China Entertainment 1997

In late May, the annual summer season officially kicked off. Even in North America, the summer season has already started for almost half a month.

The much-anticipated Marvel second solo movie "Thor" was also released at this time.

Compared with "Iron Man", most Chinese audiences are actually not very interested in this movie.

After all, there are a few Chinese people who know about Nordic mythology. If we film Greek mythology, many people might be interested. After all, many people have watched cartoons or storybooks about Greek mythology when they were children.

Especially the goddess Athena and the fire-stealing Prometheus who appear in primary school textbooks are among the most popular foreign mythological characters in China.

The only ones who can rival them are God, Jesus, Satan and Lucifer.

Even these three are not necessarily comparable. Many people only know the names of God and Jesus, but the specific stories are not clear.

As for Satan and Lucifer, it’s thanks to the now popular online novels.

Especially the fallen angel Lucifer, who is basically either a villain or a comrade-in-arms of the protagonist. His appearance rate in Western fantasy-themed online novels is as high as 90%. The only Eastern mythological figure who can be compared with him may be Chi You.

One of the two people was originally the master, the other was the eldest brother, the other was the sworn younger brother, the other was the ancestor, and the other was the big boss behind the scenes...

The two villains from Eastern and Western mythology have gained a second life in online writing. They became so popular that they became poisonous and made readers schizophrenic.

As a result, many old readers of online articles in later generations would sometimes have uncomfortable reactions when hearing these two names, which was all because they were hurt at the time.

In comparison, the name Thor, the god of thunder in Norse mythology, is too unpopular. Some people may consider Marvel's name to watch it, but the box office will not be too high.

After all, the first "Iron Man" film only had a box office of just over 100 million in the mainland.

In the second part, it was based on the accumulation of the previous work, and it was considered to have made progress. The box office exceeded 200 million, making it into the top 15 of the year, and it was barely a hit.

Marvel has not focused on the mainland. The main battlefields of "Thor" are still North America and Europe, followed by Asia and Australia.

United States, New York State

Bob and Will walked into a theater talking and laughing, bought movie tickets for "Thor", and discussed enthusiastically how Marvel would shoot this movie.

Both of them are die-hard Marvel fans, and unlike many Marvel fans who are on the fence or even resisting movie adaptations at this time, they both support movie adaptation and even understand a certain degree of magic modification.

What do you say about Marvel's original comics? They were born in the 1940s and have been around for more than half a century. Many of the stories are not in line with the times and modern people's concepts.

Even Marvel's original comics themselves are constantly deleting and correcting them, often paralleling time and space, constantly blurring time, and changing settings and characters has become commonplace.

Therefore, it is normal for movie adaptations to change the plot settings, or even deviate from the original work and set up a new story line.

Take Iron Man, for example. This character in the original work is far less likable than in the movie. In some comics or universes, he is even a pure villain.

Therefore, the popularity of the original Iron Man is very low, and it is regarded as a second-tier hero. Not only Iron Man, but the entire Avengers team is not particularly popular.

The real top stars of Marvel are Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, etc. This can be seen from the time when these characters were filmed and the copyrights were sold.

If these characters were not popular, how could Marvel sell the rights at a high price and start making movies years ahead of the Marvel Universe.

Therefore, when Marvel first launched the movie universe with Iron Man, many people were worried.

But I didn't expect that Iron Man in the movie was so brilliant, and the actors were well chosen, attracting a large number of fans, and making Iron Man leap from a second-tier hero to Marvel's new top star.

But even so, Iron Man only barely ranks among the top ten most popular superheroes, with the number one spot always being Marvel's son Spider-Man.

Also because of the success of "Iron Man", Bob and Will accepted it well and even looked forward to the freshness of the new story.

For them, the special effects and real-life interpretations of the movie version are more immersive than the comics, and the actors' emotional release and battles are also more powerful and realistic.

There are more and more Marvel fans like them who are defecting. Except for some die-hards, everyone has gradually become more open-minded.

Even if I see a plot that is inconsistent with the original work, I will comfort myself and treat it as if I have watched a fanfic.

