In the first weekend of 2022, the North American box office continued the trend at the end of last year, that is, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” thrived.
On the other hand, “Don’t Look Up”, which has already been removed from the theaters, has become the focus of public opinion because of the war of words between filmmakers and film critics.
“Competing for Oscars” works have not been released on a large scale
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” received $52.7 million in three days over the weekend, and its North American box office has reached $610 million. He surpassed “The Incredibles 2” with a total box office of $608 million and ranked among the top ten box offices in North American film history. Ranks.
At the same time, the global box office of the film has reached 1.37 billion U.S. dollars, and it ranks the twelfth strongest in film history.
Considering that not only was there no new movie released this past weekend, but before the release of Morbius at the end of January, the entire North American film market did not have any blockbuster releases-only the “Scream 5” released on January 14 may be It’s still a battle.
Therefore, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” continues to climb up the historical box office list, which is certainly not a problem.
In the past few years, at this time of the year, many literary and artistic films that wanted to hit the Oscars were generally released on a large scale to gather popularity and reputation.
However, in this awards season, because the target audience of such works has not yet returned to the theater, major film companies have temporarily shelved or reduced their new film release plans.
For example, “The Tragedy of Macbeth” directed by Joel Coen and starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand is currently only shown in 200 theaters in the United States.
“The Tragedy of Macbeth” is invested by Apple Pictures, and A24 is responsible for theatrical distribution. Its online part is operated by Apple itself. It will not be available for streaming until January 14.
However, according to the usual practice of several streaming media companies such as Apple, Netflix and Amazon, their theater box offices are not disclosed to the public.
Therefore, the industry itself is at a loss as to whether the film is popular with audiences.
In addition, the Spanish director Almodovar’s new work “Parallel Mothers” is released by Sony Pictures in North America, and is currently only available in three theaters in the United States.
There is also “Drive My Car” which represented Japan in this year’s Oscar competition for the best international film. Although it has won many awards, it has accumulated a lot of popularity and topicality in the North American market.
However, the distributor Janus Films is still cautious and only arranges for the film to be shown in 16 theaters across the United States.
A24’s “C’mon C’mo” and Searchlight Pictures’ “The French Dispatch” are currently only shown in dozens of American theaters.
Related Post: Check out the three highlights of Leonardo DiCaprio’s new movie “Don’t Look Up”, it can make you laugh from start to finish.
Film critic criticizes “Don’t Look Up” creator for self-righteousness
In contrast to the “competitive Oscars” works in theaters, the most popular movie on American social networks in the past week was “Don’t Look Up” that has already been off-stage in theaters.
“Don’t Look Up” is distributed by Netflix, and it will be shown in a few theaters in the United States on December 10, 2021.
Then “Don’t Look Up” landed on the Internet platform on December 24, and it occupied the top spot on the Netflix movie-on-demand list for several consecutive days.
“Don’t Look Up” is written and directed by Adam McKay.
“Don’t Look Up” tells the story of two scientists played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence who accidentally discovered that a comet is about to hit the earth half a year later, bringing disaster to the homeland of mankind.
However, in the face of their reminders, from the President of the United States played by Meryl Streep to the ordinary people, including the parents of female scientists, all took a dismissive and numb attitude.
What’s more, there is a tech giant played by Mark Rylance trying to take advantage of the human crisis to fill his pockets.
The whole film follows the black comedy route, and “Don’t Look Up” mocks American society up and down.
According to Adam McKay and another co-writer David Sirota, the death comet in the film is obviously a metaphor for “imminent global warming crisis.”
Feeling the insensitivity of the government and the media in the face of the climate crisis, they are determined to make such a film to alert the world.
“Don’t Look Up” has only 56% of critics’ praise on “Rotten Tomatoes”. At present, the film has been nominated for six American Critics’ Choice Awards and four Golden Globe nominations.
At the same time, “Don’t Look Up” is also one of the top ten films of 2021 selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) and the National Film Critics Association.
However, it seems to be contrary to the fact that “Don’t Look Up” has only 56% of professional film critics’ praise on the film review collection website “Rotten Tomatoes”.
Almost half of the 229 professional film critics gave “Don’t Look Up” low scores.
On Metacritic, another comprehensive film review website with a higher entry threshold, almost half of the 46 senior film critics did not appreciate the work.
On the contrary, the average audience generally prefers “Don’t Look Up” relatively speaking.
Currently on the IMDb website, viewers give “Don’t Look Up” a score of more than seven.
Obviously, “Don’t Look Up” elicited a polarizing view among American film critics.
Those who like it put the label “Dr. Strange-love of our time” on it, and even predicted that the film is expected to make a big difference in the second half of the awards season and even the final Oscars.
On the other hand, people who dislike it mainly criticize the film’s superior attitude.
Critics of “The Hollywood Reporter”, “Variety” and “The Guardian” all hold this attitude. ,
They believe that scientific issues such as climate warming are actually very complicated to discuss and involve all aspects.
But “Don’t Look Up” simplifies it into a big question: Do you believe or not believe what the scientist says?
Therefore, the film appears to be too arbitrary and arbitrary, but it loses the rigorous attitude that scientific research should have.
In their view, director Adam McKay and screenwriter David Sirota obviously have a high self-esteem and pretend to treat the audience as idiots who don’t understand the climate crisis. That’s why they thought of using this absurd allegory to convey the above information.
Therefore, “Don’t Look Up” will show that apart from a few scientists and heroes, almost no one foresaw the imminent crisis of the comet.
Whether it is ordinary people on social media or politicians and media who should be socially responsible, they are all portrayed in the film as a bunch of stupid people and idiots.
Seeing that the debate between the pros and the cons became more intense, director Adam McKay and screenwriter David Sirota also joined the battle of public opinion.
David Sirota, a journalist, is a senior student who graduated from Northwestern University’s Department of Political Science. A few years ago, he was the chief writer of Bernie Sanders, who was aspiring to run for the president of the United States.
His thinking is quite left-leaning, and his wife is also a Democratic congressman in Colorado.
In response to the critics who criticized the film, Sirota responded on December 26 last year and said: “A film about climate has become the most popular work on the world’s largest streaming media platform. If you don’t think so, This is a huge victory, so I can only say that you are no different from the characters in this movie.”
Three days later, director Adam McKay also ridiculed on his social media that those who have no sense of anxiety about the climate crisis should not spend time discussing the movie at all, and don’t even have to watch it.
Because “It’s like a robot watching a romance movie, ‘why do they have to face to face?” The robot will definitely ask such questions.”
Not surprisingly, their speeches quickly attracted more criticism.
Even the film critic Kyndall Cunningham of the online news media “The Daily Beast”, which has always been left-leaning, refuted it.
He said that such a Netflix film that cost 75 million US dollars to shoot must have produced a lot of carbon emissions during the production process, which “contributed” to global warming.
Then the director actually has to judge whether you know what environmental protection is based on whether you like his movie after watching it. This is ridiculous in itself.
Moreover, it is obvious that the film itself is well-made, but the director has to hold high the banner of environmental justice and criticize all the critics who criticize his works from the moral high ground, which is even more unreasonable.
And Charles Bramesco, a film critic based in New York, also wrote an article in The Guardian in the United Kingdom: “When you want to persuade others to change their minds on important issues, the method of persuasion is often as important as the content of the persuasion. If you just attack the other party, not Respect or look down on the other person to persuade others will only result in the target audience turning a deaf ear to your words. At this time, even if your content is reasonable, it will be useless.”
