From Flower Vase to Film Emperor in Hollywood

A feature report from "The New York Times" successfully triggered another storm—again.

Undoubtedly, "Catch Me If You Can" has been the number one blockbuster in North America for the past two weeks, with consistently high popularity and an exploding out-of-circle index.

This makes people wonder, in what way will such a popular activity come to an end, and will it be able to break its own upper limit and bring more surprises?

The result.

"Catch Me If You Can" not only brought surprises again, but also awakened the artistic soul of New York City in a magnificent and yet refined way.

Magnificent, because more than 10,000 spectators gathered in Washington Square Park, easily refreshing people's perception of flash mob activities.

Refined, because the activity returned to the film itself, temporarily setting aside the formality of commercial promotion, and truly focusing entirely on the film—

Choosing the "Superman" series was a stroke of genius, echoing the retro era of "Catch Me If You Can" on the one hand, and the Flash in the movie and Spider-Man outside the movie on the other. From any perspective, it was a brilliant choice, coupled with the conversation that night, the effect was even better.

Bit by bit.

"Catch Me If You Can" firmly occupied the public's attention, deservedly becoming the absolute hit of this year's Christmas and New Year holidays, and this was reflected in the box office numbers.

In 2003, the first weekend box office chart in North America was freshly released.

This weekend's box office was for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th, so it had one characteristic:

First, the previous weekend was the Christmas holiday, and the box office across the board was green, with the box office numbers of almost all movies ushering in an inverse upward curve.

Second, the two holidays of December 31st and January 1st brought a wave of movie-watching craze, and the weekday box office numbers were the peak of the surge.

Naturally, the weekend box office numbers this week tend to be quite dismal, with numbers plummeting by more than 50% everywhere. Controlling it at 40% is already a victory, because the weekday box office is the key.

However, the release of the North American weekend box office chart still brought surprises and caused a burst of exclamation—

Champion, "Catch Me If You Can".

Runner-up, "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers".

Third place, "Intolerable Cruelty".

Fourth place, "About Schmidt".

Fifth place, "Maid in Manhattan".

Sixth place, "Gangs of New York".

Purely from the ranking, there is nothing surprising. "About Schmidt", which officially entered the full release stage this week, is the only surprise. Relying on the topic effect of the Golden Globe Awards sweeping nominations and the star effect of Jack Nicholson, it easily took in 8.8 million US dollars and entered the top five of the chart.

As for the others, there is no change, just copy and paste from the previous week's ranking. "Catch Me If You Can" resisting the impact of "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" to win the championship again is a small surprise, but that's basically it.

The real surprise comes from the drop in numbers.

"The Lord of the Rings 2", a drop of 48.8%.

"Intolerable Cruelty", a drop of 28.3%.

"Maid in Manhattan", a drop of 31.2%.

"Gangs of New York", a drop of 33.9%.

It's clear at a glance.

The larger the box office base in the previous week, the more obvious the drop in box office this week. "The Lord of the Rings 2" suffered heavy losses, and the downward trend could not be stopped; on the contrary, chick flicks "Intolerable Cruelty" and "Maid in Manhattan" performed well, unexpectedly attracting a large number of viewers' interest during the holidays—

After the cold reception of "Murder by Numbers", Sandra Bullock still stopped the loss in time. Although the box office of "Intolerable Cruelty" is still lower than expected, with a cumulative box office of 68 million after three weeks of release, which is not outstanding, it at least proves that Sandra still has appeal in the chick flick market.

Obviously, the surprise is not in the above works, then there is only one work left.

"Catch Me If You Can", a drop of 24.5%.

Amazing, astonishing, admirable.

A burst of exclamation.

Following the surprise brought by the premiere weekend box office, "Catch Me If You Can" once again brought good news, showing the enthusiasm of the entire North American continent in an incredible and unbelievable manner, and completely dominating this year's holiday season with a crushing force.

January, switching from the holiday season to the winter season, is completely another world. Although relying on the awards season's popularity support, the box office numbers in the winter season are slightly higher than those in the fall season; however, the cold weather becomes the biggest enemy preventing people from leaving their homes, and the box office numbers each year struggle.

In addition, because awards season movies become the protagonists of movie theaters during this time, commercial genre movies often do not like to run here to join in the fun.

As of now, the historical record for the January weekend box office is held by a special movie—

"Star Wars".

That is, the first movie in this legendary series released in 1977.

In 1997, because it was the twentieth anniversary of the series, Twentieth Century Fox edited a twentieth-anniversary version and re-released it in January.

On its premiere weekend, this work took in an excellent box office of 35 million US dollars, strongly refreshing the January box office record in film history, once again proving the absolute position of the series of movies in North America that no one can shake.

Currently, the runner-up in the January box office chart in film history is temporarily "Black Hawk Down", which premiered in January 2002. This work took in 23 million US dollars in its opening weekend for three days, a bright achievement.

From the achievements of these two works, from the data in this box office chart in film history, we can see the severe challenges faced by the January season.

Of course, it is worth mentioning here is "Titanic". This epic masterpiece also left a series of brilliant box office records in the January weekend of 1998. Two weekends had a box office higher than 30 million, and two weekends were higher than 25 million, which no one has been able to break so far.

But now?

"Catch Me If You Can" has completely subverted people's perception of the January box office market like a tornado.

"Catch Me If You Can" not only easily broke the highest record for the North American January weekend box office in film history, but also raised the weekend box office performance from the 30 million level to the 60 million level in one fell swoop.

Moreover, this is not the premiere weekend, but the box office number in the second week of release.

Shock and impact are coming head-on.

The filter is broken all over the floor. Obviously, this is not the January season in people's perception. The previous rules and experiences have all lost their effect and entered a new world.

Unexpectedly, Warner Bros. tried to bring innovation to the holiday season, but unfortunately it did not succeed; Hollywood has witnessed the craze of the January winter season.

Suddenly, the entire Hollywood fell into countless question marks, lost its direction, and was even more impactful than the historical records of the summer season.