"Before Sunrise" completed an incredible victory again. The Chicago Tribune's box office forecast for the movie was already the most optimistic view of the media, and the Chicago Tribune's estimate was sneered by many media, believing that it was impossible to obtain seven million dollars before sunrise".

But now, "Before Sunrise" not only received a lot of praise, but also won the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival, but also won a box office of 32 million US dollars in North America, and the world even created an outstanding box office of 85 million US dollars in one fell swoop. This is almost an amazing achievement for an art film and an experimental independent niche movie.

If you start with the theme and consider the filming techniques and structure of the movie, the box office results "before sunrise" are no less than those of "pulp novels".

But Colin Meller doesn't think so.

Although Colin would not deny this, he would put the score before sunrise in a vertical comparison of the results "before sunrise" throughout the long river of time and a completely different result. The so-called "long river of time" here refers to Hugo's acting career.

The mainstream view in Hollywood is to divide Hugo's career into two stages, with the raspberry award in January 1992 as the node, which is divided into before and after the raspberry award.

Before the Golden Raspberry Award, Hugo's career curve began from zero and slowly rose, reaching its peak during the "Death Poetry Society" period, and then fell sharply and fell directly to the bottom; after the Golden Raspberry Award, Hugo's career began to climb up from the abyss, reached a peak during the "Schindler's List" period, and finally relied on the great success of the two works to continue to rise.

It is precisely because of this intriguing career development curve that Hugo's experience has become a typical representative of Hollywood's "American Dream" and the object of worship by countless teenagers.

Colin entered the mainstream view.

If you study it carefully, you will find that after the Golden Raspberry Awards, Hugo's career footprints rose step by step. "Schindler's list" is not the highest point. It should be said that "Schindler's list" and "life and death speed" form the highest point. The former won both fame and fortune, winning Hugo's Oscar's best supporting actor Little Golden Man; the latter achieved glory in the box office and created the highest box office of Hugo. At the same time, these two works successively exceeded 200 million US dollars in box office, and also won Hugo's reputation as "Mr. 400 million".

In Colin's view, Hugo's career entered another stage after the "speed of life and death".

The box office of "Life and Death" has once again exceeded 200 million after "Schindler's List", and the box office of "Pu Novel" fell to 100 million. This also made Hugo's five consecutive new works have exceeded the previous ones since "Smelling the fragrance and knowing women". If the box office data of "Pu Novel" of $170 million and 200 is still amazing, making the entire downward momentum not obvious, then the subsequent "before sunrise" completely exposed this situation.

The box office "before sunrise" suddenly fell from $172 million in the previous work to $32 million. This can almost be said to be a fatal cliff jumping drop. To put it bluntly, even a fraction of it is not as good as a fraction.

In this way, since the "speed of life and death", the box office of Hugo's three new works has been lower than that of the previous works, and the downward momentum is no longer clear.

So, Colin's view also surfaced, "Hugo's career is facing a terrible downward trend, and has unstoppable to a terrible position."

When the New York Post published this article, it really caused an uproar. When almost all media lamented that "before sunrise" had achieved success again, they actually went the other way, believing that "before sunrise" would become a new turning point in Hugo's career, and the downward trend was worrying.

The report of the "New York Post" that was so terrible this time is really intriguing. In the eyes of people in the circle, this report is ridiculous, because Colin ignored the independent attributes of "pulp novels" and "before sunrise". Hugo led the two independent films to create such glory, which is not only not a sign of career decline, but should be a portrayal of continuing glory. Thanks to these two works, independent films have entered the North American market, which will be a new starting point to change the Hollywood landscape in the next ten years.

At the same time, because Colin's point of view has no basis, if everyone simply compares the rise and fall of box office numbers, it is impossible for an actor to always have new works higher than the old works, after 200 million, it is 300 million, so what about 300 million, after 400 million, and 500 million? This is impossible. So using this reason to illustrate the "downward momentum" is not convincing.

Everyone in the circle knows that the success of a work is the ratio of cost to box office revenue, the influence of the work, the subsequent peripheral driving force, etc., which are definitely not a simple and rigid box office figure.

