Special feature of 1905 film network Unexpectedly, the animated film became the first dark horse in the film market in May, and the box office fell all the way, even surpassing the box office many times in a single day, winning the Japanese crown.
As of press time, the box office of "League of Bad Guys" has surpassed the achievement of playing "sentimental cards", with a total of over 98 million. It is only a matter of time before it breaks through 100 million.
Compared with the past, the superhero group has become a routine, and when the charming and lovely "villain" character becomes the protagonist, it is easier to become a "traffic password" against the last real boss drama.
League of Bad Guys is not the first work that "eats crabs".As early as 2010, it was also DreamWorks.Animation, once made another animated film featuring bad guys.Megamind.
DreamWorks’ more successful animation series, before featuring Minions’s selling Meng, the protagonist is set to be a thief who represents the negative image.
Aside from these animated films, in Hollywood, DC launched the Suicide Squad series, while Marvel Comics successfully developed the Venom series and the drama Loki.
"Bad" is just a label given by the outside world. Tearing off the label and redefining the nature of the role may be the key to this kind of creation resonating with the current social topic.
As for China’s films, can this kind of creation, which is in line with the idea of "beginning of life is good in nature", appear as soon as possible? Or is it already secretly laid out by a team?
Redefinition of "bad"
How bad are these villains?
First, look at several characters in the animated film League of Bad Guys, such as wolves, poisonous snakes, sharks, spiders and piranhas. From the past cognition, these creatures can put down human existence in a few seconds. Compared with the concept of kind rabbits and lambs, they are the embodiment of evil.
In the movie, they commit crimes everywhere, robbing banks and all kinds of jewelry shops crazily. Even the police chief has repeatedly indicated that catching them is his career goal in this life.
Finally, in order to accomplish more exciting crimes, they pretend to declare that they want to turn over a new leaf and become model citizens.
This setting is not new. The first Despicable Me is a similar situation.
In order to prove that he is the worst thief in history, the super villain Gru announced that he would steal the moon home, but in the contest with his opponent, he had to adopt three orphans first and put on a touching "fathers and daughters".
The drama of pretending to be a good man is not new, and the dramatic effect is to make them stand on the opposite side of the last villain.
"League of Bad Guys" may make the expression more direct and family-friendly, and through the mouth of Mayor Diane Fox, it says that "garbage can also be a work of art from different angles".
Compared with the animated films, the live-action films are more direct.
DC changed the movie in a crazier way.The villains, such as Ugly Girl and King Shark, are controlled by one side with deadly weapons, making them incarnate as "death squads" to achieve more difficult tasks. In the design of plays, these villains passively completed this rebellious and whitewashing behavior.
In "Venom", the whole setting is relatively mild, and the behavior of doing good is completed in the negotiation between the venom and the host.
Of course, in the original cartoon, venom was one of Spider-Man’s old enemies, which was directly displayed in the old edition. With the expansion and linkage of Marvel Universe, it is still possible that the battle between Venom and Spider-Man will follow.
It seems that the creation of villains as protagonists has become a new routine in many Hollywood movies. At the same time, more and more lovely and charming villains have been "whitewashed" by netizens. So, after the "whitewashed", do they have a chance to let China’s film creation see new possibilities?
The possibility of both good and evil
It is also good and evil, or we used to use more words to describe this kind of role.In China’s film creation, this role is not uncommon. The more classic characters come fromJin YongnovelEternal slaughterJi Long "Zoroastrianism group in.
At the beginning of the story, many creators have strengthened the "evil deeds" of the four protectors of Zoroastrianism, especially the eccentric behavior of Wei Yixiao, the king of green-winged bats, who likes to suck human blood. However, after Zhang Wuji mistakenly broke into the Bright Top of Zoroastrianism, they were originally misunderstood by Jianghu as "cults", and gradually found the correct position in a series of struggles.