Carrying Coca-Cola and popcorn, Bob and the two went to the theater after checking the tickets. The attendance rate was still good, at least one of the best compared to the same period.

This year’s summer season competition is very fierce. In late May alone, there will be “Thor”, “Kung Fu Panda 2”, “The Hangover 2” and “X-Men: First Class” in the same stage, all of which are well-known and well-known films. series and IP movies.

Four popular movies are competing against each other at the same time, which is also the biggest attraction in the early part of this year's North American summer season.

The outside world wants to see whether "The Hangover 2" remains a dark horse counterattack, or whether animated movies take the lead, or whether Marvel's two major superhero groups differentiate themselves.

Bob and Bob didn't forget to discuss "X-Men: First Class" when they sat down. After watching "Thor", they went to watch this movie.

The two of them still talk about the pity that the copyright of the "X-Men" series is controlled by 20th Century Fox. If it is taken back by Marvel, then they can see the Avengers vs. the X-Men.

They are looking forward to the scene where Magneto rubs Iron Man!

The fantasy was lively for a while, and finally the movie started. The two of them and the other audience members held their breath and looked at the screen.

The movie "Thor" begins with the heroine and a few people observing at night and discovering a strange phenomenon in their lives. While driving to catch up, they accidentally bump into someone.

Then the story flashes back to Asgard, where Odin, Thor, Loki and other characters appear one by one.

To be honest, the plot in the first half of "Thor" is quite boring. The main character Thor is a complete fool, which makes people feel angry.

But this is normal. The whole movie is about the transformation of the character Thor. The shortcomings in the early stage were not enough portrayed, so where does this transformation come from.

After the slightly boring first thirty minutes, when Thor was exiled to Earth, the plot started to get interesting.

Especially when Thor first arrived on Earth, he made all kinds of contrasting jokes like a country bumpkin. The comedy was so strong that the audience who had been silent for half an hour burst into laughter.

Finally, in the middle of the movie, Thor, who had been making fun of himself for a long time, learned the whereabouts of Thor's hammer, broke into SHIELD's base, and was guarding the security agents, a person that no audience expected appeared in the camera.

"Hey, I need someone to deal with him from up high."

"clear."

A magnetic sound sounded, and a slender and strong hand picked up the recurve bow on the shelf and carried it on his body. He stepped out of the guard car and rushed to a high platform. With a few neat jumps and moves, he was firmly on the high platform. superior.

The camera didn't show the man's face, but from his weapons, Marvel fans like Bob had already vaguely guessed who this character was.

The camera turned to Thor, who was still rampaging through the base, beating the security personnel along the way to pieces.

The head of SHIELD noticed the anomaly caused by Thor and picked up the walkie-talkie.

"Clint, listen to me and don't do anything yet."

"clear."

On a rainy night, on the high platform, the mysterious man finally showed his true face. Cao Xuan, wearing a tight-fitting suit, indifferently opened his bow and nocked an arrow, aiming at the God of Thunder.

"Oh, my god!!!!"

"Am I dreaming."

"Ah ah, it's Cao, so handsome!"

"..."

One after another, exclamations resounded in the theater. There was no way, Marvel kept it a secret. Not many people knew that Cao Xuan participated in "Thor", and no one connected Cao Xuan with Marvel movies.

So when Cao Xuan actually appeared in the movie, everyone must be very surprised and surprised.

Of course, the surprise mainly refers to the ordinary viewers who think it is a pretty good easter egg, while the surprised ones are viewers like Bob who know a lot about Marvel.

Whether it’s Cao Xuan’s appearance and weapons, or Clint’s words from the head of SHIELD, it’s clear that the character played by Cao Xuan is Hawkeye.

Is the world's pop king also joining Marvel?

With doubts, everyone is looking forward to the development of the subsequent plot, wondering whether Hawkeye will fight Thor or Loki.

But what everyone didn't expect was that Hawkeye only made a brief appearance and then left. Many viewers thought that a decisive battle would appear later, but until the end of the movie, no trace of Hawkeye was seen.

"It turns out to be a guest appearance."

Will was disappointed. He personally liked Cao Xuan better and still wanted to see Cao Xuan's scenes, but he didn't expect that there were only a few scenes.

