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Miss Dong from Top Cinema (original from TopCinema, reproduction is strictly prohibited)

(Friendly reminder: This article contains some spoilers, please detour in advance if you mind)

I'm afraid many people would not have thought of this summer movie season -

Billion-dollar box office directors like Xu Zheng and Chen Sicheng have fallen from the box office altar: Both of the directors' films in this summer's movie season are surprising.

This year's summer movie season is gradually coming to an end, but the competition is becoming increasingly fierce.

Last weekend, the movie "Reverse Life" directed and starred by Xu Zheng was officially released, and the love film "Negatives Make Positive" starring Zhu Yilong also joined. Chen Sicheng's movie "Decryption", which has been released for more than a week, is still struggling for box office after its reputation collapsed.

However, the reputation and box office of these highly exposed films shot by top filmmakers fell short of expectations. Even the billion-dollar box office director and double-awarded actor Zhu Yilong are no longer effective.

In particular, Xu Zheng's realistic film "Reverse Life", which was highly anticipated, scored 6.9 on Douban, which is exactly the same as Chen Sicheng's previous spy film "Decryption", and far lower than Shen Teng and Ma Li's comedy "Catching Dolls", which scored 7.5 on Douban.

"Reverse Life", which was invested with 200 million yuan, had a mediocre start.

This film, which tells the inspirational story of a middle-aged unemployed programmer who switches careers to become a food delivery man, received a lot of negative reviews online before it was released. The negative reviews were not only directed at the film, but also at the consumption of the suffering of the lower classes, which was extremely detrimental to the film's reputation.

The single-day box office champion on August 15 was still Shen Teng's "Catching Dolls", which had been released for almost a month. The second single-day box office champion was a domestic animated film "White Snake: Floating Life".

Currently, Maoyan predicts that the box office of "Reverse Life" and "The Decryption" will be less than 500 million, which is less than the nearly 600 million of "White Snake: Floating Life". "Negatives Make Positive" is only more than 100 million. "Catching Dolls" starring Shen Teng and Ma Li is still far ahead and is about to break 3 billion, with a forecast of 3.5 billion.

Many people did not expect that Chen Sicheng's "The Decryption" was not good, and Xu Zheng's "Reverse Life" was not good either. After all, they are both billion-dollar box office directors who have created box office miracles.

Xu Zheng once directed and starred in "Lost in Thailand", which became the first domestic film to break the 1 billion box office. He himself has also become a box office magic drug and has long been among the ranks of directors with a box office of over 10 billion.

Chen Sicheng, with the "Detective Chinatown" series, has leapt into the top 10 club of Chinese movie box office. Not only has he become China's first director with a box office of over 10 billion yuan, he is also still the third director in terms of total box office, with the top two being Tsui Hark and Zhang Yimou.

But it seems that Chen Sicheng, who has always been hailed as "the most powerful product manager in the film industry", suffered an even greater defeat with "The Decryption" this time.

The production cost was announced online early on as 500 million yuan, and even Wang Baoqiang said at the press conference: "All the money Chen Sicheng earned from filming over the years has been spent on movies."

The estimated box office on the project book at that time was 3 billion to 3.5 billion, which was not considered too high for Chen Sicheng.

butNow, "The Decryption" has been released for 9 days, and the box office has been less than 300 million yuan. The screening schedule has dropped below 10%, and it is destined to suffer huge losses.

Where did the money go?

In addition to inviting stars like John Cusack, Chen Daoming, and Daniel Wu, they also bought the copyright of Mai Jia, the film had a lot of money-burning special effects, plus IMAX's special blockbusters, Vienna made music, and spent money to buy the copyright of the Beatles' songs, etc.

However, these shattered dreams that Chen Sicheng spent a lot of money to create became his narcissism and wishful thinking.

For the audience, "Decryption" was criticized as imitating Nolan and showing off for the sake of showing off. It only had a gorgeous shell but no plot that the audience wanted, and it had almost nothing to do with spy warfare and decryption.

However, Chen Sicheng still refused to admit defeat. In an interview, he said that he was unwilling to repeat himself and was eager to innovate and explore.

Xu Zheng's problems were also highlighted in "Reverse Life" this time.

Xu Zheng, who has always focused on the midlife crisis, this time targets the fallen middle-class elite. A middle-aged programmer who originally had a high income, a big house, a full-time wife, and a child attending an international school was laid off. Everything he had originally had became a bubble. He had no choice but to lower his status and work as a delivery man.

Being criticized for exploiting the suffering of the lower classes is one thing, but the biggest bug in the story is that it is divorced from reality in order to praise suffering.

What is puzzling about the whole film is that a delivery man who is about to be crushed by his mortgage, at the last moment of his quest to get the 2,500 yuan reward for the top order of the month, got into a car accident and was hit by a car, and then he behaved abnormally:

The first thing he thought of was not his own body, but he said to the driver who hit him, "I have insurance." Then he ignored his own life and insisted on delivering the takeaway order for 2,500 yuan?

It’s no wonder that some viewers complained that “Reverse Life” is “not like anything”:

Layoffs are not like this, food delivery is not like this, human nature is not like this, family conflicts are not like this, midlife crisis is not like this, and life is not like this.

Overconfidence is narcissism and conceit, while performing suffering for the sake of suffering does not understand true suffering.

Pure art films can certainly ignore the audience and box office, but it is obvious that "The Decode" and "Life in the Dark" are not art for art's sake.

We look forward to the flourishing of domestic films and bold innovation, but we also hope that they can put respect for the audience first and tell a solid and true story first.

By the way, what are your favorite movies this summer?

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