【音】VOA电影报道系列--好莱坞年终票房总结

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Despite Popular Films, US Box Office Gross Declines

A blockbuster shot in New Zealand wraps up the film industry's year on a high note; but for the first time in more than a decade, the North American box office gross dropped from the previous year. With ticket sales declining, studio executives are asking "where did the audience go?"


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"All heavenfish turn right!"
"Ok, that's just scary."

Finding Nemo the computer-animated fish tale from Pixar Studios and distributed by Disney, is the undisputed box office champion of 2003 with some $340 million in domestic ticket sales and another $362 million from theaters around the world.

"Gentlemen!"
"My lady."
"You'll always remember this is the day that you almost caught Captain Jack."

Disney also has the year's number two domestic hit. The entertainment conglomerate turned a popular theme park ride into a box office smash starring Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom. Pirates of the Caribean: the Curse of the Black Pearl took in $305 million at North American theaters and another $347 million in international ticket sales.

"The two biggest hits of the year Finding Nemo and Pirates of the Caribean are family films."

Peter Bart is editor-in-chief of the show business paper Daily Variety and he believes it is just coincidence, not a studio plan, that put family-friendly fare on top in 2003.

"Certainly this was a great year for films for that broad audience. The big concern of the major studios this year has been simply this: what is happening to that adult audience? Admissions, the number of people actually filling those seats, admissions has been flat for the last few years. And this is a double worry because, after all, the movie studios are owned by conglomerates that also own the TV broadcast networks. The young audience is certainly defecting from the TV broadcas networks. Indeed, the main segment of the media that seems to be gaining is really cable television. Other than that everyone in the entertainment business is trying to figure out where all the bodies are going."

One factor is ticket prices are rising. At cinemas in New York and Los Angeles an adult admission now costs more than $10; the national average is above $6, up 15 cents from 2002; so even if the total box office gross keeps up with last year, film audiences are dwindling as production expenses skyrocket. The average American studio film in 2003 cost more than $60 million to produce and another $30 or $40 million to market; with such huge sums at stake avoiding risk has become a top priority.

"Do we know each other?"
"Not yet."

On paper, at least, the action-romance Gigli, starring celebrity couple Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, looked like a surefire hit and not - as it turned out - the year's top flop, a fact Affleck says they've had to accept.

"Sometimes a movie just doesn't work and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. That's the nature of taking a risk in a creative medium, but there is nothing I would have done differently. I mean I suppose I could say that Jen and I made a mistake in the sense that we were too, and I think that's a mistake, we were too available. We were too just kind of happy and figured like 'what's the worst that could happen?' We found out the answer to that question."

"The precious..."

At the other end of the risk scale is The Return of the King, director Peter Jackson's rousing conclusion to The Lord of the Rings trilogy: a $300 million gamble that is paying off handsomely for its studio, New Line Cinema. Elijah Wood stars as the hobbit Frodo.

"The truth is The Lord of the Rings will be around forever and has been embraced in such an incredible way by the world and has somehow eked its way into pop culture. I mean it has become this massive thing that I think will carry on for years and years to come."

It is the exception that proves the rule to journalist and former studio executive Bart, who says the joy of creativity may be disappearing from the industry known as the "dream factory."

"The head of one studio confided in me the other day that it was dismaying, but he does not look forward to seeing that many of the pictures his own studio produces. I can understand that. In the 1970's and even the early 80's there was nothing wrong with making a picture simply because you looked forward to seeing it. I remember when I was president of a company called Lorimar we went ahead and made Peter Sellers' movie Being There. We didn't think it was going to be a global blockbuster; but we wanted to see the movie. That sort of motivation, selfish and impractical, nonetheless resulted in some good pictures and some successful ones. I don't think you get the decision-making process like that any more."

Still, Bart predicts a prosperous 2004 for American show business is possible.

"But in order to do so the guys who run the town have to take a few more risks, take a few more chances, gamble on new stars and new stories and every picture can't have a Roman numeral behind it."

Peter Bart is editor in chief of Daily Variety.

This is Alan Sliverman for the Voice of America in Hollywood.

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近日，美国票房分析公司“Exhibitor Relations”公布了2003年的北美票房情况。2003年好莱坞的北美总票房是92.275亿美元，比上一年的93.317亿下降了0.45个百分点，是自从1991年以来的第一次下降。考虑到票价上升的因素，2003年观众人数比上一年的下降率更高，达到了4.25个百分点。

　　在2003年上映的影片中，《海底总动员》以3.4亿美元的北美票房成绩拔得头筹，《加勒比海盗》以3.05亿美元的成绩紧随其后。《黑客帝国》系列的第2部《重装上阵》的北美总票房达到了2.81亿美元，比1999年的《黑客帝国》多出了1.14亿美元，位居第三位。但《黑客帝国3：矩阵革命》的北美总票房却令人失望，只有1.4亿美元，是三部中最低的。

　　《魔戒3：王者无敌》的北美票房达到了2.24亿，位居第4位，考虑到它只上映了两周，它最终的北美票房极有可能超过《海底总动员》。另外，《魔戒3》的全球总票房极有可能超过10亿美元，直追史上全球票房冠军《泰坦尼克号》创造的记录18亿美元。

　　在美国八大电影公司中，迪斯尼公司凭着《海底总动员》、《加勒比海盗》、《房倒屋塌》、《辣妈辣妹》等卖座影片得到了15.2亿美元的北美票房，仅次于前年索尼公司的16亿美元，位居影史一年中单个公司北美票房的第二位。

　　2003年度北美票房成绩令人失望的原因主要在于曾经被寄予厚望的续集影片，比如《霹雳娇娃2》、《速度与激情2：飙风再起》和《古墓丽影2》的票房都非常令人失望。

　　迪斯尼公司的成功正在于敏锐地预测到了续集影片走低的趋势，该公司的发行主管查克·维安(Chuck Viane)说：“我们把重点放在了对抗2003年发行的续集上，我们发现这一年的续集特别多，所以我们认为这是我们发行全新构思的电影的好机会。”

　　2003年有25部影片的北美票房超过了1亿美元，比2004年的24部还要多，而且这些影片有一些是在12月发行的，在2004年它们的票房成绩可能还会增加。2003年北美票房超过1亿美元的影片包括《冒牌天神》、《X战警2》、《终结者3》、《圣诞精灵》、《以怒攻怒》、《奔腾年代》等。另外，3D影片《特工小子3D版》的票房达到了1.11亿美元，说明3D电影已经不再是一种哄孩子的小玩意儿。

　　2003年度票房最差的重头戏是本·阿弗莱克和詹妮弗·洛佩兹主演的《鸳鸯绑匪》，其他的失败者包括哈里森·福特主演的《好莱坞重案组》和“梦工场”的动画片《辛巴达七海传奇》等。

　　2003年真正的失落在于“黑马”只有 《加勒比海盗》和《奔腾年代》等不多的几部影片，比起拥有《天兆》、《星际宝贝》、《冰河世纪》、《午夜凶铃美国版》和《我的盛大希腊婚礼》等一群“黑马”的2002年逊色了不少。正如“Exhibitor Relations”公司的经理保罗·德加拉比迪安所说：“今年大公司的市场运作部门都工作得很出色，但最终使你拥有破记录成绩的还是你出品的影片，它们可以感动观众，不断使观众回到影院重看这些影片，这样的影片在2003年实在不多。”