"Don't worry, it shouldn't be that simple."

Bob is thoughtful and thoughtful. Hawkeye mentioned Natasha when he left the show, so he guessed that she will definitely appear later, and every Marvel fan knows that Marvel wants to create the Avengers.

"Hawkeye is a veteran of the Avengers and will likely appear in future movies."

Just as he was talking, the easter egg after the end credits of "Thor" appeared, a secret base, with the Cosmic Cube in the center. Fury, the director of SHIELD, frowned and looked at the agents cleaning the battlefield, while Hill next to him reported the situation.

"...Twelve casualties...Although the other party did not succeed, it can be seen that the other party came prepared and may not give up easily."

Fury pondered for a moment and then said: "We have to send the ace to take action. Recall Hawkeye and Black Widow."

The Easter eggs came to an abrupt end, but left the audience with endless reveries, and Bob slapped him in the face.

"I guessed it right. In this secretly shot new movie "Black Widow," Hawkeye will definitely have a lot of scenes."

After coming out of the theater, the two went to watch "X-Men: First Class" again, and they were quite satisfied.

To be honest, the quality of this movie is very good, and its reputation is considered to be higher than that of the "X-Men" series. In particular, the relationship between Magneto and Professor X when they were young has made people "talk about it."

At least for the two of them, the two movies they watched today were very satisfying.

The latter is of higher quality, and the former has surprise easter eggs.

Before the two went back, they used their mobile phones to search for relevant reviews of the two movies on the way.

The discussion point of "X-Men: First Class" is mainly the relationship between the two characters, and "Thor" has more direction.

Some people are discussing Natana, who plays the heroine Jane, and some are discussing the villain Loki.

More people are paying attention to Chris Hemsworth, who plays Thor. As a male protagonist, the audience was deeply impressed by this blond strong man.

Many viewers expressed their appreciation and felt that Hemsworth was full of hormones, extremely charming, and had good acting skills, which fit their image of Thor.

This unknown guy who once moved bricks in Australia has officially started his own star journey.

Also causing widespread discussion was Cao Xuan, who had a one-minute cameo appearance.

[Oh my god, how much money did Marvel spend to win Cao]

[Can a Chinese play Hawkeye? I always find it weird]

[Please stop your discrimination, Marvel has white people, black people, and Latin people, why can’t there be Asian people]

[I don’t feel comfortable with it either, but my appearance is pretty good]

[This is not the first time Marvel has changed its magic. Jarvis has changed from a real person to a purely intelligent program. What’s wrong with Hawkeye becoming an Asian?]

[I think Cao is so handsome, even though it’s just a small shot, I’m still addicted]

[I can’t wait to see his scene opposite Scarlett, my favorite singer and my favorite actress, exciting]

[Haha, I also like the scenes between handsome guys and beautiful women]

【……】

Most people are more surprised that Cao Xuan participated in Marvel. As for whether he is suitable to play this role, although there are differences, it is not as big as Cao Xuan expected in advance.

To a large extent, this is because the character Hawkeye is relatively low in popularity and his positioning is relatively unclear.

If it is a top-notch or special character like Spider-Man, Captain America, or Iron Man, public opinion will not be calmed down so easily.

Even so, there was a lot of discussion about Hawkeye, and even many American media later participated in the discussion.

These traffic and popularity have boosted the box office of "Thor" to a certain extent, allowing it to firmly rank second in the same period although it is not as popular as "The Hangover 2".

The box office in the first week was US$65 million+, which basically met Marvel’s expectations.

However, this also announced that Marvel's plan to have "Thor" replicate the glory of the "Iron Man" series has failed.

You know, the North American box office of both "Iron Man" movies exceeded 300 million US dollars, and judging from the current trend of "Thor", the North American box office exceeded 200 million US dollars.

Taking advantage of this popularity, and with the mentality of adding more fire to the movie, Marvel officially announced it.

The fourth superhero solo movie in the Marvel Universe, "Hawkeye," will be released in December this year, starring Cao Xuan and Scarlett Johansson.

