From Flower Vase to Film Emperor in Hollywood

In 2002, "Spider-Man" swept through, setting a series of records, while "Catch Me If You Can" achieved remarkable box office success in an unbelievable manner. This propelled Ansen to soaring heights, reaching the pinnacle of Hollywood.

However, within Hollywood, people harbored some hesitation regarding Ansen's star aura, because the success of "Spider-Man" and "Catch Me If You Can" seemed heavily reliant on external factors. How much of the box office explosion was actually due to Ansen's own merit?

This was a question mark.

Originally, Hollywood industry professionals believed that the answer would only be revealed in 2004, after observing the box office performance of "Spider-Man 2."

However, as 2003 drew to a close, the answer arrived ahead of schedule.

In 2003, the North American year-end box office rankings were announced, filled with surprises:

Champion: "Finding Nemo," $339 million.

Runner-up: "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," $305 million.

Third place: "The Matrix Reloaded," $280 million.

Overall performance was slightly inferior to the previous year, but still worth celebrating.

Especially "Pirates of the Caribbean." From production to post-production to distribution, and even up to its release, industry insiders generally believed it would be another box office disaster following "Cutthroat Island" and "Waterworld." Disney had created this film specifically to promote the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in their theme parks, and it looked like a flop in every way.

But, the box office exploded.

Moreover, it wasn't just a simple, eye-catching success; it evolved into a brand-new cultural phenomenon, with a profound impact comparable to the emergence of "Star Wars" that year.

Some people were curious: "Spider-Man's" box office was even more impressive, almost breaking the record of "Titanic," so why was Johnny Depp's rise even more vigorous?

The answer lies in cultural influence.

"Spider-Man's" ultimate influence still revolved around the superhero character; but in "Pirates of the Caribbean," Johnny Depp created a unique and charismatic image, bursting onto the scene and sweeping all before him. People's affection and admiration could be fed back to Johnny one hundred percent, or even one hundred and twenty percent.

Later, the relationship between Marvel movie characters and actors was the same—

The movie is successful; the character's popularity soars.

But ultimately, audiences still loved the superhero character, so when the actor left the role to appear in other works, audiences often didn't pay much attention.

The character's charm outweighed the actor's charm.

Naturally, movie companies were willing to pay for the character but not for the actor.

This is the same principle as theme parks. When actors put on headgear and costumes to become characters, they can have the whole world; but after taking off those costumes, people often don't recognize them.

Therefore, Johnny Depp used this film to explode all the accumulation of the previous two decades, soaring into the sky and strongly reaching the top—

An Oscar nomination for Best Actor is the best proof.

Fourth place: "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," $249 million.

Fifth place: "Bruce Almighty," $242 million.

Sixth place: "The Butterfly Effect," $230 million.

In this range, there was a name that shouldn't have been there:

"The Butterfly Effect."

A burst of exclamations.

When people praised Johnny Depp's charm for bringing $300 million in North American box office to "Pirates of the Caribbean," and when people marveled that Jim Carrey was still a market darling, once again writing a box office myth with "Bruce Almighty," look at them, and then look at "The Butterfly Effect," and the shock comes head-on.

Without comparison, there is no harm. At this moment, people truly realized Ansen's box office appeal.

If people cheered for Johnny Depp and Jim Carrey, then people should absolutely bow down to Ansen.

Without "Spider-Man," without Steven, relying entirely on Ansen himself, "The Butterfly Effect" strode into the top ten of the year-end box office rankings.

All controversy and all doubts should all stop.

Ansen Wood is the number one person in Hollywood right now!

Seventh place: "X2: X-Men United."

Eighth place: "Elf."

Ninth place: "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines."

Tenth place: "Bad Boys II."

Among these, there was both "Elf," which unexpectedly achieved box office success, and "Terminator 3" and "Bad Boys II," high-investment projects that failed to reap high returns—

These two series of films were directly declared over. It wasn't until many years later, when Hollywood lacked inspiration for original films, that producers turned their attention to old films, and the series were able to restart.

Moreover, it is worth mentioning that "The Matrix Revolutions" ultimately only had $139 million in North American box office, a very, very bad result. Regardless of the $150 million production cost, or the fact that the second film in the series earned $280 million in the summer of the same year, the final chapter of the series ran into a wall six months later, and the final box office number was directly cut in half.

Such a scene was truly shocking.

However, fortunately, the "Matrix" series became a science fiction classic and later became very popular in the DVD rental market, still earning Warner Bros. a full pot, so much so that eighteen years later, Warner Bros. forcibly pulled the director out, half enticing and half forcing him to shoot the fourth film in the series—

Unfortunately, that was a mess, and the behind-the-scenes stories were a complete disaster. But that's another story.

Outside the top ten of the year-end list, "Elephant" ultimately ranked thirty-eighth with a box office of $72 million, which was also the lowest production cost of the top fifty films on the year-end list, and without the added bonus of an Oscar nomination.

To some extent, this was an even more shocking result than "The Butterfly Effect."

However, this is still not all.

Outside of North America, there is also the overseas market. In the world year-end list, Ansen's figure can still be seen, without exception.

This is another kind of impact.

Slightly different from North America, "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," relying on the reputation and expectations accumulated by the series, the finale of the series set off a frenzy around the world, helping the film's global box office to rush past the $1 billion threshold in one go—

As the only film in the world to break the $1 billion box office mark in 2003, it strongly topped the global box office year-end championship.

Without a doubt, for this epic series of works, this was a perfect ending, and New Line Cinema became the most prominent film of the year in an unbelievable way.

Don't forget that "Elf" and "The Butterfly Effect" are also works of New Line Cinema.