This process of identity change is particularly obvious in the director’s works, and it also finds a direct explanation for this role, "never suck human blood."
The whole story is very much like the movie setting in which the villain plays the leading role. With Zoroastrianism, an organization labeled as a villain by the public, as the core, these characters do have some behavioral logic that is not decent, but in the development of a series of events, the villains finally surfaced.
In fact, there are many such creative adaptations in Hong Kong films.In the past, everyone was familiar with itthe legend of the condor heroesOuyang Feng, Xi Du, is a negative image who does whatever it takes for the supreme martial arts.
But in the world, the rivers and lakes are just rivers and lakes, there is no absolute evil and justice, he is just the ferryman in the rivers and lakes, there is no narrow sense, only the children in the rivers and lakes are immersed in love.
With the beautiful love, let the audience stay in the audience’s mind, and "can’t be reconciled" to Dong Fangbubai who is willing to give everything for love.
In addition, love is also used as a makeup point, and the glamorous ghost Xiaoqian, who was originally a villain, was repackaged. Who doesn’t cry for the love between Xiaoqian and Ning Caichen at last?
Not only that, but a series of movies, etc., all ended up with a drama framework similar to Ghost Story.
Compared with them, The Journey to the West’s version has reset the monsters in the movie.
Especially in the movie, Mrs. Bones, who plays the role, has completely become the demon who conforms to public opinion.
She was a poor woman in a previous life, and she died tragically because of misunderstanding or deliberate planting by villagers. Coincidentally, she became a demon, but she still couldn’t escape the same fate. She was also misunderstood and planted. Because she was already a "demon (bad guy)", any dirty water could be spilled on her, so she was charged with eating children.
But as the story unfolds, the audience knows that the person who really eats children is the king who ordered the demon to be caught.
The export of the realistic "rebel alliance"
It can be seen that since the last century, China’s films have had the possibility of diversity in the design of villains. It’s just that it’s relatively euphemistic and romantic compared to a series of Hollywood movies with villains as the main characters.
Then, is it possible to create a work with this as the protagonist in the future?The probability is high, but creative breakthroughs are still needed.
A series of film works adapted from Jin Yong’s novels, such as ashes of time, Swordsman 2: Dong Fangbubai, were criticized by book fans and even Mr. Jin Yong when they first came out. But with the passage of time, these works are all classics.
The second deconstruction of this kind of classic martial arts novels is one of the breakthroughs in the future.
Only in the face of these novels, many of them still need the adaptation and approval of the copyright party. But for many novels that are already public IP, it is a good choice.
The monster in The Journey to the West is a very representative figure, what’s more, before learning from the scriptures, the Monkey King’s own image was full of cult temperament.
In many film and television works, the bridge between the Monkey King and Niu Mowang, the Great Ghost King and other "Seven Saints" has been sketched or ignored, leaving only the plot that the Monkey King named "Monkey King" to annoy the Jade Emperor.
Can the story of "Seven Saints Becoming Righteous" be re-created? Or it can be an interesting prequel. In addition, all kinds of monsters in Liaozhai and Shanhaijing are excellent descriptions of villains in the concept.
For these well-known IP’s adaptation, how to make the audience recognize it and not fall into the predicament of magic change, this is naturally what the creative team has to face. Although the Zheng Baorui version of The Journey to the West has further created these monsters, the final effect seems to be difficult for the audience to pay the bill.
Of course, in the background of realistic themes, there are many examples of the original expression of "dog bites dog" and "thief catches thief". It is the game between two groups of bad guys that makes the final justice known.
This form also broadens the creation of genre films, embellished with black humor, which can not only create suspense atmosphere, but also increase the fun of solving puzzles and better control the narrative itself.
Whether it is fantasy costumes or realistic themes, it can be seen from past works that the creation of such films is not an "armchair strategist", but how to accurately grasp the main points of creation, not simply repeating such settings, which may be the main points that creators should understand before writing.
