55 million at the box office, “RRR” also achieved excellent results in Australia, the United Kingdom and many countries in the Middle East.

Coincidentally, this film is from the director S.S. Rajamouli who directed the series “Baahubali: The Beginning‎”.

The Indian director, who is good at creating epic stories, has once again created a local commercial blockbuster that has ignited the world.

According to media information, “RRR” was originally planned to be released in 2020, but due to the impact of the epidemic, it underwent three file changes, and the official release was postponed until March this year.

The production cost of the film was also overrun from the original plan of $68 million to $120 million, making it the most expensive film in India. Of course, according to the global box office trend of singing along the way, “RRR”, which seems to be a big gamble, is likely to have the last laugh.

As netizens said, “RRR” is a standard Indian version of the anti-British blockbuster, telling the story of two Indian revolutionaries resisting British colonial rule in the 1920s.

The two protagonists of the film have historical prototypes, and director Raja Muri also said that he wanted to put the deeds of the two on the big screen for a long time.

However, in terms of performance, “RRR” is very different from domestic films of the same theme. The film adopts a fantasy-like exaggerated shooting method, combining the spectacle of Hollywood superhero blockbusters with the uniqueness of Chinese martial arts movies.

When the strong Indian elements collided with these fashionable commercial film elements, “RRR”, which was packed with three hours of watching, overwhelmed countless audiences.

Why “RRR”

How much overseas audiences liked the film can be seen at a glance from the ratings.

On the IMDb website, “RRR” currently has a rating of 9.1, which is on par with Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” reputation.

On the Rotten Tomatoes platform, “RRR” has a freshness rating of 77% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a popcorn rating of an astonishing 95%.

Let’s compare it with two other commercial blockbusters recently released in North America.

“Uncharted” starring “Tom Holland” is 40% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and 90% on popcorn.

Another well-received DC superhero blockbuster “The Batman” has an 85% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 88% popcorn rating.

Just like the word-of-mouth difference between “Uncharted” and “The Batman”, the degree of popcorn directly linked to the entertainment of the film is obviously more able to determine the quality of a commercial film in the eyes of ordinary audiences than the group of fans who value the film’s artistry more.

Obviously, RRR is also a typical popcorn movie. According to word-of-mouth feedback from overseas platforms, the entertainment of this film is top-notch in the eyes of audiences in North America and even more countries.

The higher Rotten Tomatoes freshness and IMDb scores also verify that the overall completion of this film is not low.

All of this has helped this Indian commercial blockbuster that turned out, crossed the cultural differences of various countries, and finally won the global weekly box office champion last week.

The plot of “RRR” is very simple, even mindless.

But in the 3-hour-long film, there is no long and slow rhythm as imagined. Instead, there are content bridges that ordinary audiences like war, song and dance, and love.

When Indian strong men fight tigers hand-to-hand, race with trains, and perform difficult rescues on bridges, it is difficult not to leave a deep impression on the audience.

To a certain extent, in the dimension of cool films, “RRR” already deserves a full score from the audience.

Secondly, Indian films are not inferior in terms of cultural output.

From the “3 Idiots‎” to the “Baahubali” series, Indian films have no shortage of local films that have successfully gone overseas.

The success of “RRR” may bring some new inspiration to film creators who want to go overseas.

First, uniqueness.

In terms of artistic style, “RRR” and “Baahubali: The Beginning‎” with strong local temperament are quite different from the mainstream Hollywood blockbusters in the market.

Its surreal and exaggerated creation methods have stimulated the desire of audiences from all over the world to watch movies.

While many creators are catching up with Hollywood movies, they do not know that this creative direction of insisting on their own style is also a path to success.

Second, universality.

In our opinion, a good work that can be successfully exported to the world is more indispensable to have sufficient universal content selling points.

It can be either the affection and courage in “Dangal‎”, or the super-burning action scenes in “RRR”.

In the final analysis, what can attract audiences to buy tickets into the theater is nothing more than the reasons that have been summed up badly.

The Hollywood blockbusters that were once sought after by audiences in China are just constantly re-creating these two creative points.

Whether it is the superhero blockbusters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe or the “Fast & Furious” that Chinese audiences love, there is not much difference in essence.

As for the differences in the story of the film itself, as well as the production technology, the performance level of the actors, etc., they are still the audience choice influence items that creators cannot ignore, but for a film like “RRR”, it is obviously not the main factor. .

Looking at the popularity of “RRR” in this way, although it is so abrupt and special, it still makes sense.

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