"The Scorpion King" receives an enthusiastic response, with its early screenings earning $3.4 million, ranking as the best in North America for April!
"The Scorpion King," a spin-off of "The Mummy Returns," has excellent box office results from its early screenings, with industry predictions estimating a possible $30 million for its opening weekend!
Early Friday morning, related news appeared on the entertainment pages of many newspapers, continuing to build momentum for "The Scorpion King."
Some gossip tabloids even deliberately reminded Rex Reed.
"The Scorpion King" earned $3.4 million from its early screenings. Rex Reed should prepare early, preferably by cleaning the donkey Matthew Horner gave him today, so he doesn't get a mouthful of shit when he kisses the donkey's ass…"
This publicity and hype helped attract more people to "The Scorpion King," thereby creating a desire to buy tickets.
In addition, some statistics released by third-party organizations were also favorable to the film.
In the CinemaScore audience survey, "The Scorpion King" received a "B+" rating, and its popcorn score exceeded 80%.
In terms of age, 68% of the audience was under 22 years old, which is precisely the target demographic for the film. The age structure of the early screening audience was quite good.
In terms of gender, the number of male viewers was around 55%, not significantly different from the number of female viewers, indicating a relatively balanced audience.
Of course, as more professional film critics published their reviews, the Rotten Tomatoes freshness score for "The Scorpion King" continued to decline. By Friday afternoon, the freshness score had dropped below the 60% mark, falling to 59%, changing the film's status on Rotten Tomatoes from "Fresh" to "Rotten."
At the same time, the IMDb rating was also unblocked, with a score of 6.3, which can only be described as average.
Overall, the word-of-mouth for "The Scorpion King" was mediocre.
Similar to Universal Pictures' own premiere survey, the most criticized aspects of "The Scorpion King" were its thin plot and its lack of connection to "The Mummy" series.
However, the film was not without widely praised aspects, which mainly focused on Matthew's male lead and Kelly Hu's female lead, particularly Matthew and his action scenes, which received almost no criticism.
On websites popular with movie fans, such as IMDb, positive reviews almost all centered on Matthew.
"The highlight of the film is none other than Matthew Horner."
"The ridiculous plot isn't as good as Matthew Horner's physique and fighting."
"As a baffling spin-off film, it's pretty average; only Matthew Horner and Kelly Hu are worth watching."
"This film is mediocre in all respects; the only thing worth seeing is Matthew Horner's strong, muscular physique and clean, sharp moves."
"The plot is crude, full of holes, fabricated, and bizarre. It's incredible that such a bad movie has so many viewers! The only highlight is that the male lead is fierce! His body is fierce! His actions are also fierce!"
A typical commercial entertainment film released near the summer blockbuster season, and a spin-off of a successful movie, often finds that word-of-mouth has little impact on its opening weekend box office, especially with Universal Pictures' unique promotional marketing, which captured widespread attention.
Universal Pictures had anticipated potential negative reviews for the film and had prepared soft articles for damage control well in advance. When Matthew routinely read the newspaper on Friday, he saw a large number of articles that were clearly damage control, and at first glance, they seemed quite reasonable.
"For a film like 'The Scorpion King,' which has strong men, beautiful women, action, fantasy, and occasional comedic relief… what more do you expect? Acting? Plot? Humanity? If you want those, why don't you watch 'Last Tango in Paris'? Why don't you watch 'Mulholland Drive'? This is an action film, this is a purely commercial film, okay?!"
Besides defending the film, this soft article also praised the film's most popular male lead.
"Since the three giants, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Bruce Willis, began to transition and decline,
action films seemed to hit a wall. Even Nicolas Cage, who exudes a literary aura, started doing action, and while he's not bad at it, it's not his main forte."
"Action films seemed to enter an era lacking iconic figures, until Matthew Horner burst onto the scene in 'The Scorpion King'…"
The words used to praise Matthew were almost hyperbolic, describing him as peerless.
The crew spared no effort in promoting the film; even seemingly brainless soft articles, as long as they could attract attention and boost box office numbers, would be actively dumbed down and released by partner media outlets.
To this end, they even didn't hesitate to piggyback on others' popularity.
"To appreciate 'The Scorpion King,' you must first adjust your mindset, for example, from 30 years old to 15 years old. If you mistakenly bring an admiration for art, you might transform into a garrulous Woody Allen, sarcastically critiquing the film's plot and dialogue with a petty bourgeois aesthetic. If you are an Egyptologist, you will certainly be infuriated to see history so heavily made up, and you might even dig out historical records to prove which details do not conform to historical truth. In short, compared to 'The Scorpion King,' 'Pearl Harbor' is simply a serious, excellent historical film, more than qualified for 14 Oscars."