At the same time, Marvel has also taken a precaution, indicating that this movie has a certain degree of positive adaptation compared to the original comics, and the new Hawkeye setting and story will be more exciting.

However, not many people care about the latter. Everyone is surprised that Marvel's new movie is actually "Hawkeye" and not "Black Widow", which everyone has speculated for more than half a year.

Kevin Feige (Marvel President) is such a ruthless person that he kept this secret from everyone for so long.

But calm down, everyone can understand that although Scarlett Johansson is famous, she does not have a record of single-handedly taking over the box office.

And Cao Xuan at least has a background in the "Hurricane Rescue" series, and the popularity of the world's pop king is also a plus.

However, despite this, some people still denounce it.

In all these years, Hollywood has not yet had a successful superhero movie starring an Asian actor, or in other words, there was no such movie before.

Many people believe that Marvel's move is too risky, saying that it was blinded by Cao Xuan's fame and the Asian market.

Even in Bruce Lee's "The Green Hornet", strictly speaking, his role should be a double role, or a double male lead.

The superhero "Eagle Eye" was already relatively low in popularity, but now it is starring Cao Xuan, so the possibility of failure is extremely low.

But they forgot.

The male protagonist of "Iron Man" was Robert Downey Jr., a bad actor with a terrible reputation at the time.

Hemsworth, the male protagonist of "Thor", is just a nobody.

Cao Xuan's fame and influence are more than one level higher than these two at the time. Even if Hawkeye's popularity is lower, it is enough to make up for it, not to mention the Black Widow who became a big hit in "Iron Man 2".

The turbulent public opinion has not reduced the confidence of Marvel and Cao Xuan.

Whether "Eagle Eye" is a dragon or a worm will be revealed by the end of the year...

Unlike North America, where public opinion is severely divided, in Asia and China, the majority of supporters of Cao Xuan joining Marvel.

[Superhero movie, I can’t wait]

[I went to see "Thunder God", a batch of Cao Xuan Shuai]

[I searched through the wall to find information about Hawkeye. This hero's combat power is a bit weak and he should not be able to defeat Thor and the Hulk]

[External websites say that Marvel revealed that it will be enhanced, but I don’t know whether it is true or not]

[I asked what Cao Xuan was doing in the few months after he disappeared. He acted in a Hollywood blockbuster, no wonder there is no news about domestic films]

[I saw Fan Bingbing in the easter egg, she seems to be participating in the show too]

[It’s so exciting. I never dreamed that one day I would be able to see the Chinese fight Iron Man]

[Cao Xuan is awesome, a Chinese male lead, Cheng Long and Jet Li didn't do it, the last one was Bruce Lee]

[Strictly speaking, Bruce Lee's two movies also used Jiahe as the main body, and they cannot be completely regarded as Hollywood movies. Cao Xuan's film has more gold content]

[Don’t start a war, it’s all the pride of Chinese-language films. Bruce Lee opened the way and Cao Xuan carried it forward]

【……】

The discussion on the Internet was very lively, and it even boosted the box office of "Thor". Many viewers went to the cinema to watch the movie just for the one-minute shot of Cao Xuan.

This is true not only in the mainland, but also in Japan, South Korea, Singapore and other places. Audiences who did not originally plan to watch the movie entered the theater because of Cao Xuan.

It is no exaggeration to say that Cao Xuan's one-minute cameo can at least add 10 million US dollars to the box office of "Thor" in Asia, which is 30 million yuan less in the mainland alone.

Although this is largely due to everyone's curiosity about Cao Xuan's role as a superhero and want to see it, it can also give a glimpse of Cao Xuan's influence in Asia.

After hearing the news, the American media reacted with seriousness——

"With just a one-minute cameo, Cao brought hundreds of thousands of Asian viewers into the theater. This Asia's number one superstar will be Marvel's biggest reliance in conquering the Asian market."

Marvel is also very excited. Asian ticket sales are very strong. This time "Thor" is expected to reach 50 million US dollars, second only to North America and Europe.

It also makes them wonder what kind of surprises the Asian box office will give them if "Eagle Eye" and "Avengers" starring Cao Xuan are released, and whether they are expected to overtake Europe...