However, in the view of readers, the unique reports of the "New York Post" stand out among all "boring and uninspiring" reports, attracting everyone's attention. More importantly, many readers also think that Colin's views are very interesting and worth pondering. Because Colin listed a lot of strong evidence in the article.

"A 'before sunrise' ended Hugo's record: five consecutive works in North America's box office exceeded 100 million, six consecutive works in the world's box office exceeded 100 million, five consecutive works won the North American weekend box office championship, and seven consecutive works ranked among the top three in North America's box office rankings (Note: 'Hudson' ranked second in the box office list on the premiere weekend), and four consecutive works in the box office were higher than the previous ones.

During the three years when Hugo created countless glorious things, a series of records came to an abrupt end in the "before sunrise".

Not only the box office, but also in terms of reputation, Hugo has also fallen into a dilemma. Although he won the Silver Bear Award for Best Director in Berlin before Sunrise, it actually has nothing to do with Hugo himself. Whether as the male lead or as a screenwriter, Hugo has not been able to win corresponding praise. This also means that since "Smelling the fragrance and knowing women", Hugo's rapid development of acting skills has entered a bottleneck after "Speech Speed ​​of Life and Death" and "Before Sunrise".

What does this mean? It means that Hugo is facing a dilemma. On the one hand, his career is brilliant, but on the other hand, he has lost himself in the colorful glitz, and he is likely to fall into depravity. "Before Sunrise" is this alarm bell. The curse of the Oscar Little Golden Man did not develop last year, but it showed clues in "Before Sunrise".

‘Before sunrise’ is like a warning like a 'fatal moment’, allowing people to see the dilemma behind Hugo’s brilliant career. This is a fact, an undeniable fact.”

Although the New York Post blurred a point in the report that the record of "four consecutive works have higher box office than previous works" ended as early as the "Pulp Novel", this does not affect the credibility of Colin's report, which is the term, because this report has been recognized by many readers.

Many people believe that the New York Post hits the fact that from "life and death speed" to "pulp novels" to "before sunrise", although the works have been successful, the momentum of Hugo's selection of works is becoming increasingly difficult to understand, which also reminds people of the report of the "New York Post" before the release of the movie. Colin pointed out at the time that Hugo was blinded by his outstanding achievements, became more and more arrogant, and lost his direction, and "before sunrise" is likely to become a wake-up call.

Now, Colin's "prediction" has been effective.

This is the difference between an expert and an outsider. No expert would believe this report by the New York Post and would even sneer; but ordinary lay readers believe it without doubt. A large number of data and factual analysis are absolutely reasonable and well-founded. Especially those viewers who do not like the movie "Before Sunrise" are even more amazed at Colin's views. This is how the media creates public opinion.

As a result, the New York Post was completely prosperous, and sales reached the peak again, rising by ten percentage points, again raising the highest sales record in eight months set by the newspaper before the release of "Before Sunrise".

Not only that, but the "New York Post" has received support from many readers this time, and everyone expressed concern about Hugo's future development. What's more, several local newspapers also recognized the views of the "New York Post" and conducted related reports with similar views. Therefore, the "Hugo career decline theory" has spread throughout the United States in a burgeon.

This... is really a laughable situation. "Before sunrise" clearly created a miracle, but it became the culprit of Hugo's career collapse in people's eyes. Richard Linklater said he was innocent.

The New York Post finally made a proud look. In Hugo's year-and-a-half-long confrontation, it had an unprecedented first prevailing moment, and even won the support of readers. This made Colin's good mood last for a long time.

At the end of the report, the New York Post said, "Although you can still feel the prosperity of Hugo's career, the hidden dangers behind it make people start to worry. Perhaps the next work will usher in a 'Hudson Eagle' type collapse, which will destroy Hugo's efforts and struggles over the past three years. We can't help but start to worry, has Hugo realized this crisis? Or, has Hugo learned to be modest again? He needs to regain this excellent quality."
Chapter completed!