The Greatest Showman

From the perspective of genre theme, "Lobster" still continues the obscure and niche styles of "Drunken Country Ballads" and "Boom Drummer", but from the perspective of the core theme of the movie, "Lobster" is more accessible than the other two works. It is also more approachable, and the theme of discussing love relationships is more easily understood by the general public.

But does that mean there may be more possibilities in the box office market? Not necessarily.

For niche and unpopular works, "easy to understand" means that everything is stable, and the gimmicks that stimulate the market will be weakened a lot. Just relying on the movie's own settings and ridicules to create promo, the overall discussion on social networks is also hot. It is relatively weakened, and it is impossible to know what impact this will have on the box office - after all, "Renly-Hall" is always an unknown, and the box office itself is also, only waiting for the market to give an answer.

After the media comprehensive review gave 85 points, other related reviews of "Lobster" were also announced one after another.

Rotten Tomatoes Freshness Index, 90%.

Mass Media Score, 8:00.

Popcorn Index, 68 percent.

In addition to the theater scores and imdb scores that cannot be counted at the point-blank stage, other scores can give a glimpse of the overall situation of the movie:

On the whole, it is indeed slightly inferior to "Booming Drummer" and "Drunken Country Ballad", but it still maintains Renly's consistent excellent vision in script selection, and the comments in various aspects also show a gradual decline:

The media comprehensive review is the highest, followed by Rotten Tomatoes, the mass media again, and the Popcorn Index is at the bottom.

Obviously, "The Lobster" is not a movie that is widely loved by the general public, and the popcorn index is even lower than that of a cold and arrogant art work such as "Drunk Town Ballad". In order to win love, you need to face more critical eyes.

Having said that, "The Lobster" was well-received among film critics—just not as impressive as Renly's previous films, but it still received warm applause from the professional and mass media, especially for Renly's performance. , people really see Renly's breakthrough challenge.

The same goes for the audience.

There is no "best career", no "best of the year", no exaggerated and enthusiastic compliments, in addition to causing a lot of laughter and scolding on social networks, it has won extra attention from ordinary netizens. .

"Hey, it's not the best in my career after all? Did I miss this time? Suddenly curious."

"The second time to challenge comedy Renly, step out of his comfort zone, and finally prove that he is also a mortal."

"Suddenly feel sorry for Renly, not the 'best' anymore? Renly doesn't cry."

"Fancy praise reaches a paragraph, and Renly returns to the mortal world?"

"Could it be that the little golden man's curse is so late and finally here? Wait, who am I lying to? It must be another trap to trick me into buying tickets."

"Suddenly curious about 'lobster'."

The joking and joking jokes have unknowingly created other topical gimmicks. For Renly, praise is no longer uncommon, criticism is, and the calmness of "Lobster" media comments - at least relatively calm, This made the majority of netizens have expectations.

Hidden behind all these noises, there is still a lot of affirmation for Renly, from film critics to netizens.

"Vanity Fair" specially wrote a film review about Renly's acting skills, which mentioned Renly's long-standing obsession and preference for comedy works, as well as the ins and outs of starring in "The Lobster", and of course, Renly in the movie 's unique performance, mixing warm tones in cool tones, is not easy for any actor, and Renly once again did a good job of performing the task.

"Stiff and numb, icy and dull, with a hint of clumsiness and persistence, Renly-Hall continued to make subtractions, weakening all the details of movements, expressions and eyes again and again, trying to present a puppet-like texture as much as possible. However, the psychological level of the character is presented through the switch between static and dynamic, and finally all the energy is concentrated in the two scenes and burst out, once again showing the brilliance of the 'award winning moment'."

Even though the accolades for Renly are no longer new, Renly remains a favorite among film critics—and it marks the end of "The Lobster" in a strong way for Renly's stellar year that people once thought "" In 2013, the collaboration between "Gravity" and "Drunk Town Folk Song" could not be surpassed. However, in 2014 and 2015, Renly refreshed people's cognition twice and pushed his career to a new height.

Sure enough, Renly was still Renly.

Looking back on the box office figures, when "The Lobster" was officially screened, the North American weekend box office was celebrating the two consecutive championships of "007: Spectre Party", and then "The Hunger Games 3 (Part 2)" was about to debut. There is also the biggest expectation of the year, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is on standby, and the excitement of the market is slowly rising, but these box office competitions have nothing to do with "Lobster", which is obviously not a strong contender for the weekend championship.

Under Sony's classic tailor-made, "Lobster" steadily unfolds.

In the second week of November, single-house screenings.

