As a fan of American comics, no superhero movie has been released for more than half a year. Instead, after the news of the death of Chadwick Boseman, who played the role of Black Panther, "Black Panther 2" will not start shooting until next year. It means that the important branches of the new phase of the Marvel universe have to be re-planned because of Chadwick's death, and the new generation of Avengers may not be able to reproduce the glory of the Iron Man era.
Just when we were waiting for "Black Widow" and keeping an eye on Zack Snyder's version of "Justice League", there was an alternative "superhero" movie that came into everyone's attention. The War of Electricity starring Nong and Holt.
Of course, this biographical film about the entanglement between Edison and Westhouse, set in the development of direct current and alternating current, is a far cry from a superhero. But if you look closely, you will find that the four leading actors of this film have all participated in superhero movies. Brother Holland is now the first brother of Marvel's new generation, and currently plays the role of Spider-Man; Curly Fu is one of the leaders of the new Avengers and plays Doctor Strange; Shannon has joined another comic book camp, the opponent of Superman in DC General Zod; Holt played "Beast Blue Fur" in the X-Men.
No wonder netizens say that this is a movie that is easy to make people "play".
But this made the author ponder. I wonder if you have noticed that in recent years of Hollywood movies, it seems that more and more stars have joined the superhero movie camp.
1. Hollywood's "Super-Britishness"
An astonishing conclusion can be drawn by reviewing the relevant data. If you use the remuneration to divide, divide the current Hollywood stars into the super-first line with a remuneration of more than 25 million. You'll find that there seem to be only four of them who haven't been in a superhero movie. They are: Sandra Bullock, Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington. The rest are either in Marvel or in DC. Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, though not starring in it, both have cameo appearances in such films.
In "Deadpool 2", Brad Pitt cameo as the invisible man who was electrocuted to death while skydiving. Matt Damon made a cameo appearance in Thor 3. In the first part of the film, the actor who played Loki in the theater in Asgard. Although some super-British movies with super-first-line actors have not yet met the audience, they are also on their way. For example, Angelina Jolie's "The Eternals" and Dwayne Johnson's "Black Adam" will both be released in 2021.
Superstars are almost all packaged in comic-reformed movies, which seems to be a laudable event for a whole generation of young people influenced by superheroes, but for the entire film industry, increasingly solidified capital will bring these stars. The resources of the company have gradually been taken into the bag, from film companies such as Marvel and Warner’s DC to the first-line stars to participate in the first-line stars to actively reincarnate in these comic-reformed movies in order to maintain their actor career and popularity. The rules of the industry seem to be moving in the direction of centralization. Can a good art film still attract these stars? When "Black Panther" can garner seven Oscar nominations and the comic book movie can easily sweep the global box office, does Hollywood still have room for art films that do not pursue political correctness?
As movie fans, we may not know the connotation of it, but we can more and more understand the refutation of Marvel by Martin Scorsese and a group of Hollywood art film directors.
2. The dilemma behind "Battle of Electricity"
Looking at this "Battle of Electricity" in turn, it can only be said that it wasted a great story subject by the capital engulfed by the super-English film market.
In the last paragraph, we mainly talked about the engulfment of the market by watching comic-reformed movies from Hollywood movie stars. So in addition to this, the contest between the companies behind these films is the point.
The producer of "Battle of Electricity" is the Weinstein Film Production Company, which, like Universal's Focus Films, focuses on the art film market, and its founder Weinstein is Hollywood's golden producer. Mastering a large number of star resources, the films he participated in the production and distribution of more than 300 Oscar nominations, won more than 70 golden statuettes, and Weinstein is also an important figure in helping Chinese commercial films to move into the era of blockbusters. The copyrights of Hero and Promise, allowing them to be released in North America, are an important driver for Chinese films to enter the international commercial market.
However, in 2017, the Hollywood behind-the-scenes tycoon was exposed to a scandal. The New York Times published an article revealing that he was suspected of sexually harassing at least 8 women in the past few decades. Female stars have come forward to accuse Weinstein of committing crimes. The scandal directly triggered an earthquake in Hollywood, and the Mee Too action was in part due to Weinstein. The Weinstein Films company behind him, which produced numerous blockbusters, also officially declared bankruptcy in 2018. It is worth mentioning that in the year of Weinstein's accident and before his company collapsed, Disney announced the acquisition of 20th Century Fox, which accounted for almost half of Hollywood's market share. The resources to help the stars were quickly taken away by Disney.
From a conspiracy theory perspective, Weinstein, as a big shot, has been in the film industry for more than 30 years. Why was his crime not disclosed before, but Disney was preparing to acquire Fox, and Netflix and Amazon wanted to build streaming media platforms. The mystery behind the acquisition of Hollywood film sources in 2017 is probably not that simple. By the way, the "Battle of Electricity" discussed today was also completed in 2017, but due to the above things, it was abruptly delayed until now.
Therefore, after filing for bankruptcy protection, the era of Hollywood copyright symbolized by Weinstein Films, the era when Weinstein was hailed as "the saviour of modern movies", seems to have fallen into quite an embarrassment and desolation just like the bankruptcy of this film company. situation. The Weinstein Company, which has always bet very accurate, also overturned the car. Watching "Battle of Electricity", there is always a feeling of being overwhelmed and insufficient. The subject matter of the story is good, but I don't have the money to find someone who can make it well, and I don't have the energy to make such a movie well.
In the final result, the relationship between the characters was not clear, and the super first-line lineup of Cuan Fu + Dutch brother was wasted. It was originally a business conflict between Edison, played by Cuan Fu, and Westhouse, played by Shannon. The story of "The Battle" obviously cannot support the biographical narration of the two characters in terms of length, and it is also bland in content. Edison's personal character makes it impossible for Cuan Fu to save it with his superb acting skills, but the public is familiar with it. Insufficient Westhouse, with Shannon's performance, seemed to stand on the moral high ground and was recognized by the audience. As for Edison's assistant played by Holland, he is a soy sauce character that has no use at all. Tesla played by Holt could have written a lot, because Tesla in history is not only a recognized super genius, With a character trend that is different from ordinary people, he also served under Edison and Westhouse, respectively, and promoted the development of civilian power. It is a pity that Tesla's story seems to be a simple transition point between Edison and Westhouse's struggle, and the powerful clues that this character can carry is so ignored, enough to see The script for this movie was written with no intention at all.
There are few other aspects worth talking about, and it is hard to imagine that this film is actually a work used by Weinstein to attack Austria.
If the famous Wayne pursues such a pursuit, then its road has really come to an end.
However, for movie fans, good themes should not disappear, and the rules of traditional movies can still be raised proudly, which is the last hope for these filmmakers.
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