"But 'The Scorpion King' knows its place on the pyramid of cinematic taste. It doesn't disguise itself as an epic like 'Pearl Harbor'; it's even more childish than last year's 'The Mummy Returns.' It seems to be saying: 'You high schoolers all pretend to be college students playing deep, but I'm naturally at a middle school level, playing middle school games.' The honesty of 'The Scorpion King' can remove some psychological barriers for art-house film lovers, allowing them to relax their guard and return to their shallow and childish years…"
"Having said so many bad things about 'The Scorpion King,' I don't mean to completely negate it. I just want to prevent audiences from getting confused and measuring it with the hat of an art film. As a grand, simple, and pure entertainment film, it is only responsible for providing ample sensory stimulation."
Matthew has been in Hollywood for more than just a month or two, so he understood the purpose of Universal Pictures releasing this soft article: to attract audiences who like this type of film into theaters, even if it meant offending those who admire profound films.
The reason is simple: the former are likely to provide box office revenue and have a certain chance of purchasing later products like DVDs or video tapes, making them the film's target customers.
As for the latter, neither the crew nor Universal Pictures expected a few art-house film enthusiasts to watch "The Scorpion King"; the two groups had clear boundaries.
This is not to say that fans of profound films are more sophisticated, nor that lovers of brainless popcorn movies are simple; everyone has their own preferences, and in this commercial society, preferences are one of the key factors in spending money.
As the film industry has developed, whether acknowledged or not, the distinction between popcorn commercial films and profound art-house films has become increasingly clear, and the overlap in their audiences is often small.
On Friday afternoon, the crew had no promotional announcements scheduled. Matthew left home on time to go to a gym in Westwood for his workout. From the moment he stepped out of his house, paparazzi followed him. When he got out of the car near the gym, the street photography that used to cost money became a complimentary gift from media reporters.
There were six or seven photojournalists, their camera lenses pointed at him, constantly pressing the shutter.
Matthew believed that many of these photos might appear on the entertainment pages of some newspapers tomorrow.
As long as "The Scorpion King" performed well at the box office, there would be more and more reports about him. A successful film has a very significant additive effect on an actor.
After he completed his daily fitness and training, and specifically added a fencing session, it was already dark when he left the gym. Most of the reporters and paparazzi outside were still waiting for him.
Clearly, everything was changing with the growing box office success of "The Scorpion King."
"Matthew Horner! Can I ask you a few questions?"
Outside the gym, several reporters came forward and blocked Matthew's path. Matthew took a step back, standing at the gym entrance, ready to retreat at any moment, but he wore a friendly smile. "Of course, I'll answer what I can."
His cooperative attitude was very suitable for a newly famous actor.
The oldest-looking male reporter among them asked, "Have you been following the real-time box office of 'The Scorpion King'?"
Matthew shook his head, "I don't have access to that information."
"I just asked a friend who works at the North American Theater Alliance." Another reporter held up his phone in front of Matthew, showing him the text message. "Ten minutes ago, he just checked the preliminary statistics from the North American Theater Alliance. 'The Scorpion King' has consistently been in the lead, and its advantage is very significant!"
"Wow…" Matthew seemed very happy, "That's truly exciting news."
Even entertainment reporters aren't all like Elena Boyar. The oldest-looking male reporter spoke again, "Congratulations, Matthew Horner, your first starring film is very likely to be a box office hit."
Matthew smiled politely, "Thank you! I hope so." He then asked curiously, "How much has 'The Scorpion King' earned at the box office so far?"
The reporter with the phone said, "Including yesterday's early screenings, the rough estimate for the first day's box office is around $9.4 million!"
"That much?" Matthew's surprise was genuine.
Unlike these well-informed reporters, he had no other channels to learn about the box office besides the crew. Since parting with Helen Herman in the early morning, he hadn't actively inquired, as the crew would certainly make a routine announcement the next morning.
"Matthew!"
A short reporter squeezed through from behind and loudly said, "It's only eight o'clock now, and there's still a long way to go until the end of the day. 'The Scorpion King's' opening weekend box office will definitely exceed $10 million. Don't you have anything to say to Rex Reed?"
"Hmm…" Matthew pondered for a moment and said, "I believe Mr. Rex Reed is a critic of excellent reputation."