In the third week of November, single-house screenings.

In the fourth week of November, the fourth hall will be screened.

The first week of December, ten screenings.

The second week of December, ten screenings.

The whole screening pace has not improved, and the box office data of the single hall has always remained stable. Even if the screening is increased to ten cinemas, the box office of the single hall can still be maintained at 35,000 US dollars.

Around the yuan, the stable and balanced box office output of single halls has gradually expanded the reputation of the film.

It was not until the first week of January 2016 that "The Lobster" officially entered the full-screening stage, and the number of screening venues increased to 353 in one go, but this was still only a small-scale full screening, far from the 700 theaters. Far, apparently Sony Classics has no intention of making money at the box office level at all.

Next, the Golden Globes debuted, and Sony Classics expanded again. For the first time, the screening venues of "The Lobster" came to 788, and it was released on a large scale in the United States. In the next three weeks, the number of venues will continue to increase. The highest number once reached 931—still not breaking the threshold of 1,000; after that, the number of venues slowly declined, cutting down a dozen or 20 venues every week, slowly shrinking the screening front.

From the first stage to the second stage of the awards season, and then to the end of the Oscars, the screening of "Lobster" has never been slow, and Sony Classics has shown a rare stability - but in fact, this is really too stable, The expansion plan is too slow, and even Focus Pictures will not plan this way. Instead, it shows the boldness and madness of Sony's classics, and still shows their unique style.

What Sony Classics expects is not thirst marketing - this is different from "Boom Drummer", but to target a specific group, because they know that the film will not be very successful in a wide release, and the general public is not interested at all, so Sony Classics have always insisted on being shown in art theaters, honestly rooted in senior movie lovers, relying on word-of-mouth expansion, and slowly let the audience slowly enter the movie theater.

This strategy is undoubtedly crazy, because with a little accident, the film may lose the curiosity and patience of the market because the expansion pace is too slow, and then all the audience will be lost - the Internet hotspot will not last for a month; but at the same time , this strategy is undoubtedly successful.

In the end, "The Lobster" was released for 23 weeks, and it was not offline until late April, and the entire release cycle was comparable to that of commercial movies.

At the same time, the cumulative North American box office of "Lobster" also successfully reached 70 million US dollars!

Regrettably, it was not able to break the billion.

So far, Renly has only two films in his career that have failed to break 100 million at the North American box office, "Buried Alive" in 2010, and "Transcendence" in 2012, and now "The Lobster" is the third film, which is officially over. Since "Gravity", Renly's six consecutive works have exceeded 100 million at the box office; in addition, "The Lobster" is also the third-lowest box office work of Renly's actor career.

This seems to be... bad news?

When "Jurassic World" debuted, all the media were amazed that Renly contributed 400 million works in North America for four consecutive years. The strong box office dominance was amazing, even if the North American box office of "Boom Drummer" did not exceed 200 million , but still handed over a magical score of 188 million, but the journey of breaking 100 million in six consecutive works has finally ended in "lobster", which is indeed a shameful regret.

But definitely not bad news.

A key point to pay attention to, "Buried Alive" in 2010, "Crazy in Love" in 2011, "Transcendence" in 2012, "Drunken Country Ballad" in 2013, "Booming Drummer" in 2014... and 2015 The "Lobster", on average every year, Renly insists on rolling in the field of independent art films, he is always an actor, a real actor; and the box office figures are just additional rewards, among which "Crazy Love" and other three The movie's box office exceeded 100 million, while "Buried Alive" and "Transcendence" did not. This did not affect Renly's belief and determination, and the same is true for "Lobster" now.

What's more, there are 70 million in North America, which is not only bad news, but also good news.

This work, whose investment cost was controlled at 4 million euros, made a box office of 70 million US dollars in the North American market. "The Lobster" still brought huge profits to Sisyphus Films - such a return on investment, and it is aimed at In art films, there is only one Renly in the whole of Hollywood.

Not even Daniel Day-Lewis, Meryl Streep, Sean Penn, etc. can do it.

At the same time, the box office performance of "Lobster" in overseas markets is also very good, especially in the UK, it has received a box office of 25 million, which is a small surprise. The final overseas box office number reached 7,700 Ten thousand U.S. dollars!

As a result, "The Lobster" grossed $147 million at the global box office—if that's all "bad news" for a work that cost only four million euros to invest, then the studios would obviously Warm welcome with raised hands and feet.

By the way, Sisyphus Pictures once again made more than 50 million US dollars in profits through the work of "The Lobster", and the entire Hollywood is envious--

They also desperately need such "bad news".