"Minecraft Movie" is making new history in the North American film market.
這部《我的世界》改編的同名真人電影在北美首日報收5800萬美元（約4.2億人民幣），創下遊戲改編電影歷史新紀錄，比《超級馬力歐兄弟大電影》首日3170萬美元還多出近一倍。
Thanks to it, the North American market finally bid farewell to the decline since the beginning of the year, and ushered in the fourth-highest first-day box office performance of a single film in history in April - second only to "Avengers 7, 0" and "Furious 0".
首日4.2億，這個數位是業界預期的整整2倍，業界預計該片首週末三天能拿下1.4億美元，而影片投資僅為1.5億美元。華納不費吹灰之力就收回投資。
But in the Chinese market, the film is not so glamorous.
Despite the reputation of Douban with a score of 9.0, it temporarily ranks first at the box office of Qingming file,
但影片三日票房僅將過億，目前貓眼預測總票房1.77億，不到影片在北美首日票房的一半。相比數量不低的遊戲玩家數量，這個票房顯然太一般。
But since the beginning of the year, several confident North American special effects blockbusters have failed one after another, and "My World Movie" has been the Hollywood blockbuster with the best box office momentum in the mainland since the beginning of the year.
What should you think of the film's mainland box office?
Hollywood blockbusters frequently fail in the Chinese market, is it the reason for the movie itself, or has Hollywood really lost "Minecraft" in the Chinese market?
It's no surprise that Warner and Legendary Studios adapted Minecraft, since its release in 2011 years, Minecraft has become the world's best-selling game.
In 11 years, Warner Pictures had the idea of bringing "Minecraft" to the big screen, but it took a full 0 years to turn the idea into reality.
The biggest problem is that Minecraft is a very special existence in the gaming industry - it doesn't rely on perfect graphics and can't be said to be complicated, but it can stand out from the crowd of games and become a new generation of classics, relying on the endless creativity of players.
In other words, even though the game doesn't look good, it's a masterpiece with a high ceiling of imagination.
Although the film is cheesy, I think "Napoleon" director Jared Hess still catches the core.
The film opens from the real world, leading the protagonists to enter the adventure of the cube world.
A human team consisting of four people, including Jason Momoa's Laji Man and Jack Black's veteran craftsman Steve, was suddenly pulled into a mysterious portal and entered the main world composed of cute block creatures such as block alpacas, block zombies, block pigs, and block pandas.
This group of real-world losers must use blocks to make tools, build and defend to solve the conspiracy of the Overworld, and creativity is a key skill for them to return to the real world.
The main story line of the film is very simple, which can be summarized in three words, and the director does not want to tell a complex story, preferring to leave time to restore the game scene and the block world.
This is also the first surprise that this movie gives the audience, a pixel-level restoration of game elements.
There are a lot of elements of "Minecraft" in the movie, I believe that as long as the player has played this game, he will smile when he sees it, and the grass and trees in the scene, the square world, seem to be moved directly out of the game.
For example, the beauty is made up of squares, even the clouds floating in the sky and the moon overhead. Full of square people, full of mosaics.
Everyone synthesized treasures at the workbench, built buildings with all kinds of air, and rubbed weapons with their bare hands.
Teleportation? Lava roast chicken? It's all trivial, the poor start the game, and the second becomes a "concept god". It's fun enough and it's brain-opening.
Of course, there are also the flammable and explosive creepers, the endermen with three-meter-long legs, and the crying and vicious chicken jockeys...... It's like crazy jumping on the DNA of this cubeman.
The special effects of the film are really good, it retains the feeling of the game, and it blends well with the live-action movie, and finally creates an incomparably cute square world, even the villain Pig is too cute!
In the lava world of the Demon Cave, the piglin army numbly mined gold mines, and was poked into flesh by the piglin witch without saying a word.
Escape from the mine, at the last moment, the minecart accelerates through the redstone track, rushes at top speed, and explodes and takes off! It's all about hand speed and heartbeat.
The second surprise of the movie is the various game stalks, which also make old fans of "Minecraft" find the feeling of "their own people".
