The Fast and the Furious: Special Operations Poster
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, which was just released in the U.S. in early August, grossed $180 million in its first week at the box office.
There’s an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal that analyzes the financial motivations behind this film.
Movies are a high commitment industry, especially these action movies with big scenes and lots of special effects. The Fast and Furious series of movies can easily cost more than $150 million per film. In order to be profitable, they need to be sold worldwide.
This movie will be released in China on August 23rd. When you watch it, if you look closely at the fight scenes, you will find that the three main characters, Jason Statham, Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson, are dazzled by each other’s fight scenes, but the movie as a whole, they are evenly matched. In other words, each of the three takes as many blows as they can, and fights back as much as they can, in a state of balance.
In fact, all three actors had a contract with the crew not to compromise their tough guy on-screen image. Some were written directly into the contract, while others were supervised on the spot. For example, Vin Diesel’s sister happens to be one of the producers on the set. She was there at every fight scene to make sure that Vin Diesel would take a few kicks and when he would fight back, and to make sure that he didn’t come off as a hayseed on screen.
Are these stars, who work so hard to maintain their on-screen image, and the cast and crew so actively cooperating, just because they are trying to maintain their image, or is there a deeper financial motivation behind it?
Hollywood Movie Trends: The days of one actor selling out are over.
In the past, Hollywood movies could rely on big name stars like Kim Carrey and Julia Roberts to single-handedly make a movie a box office hit. Now, the days when a single star could be the box office draw for an entire movie are over. Movies are more about a series of combined elements, a story between a few core actors that wins. Just like a brand, there are colors, characters, stories, packaging, and many other branding elements that come together to attract customers or viewers. In Fast and Furious, the three main characters form an organic community, and for the movie to be successful and sell well, they have to compete evenly with each other to capture the most viewers and box office.
Current State of Hollywood Movies: There is still a market for tough guy movies.
One of the trends in movies in general is that the main characters are becoming more and more fleshed out and complex, a typical example being the James Bond films. In the past, 007’s protagonists were mostly invincible and confident on screen, but this trend has changed dramatically in recent episodes. Daniel Craig’s 007, for example, is not only abandoned by the love of his life, but also repeatedly defeated by his rivals, a departure from the old screen image of the hero as a light-hearted, smooth-as-nails hero. The reason for this trend is not difficult to understand: people will be moved to see the movie, often times to see their own stories, the real life is not as good as nine times out of ten, sometimes even more bloodthirsty than the movie.
But even with this trend, there is still a big market for hard-boiled movies and other types of movies. In fact, the Fast and Furious audience is looking for the sensual excitement of the fights, not the warmth of the protagonists. After all, audiences need different tastes. Even if vegetarian-organic food is a trend, the expectation of carnivores at large for a steak is that it will still be juicy and zingy.
Having said that, this setting of Fast and Furious is still a service to the audience and box office. After all, without box office support, it’s hard for a movie with such massive investment to survive.
At this point, I’d like to mention in passing the recent breakup of the stars. I was a fan of Song Hye Kyo when I was younger and felt a bit sorry for her divorce, but as a mother of two children, I have come to understand the impact of celebrity divorces and marriages far beyond the scope of their personal lives. There are too many financial interests behind when and how the announcement is made. If the announcement is not made at the right time or in the right way, it will affect the star’s brand, the interests of all the businesses behind the endorsement, and the ratings of the programs involved. That’s why, even if a star has a marriage change, because of the constraints of the endorsement contract, many stars can’t announce it right away, but have to wait for the right time.
That is why, when watching TV movies and other media programs, it is a good idea to think about what the financial interests are behind them. The more you invest in a production program, the higher the likelihood that the main character’s every move will be dominated by financial interests. Tough-guy stars, even if they are warm and loving fathers and husbands in real life, are willing to try a broader range of drama, but in the face of fan economics, the wiser economic behavior may be: to continue to maintain their on-screen tough-guy image.
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