Robert Downey Jr. became Iron Man, probably the most successful and failed decision in his career: on the one hand, his incarnation as a beloved rich tycoon also made him a beloved rich tycoon; but On the other hand, since "Iron Man" in 2008, there are only a few non-Marvel movies starring in him, which conceivably limits his acting style.
The last one defined by the same role was the well-known beauty vlogger, Johnny Depp. Coincidentally, Captain Jack and the Mad Hatter are also masterpieces of Disney.
Whether Robert Downey Jr. will become the next Johnny Depp, the answer is basically no. But what is certain is the existence of withdrawal reactions.
"Dolit's Fantasy Adventure" from Universal is the standard product of the withdrawal period.
【Overview】
The "Doctor Doolittle" series, which was born in the same period as "Peter Pan" and "Winnie the Pooh", is one of the representative works of British and American classic children's literature. Novelist Hugh Loftin injected novel and romantic imagination into popular Victorian novels. It not only has the climax of travel-style adventure stories, but also illuminates the world of children’s literature after the war with a strong curiosity. Brings a beautiful imagination of the world.
However, in the post-Harry Potter era, modern film and television giants have proved time and time again that children’s literature and even youth literature can hardly carry their thirst and ambition for money: "The Chronicles of Narnia" and "Darkness" with a complete fantasy world view. "Substance" has fallen into the sand, "Christopher Robin" is listless, "Peter Pan: A Dream Set Sail" takes the wrong medicine.
One of the key mistakes made by these films is to make the wrong target audience. For films adapted from children's literature, the first audience to satisfy should also be children. "Harry Potter" was dark and adult in the hands of Alfonso Cuarón and David Yates, but "Harry Potter" started with Chris Columbus, who made a movie for children. In the subsequent 7 sequels, the themes and roles of the series also grow with the audience.
If the children's words are changed into epic dramas, the products are often nondescript.
Fortunately, "Dolit's Fantasy Adventure" is still a family movie with a simple plot and friendly characters; unfortunately, "Dolit's Fantasy Adventure" still has an epic (failed) attempt. It is very likely to follow in the footsteps of "Predatory City" and become the largest dud in January and even spring of this year.
【Production】
"Dolit's Fantasy Adventure" invested up to 175 million US dollars, which is quite rare in family movies, and the pressure to pay back can be imagined. But this is not because the role/concept of "Doctor Dolittle" has no commercial value; although the 20th Century Fox edition in 1967 has already hit the street-the cost has been nearly tripled from US$6 million that year to 17 million, and The box office was just over 6 million-but still won two Oscars; and in the 1990s, the two modern versions of "Weird Doctor Dolittle" starring the popular Eddie Murphy, cost an average of 70 million U.S. dollars The cost has resulted in nearly 500 million box offices worldwide.
And "Dolit's Fantasy Adventure" is so dark at the box office and the cost is so high, a big reason is due to the formation of a mysterious production team.
Generally speaking, a movie of this scale will have more than two senior producers sitting here-"Dolly's Fantasy Adventure" has Jeff Kirschenbaum and Joe Rose, the two have developed including A series of fairy tale adaptation movies including "Slumbering Curse", "Alice in Wonderland", "Wonderland" and "Snow White and the Hunter". And Gilmo del Toro's queen photographer Gilmo Navarro ("Pan's Labyrinth"), and original music created by Danny Elfman ("Steel Armor") from the fairy tale department , Is also quite a safe choice.
But other than that, in the most important position of director and director, no one has experience in making high-investment films: two screenwriters from the TV comedy circle ("My Mom and Dad's Romance" and "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend"); directors Stephen Gahan has twice been shortlisted as a screenwriter and won an Oscar ("Drug Network"), but he has no special effects/comedy movies on his thin director's resume; another person who helped make a remake due to poor audition results Director Jonathan Ribesman has played "Battle of Los Angeles", "Rage of the Gods" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Mutant Age" on the same thin resume. He has not directed a feature film for 6 years.
In this way, the lack of control behind the scenes production and the unsatisfactory box office prospects are already expected.
You know, the level of 175 million US dollars has been in line with Sony's two new "Spider-Man" and Jon Feiru's "Fantasy Forest", and at least a global box office of more than 400 million US dollars can be basically balanced. Under the "Talking Animals" subcategory, the last family comedy movie to achieve this task was "Mouse to Treasure 2" 10 years ago.
【Performance】
Loose scripts that lack a clear purpose and motivation are not uncommon in Hollywood blockbusters in the past year: "Alita", "Thunder Shazan" and "Joker", to name a few. These stories lack "necessity" in development, and inevitably have the characteristics of running accounts.
What makes up for this shortcoming is usually the intrinsic attributes of the characters-turning the protagonists' "want to do" into the "need to do" in the story, and thus realize the evolution of the character while connecting the plot.
Although the script of "Dolit's Fantasy Adventure" is loyal to the travel form of the original book, it is still somewhat sloppy, and some of the side plots are also shelved in the second and third acts. In terms of narrative promotion, it still stays at the "Queen's Secret Order", which is a compulsory external cause, abandoning the inner setting of the protagonist's loss of love. Throughout the adventure, Dorit was supposed to transform from passive to active, from pessimism to optimism, but after the journey officially began, Robert Downey Jr. quickly returned to be both unruly and unruly and rich in life experience. The standardized persona of, and continues to the end of the story.
Of course, the lack of arc and energy is not because Robert Downey Jr. made a mistake in his performance—on the contrary, it was even pretty good—but the film’s positioning and even casting errors. Such an image transformed from melancholy is more suitable for Ivan McGregor or Johnny Depp; and the cartoonish villain also limits the shaping space of Michael Sheen and Antonio Banderas.
Despite the gorgeous cast/voice lineup and solid CG effects, unfortunately, "Dolly's Fantasy Adventure" will not become the fantasy blockbuster and gold weapon it wants to be.
【Summarize】
Compared with Eddie Murphy's modern version of "Slapstick", "Dolly's Fantasy Adventure" forgets the most important thing: Who is Dorit? What are his characteristics? What kind of impact can these characteristics bring? The new version of Dolit seems to have forgotten that the core of the story is not "talking animals", but "he can talk to animals".
The difference between the two determines how the movie’s laughter should be organized and how to make the audience feel strange and fresh to the story, thereby satisfying the audience’s expectations and breaking the narrative routine. When a movie cannot distinguish itself from other "talking animals" movies, it loses its true selling point; just relying on the concept of "talking animals" will become extremely obsolete in 2020, and it will not be able to support an entire movie. .
Today, re-digging old IP has become the usual method of Hollywood giants. But the lack of ground-breaking "Dolite's Fantasy Adventure" has not contributed much to any level of breakthrough; a very similar object is the "Alien Battlefield" that Disney built heavily in 2012.
"Alien Battlefield" was born at the peak of the last IP battle. At that time, half of the six major players were burning big money to lose money-Disney has "Lone Ranger", Universal has "Super Battleship", Warner has "Giant" Killer Jack-if the other half has money, they will definitely join the arms race. Ten years later, Hollywood has become half of Disney and MCU, but the cycle of blindly burning money, with Disney's "Wrinkle in Time" and Universal's "Predatory City", seems to have begun again.
Of course, for the big local tyrants, as long as there are other big-selling works every year, the burning of hundreds of millions of dollars every year is not a problem: even if "Dolite's Fantasy Adventure" does not even make a sound , There are also "Magic Wizard 2", "Fast and Furious 9" and "Minions 2" to make the report less ugly.
Over-reliance on super-large productions has made Hollywood more deformed; Warner will use AI to help decision-making in the future, or a promising seed.
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