For example, when I saw Aquaman throw the ender pearl and Steve cast the "landing water", I screamed in my heart: Bring me the handle, I'm going to reproduce it now!
Another example is that in the end, the piglin witch asked Steve to yin, and was stabbed in the face three times three times, and the jokes were all brought to me by the piglin witch.
There is also a special meme for Chinese audiences, two pandas look at each other, and give birth to a red panda directly and painlessly with love.
In addition, the film also has a variety of easter eggs, the biggest surprise is the appearance of the pig king Technoblade, a legendary player in Minecraft, who unfortunately died of bone cancer at the age of 23, and his feelings are full.
There's also an easter egg that only gamers know, when Steve returns to the real world and meets an orange-haired girl, don't think I can't tell that she's Alex, another playable character from Minecraft.
In short, real gamers and kids should be laughing from ear to ear with these memes.
The third surprise of the movie is the casting of Jason Momoa and Jack Black.
At the beginning, when the news of Jason Momoa starring in the "Minecraft" movie came out, many people thought that it was "Aquaman" to play Steve, after all, Steve in the game was a muscular hunk who carried countless tons of blocks on his back.
As a result, Steve was played by Jack Blake of "Vajraps".
But when Steve, who was super sad in the real world, sang rock live in the main world, I knew that he was the Steve of the game, because the audience could see his own shadow in him.
He also contracted the classic lines of the film, such as the sentence that his sister said to Steve, "Maybe the real world also needs your creation". There is also the saying that it is more difficult to create than to destroy, so only cowards choose to destroy.
When Jack Black is in charge of Chicken Soup for the Soul, Garrett played by Jason Momoa carries the laughs of the film.
Just the appearance of Aquaman in a pink sweetheart style has allowed me to dazzle.
Later, he had an idea and made a nunchuck, but he was punched by the pig spirit K.O, and the audience couldn't help but sigh: laji chivalrous meat shield flow, nothing else is to resist beating, as soon as Aquaman came out, the comedy effect and strength were all there.
In short, although there is controversy, the film's attitude and sincerity towards the restoration of the game are absolutely full, and the screenwriter, director and starring obviously have played the game.
The above are the three highlights of my favorite movies, which is enough to see the determination of the main creator to restore it with his heart.
But these highlights alone are enough to support the amazing box office in the North American market, but not enough to make the film a big hit in the Chinese market as well.
The biggest controversy is that the film is limited to low-age adventure films.
In this film, the director is obviously deliberately trying to create a "relaxed and entertaining atmosphere", but at the expense of the dark fantasy elements hidden in the game itself.
From time to time, the film has a joke about young people, eating chicken to make a hot joke, the joke is enough to amuse children and not enough to amuse adults, it is purely deliberate to please young audiences.
The movie promotes the courage to face real life and maintain creativity, and the creativity is very good, but I really don't see it in the movie as a middle-aged uncle.
Seeing the end, the film seems to be just a casual review of the redstone mining toolbox, endermen, etc., and the oppressive sense of the apocalyptic crisis has been dissipated, and I only remember two big stars in the protagonist group.
What's worse is that the film actually spends a lot of ink on the mental journey of the little boys Henry and Natalie, but these plots have nothing eye-catching, and they also slow down the pace of the movie.
Secondly, although the movie desperately restores the game elements, it actually does not capture the game spirit of "creation is freedom".
After watching the whole film, the audience is just watching a derivative movie of a game, a Hollywood assembly-line blockbuster, but the whole adventure process can also make sense in other contexts, and many veteran players are looking forward to the "conventional" direction in the game: survive in the block world, improve yourself, and kill the ender dragon.
然而電影過於遷就好萊塢闔家歡劇情，對於在方塊世界里的生存冒險只是一帶而過，孩子們是滿意的，可別忘了還有大量觀眾是玩著《我的世界》長大的90後觀眾。
They don't just say "if you're brave enough, you can turn the real world into your world" in the movie.
The third controversial point of the movie is the cliché of the plot.
For young audiences who want to see "brainless and funny special effects films", the special effects and scenes of this film can meet expectations;
But for audiences who want to see the essence of the game and a more complete story, the storyline of this film is obviously a standard Hollywood cliché, and it really lacks novelty.
The whole script's exploration of the theme of "creativity" is superficial. From the four players being brought into the Overworld, to building tools on the game table, and finally facing off against the villains, everything is a step-by-step level-by-play mode, and any game adaptation can be adapted to this story template.
Therefore, now our mainland audiences have already lowered their expectations for game adaptations like "Minecraft Movie", and they all think that as long as they can watch it, it would be good.
But a game IP that only attaches importance to special effects and scenes, and over-accommodates young audiences, is destined to only reap a wave of feelings.
"Minecraft Movie", after all, just makes "Minecraft" smaller.
Speaking of which, we return to the old topic of "are Hollywood movies no longer good".
It is worth mentioning that like the film's Douban score of 51.0, the film's North American reputation is not good, and the CinemaScore survey shows that the ticket-buying audience rated "Minecraft" as B+, which is the same as last month's "Snow White", which is not ideal. The film's score on Rotten Tomatoes is only 0%.
But the film mobilized a large number of young audiences and attracted older people. In other words, North American audiences are extremely affordable for movies. It seems not true that North American film critics believe that only game fans will pay for it, and passers-by and audiences also buy tickets, and the box office can make history.
But the Chinese audience is not so easy to pay, and the fundamental reason may not be the problem of the movie, but the Chinese audience is immune to the Hollywood model.
Since the opening of the mainland market in the 2s of the 0th century, Hollywood has cultivated a fixed audience in the mainland, making China the 0th largest box office for Hollywood blockbusters.
If "My World Movie" had been released ten years ago, even if there were not so many mainland game fans, the box office would never be the same as now.
But after entering 2010 years, with the precipitous decline of Hollywood film creativity, Hollywood production has become more streamlined.
In particular, the launch of superhero movies, while reaping a large number of box offices around the world, has further compressed the living space of other Hollywood genres and themes.
In today's Hollywood, there is almost no place for original movies, except for superhero movies, which are old series such as "Fast and Furious" and "Mission Impossible".
The "Jurif Park" series has been filmed again and again, and the new version starring the widow sister is about to be launched again.
The rest, it's the game IP.
When Hollywood creativity dries up, the only way to dig up these IP "gold mines" is to dig up again and again until the last drop of residual value is squeezed out.
And when the level of special effects in Chinese films is rapidly advancing and is already close to the level of Hollywood production, the new generation of audiences will naturally become more and more uninterested in Hollywood blockbusters.
今年以來的內地票房前十，僅有一部好萊塢電影《美國隊長4》，之前上映的《白雪公主》票房至今不到1000萬。
Hollywood movies are indeed "ineffective" in the mainland.
So even if the casting of "Minecraft Movie" is normal and the special effects do take effort, at most, it can only impress some family audiences who take their children to watch it, but it can no longer set off a movie-watching boom like back then.
對於我這樣的80後《我的世界》老粉來說，影片還是很值得一看，其還原場面和遊戲梗都令人滿意。
But if it's an audience who doesn't have much feelings, "Minecraft Movie" is just another Hollywood movie with assembly line work, and whether it's suitable for passing the time or sleeping depends entirely on whether you have played the game or not.
Starting from "The Super Mario Bros. Movie", Hollywood seems to have found a new way to develop this kind of big game IP, that is, low age, high budget, and high restoration.
In the end, it's not the movie that's exciting, it's the charm of the game itself.
But as long as game fans drive the public into theaters, the box office will win.
The theme of the movie is really moving, that is, we are all "Steves" in the game, even if we experience the harsh reality, but if we are brave enough, everyone can create their own overworld.
Unfortunately, the movie wasn't enough to convince me of that, the game did.
Fans of the game can't help but be poked by the characters and lines, especially the sentence "As long as you dare to create, everywhere is the overworld". But every adult who has been tortured by reality understands that this real world is not "my world".
And today's Chinese market may no longer be a world where Hollywood is free to create box office.