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Heading into the all-important summer moviegoing season, two converging box-office trends are startling studios: Women are driving ticket sales to a degree rarely, if ever, seen before, while young men — long Hollywood’s most coveted audience — are relatively AWOL.
在至关重要的夏日观影季即将到来之际，两股票房潮流的汇聚让电影公司感到惊讶：女观众对票房的推动达到前所未有的高度，而男性青少年观众却相对减少了，长期以来他们是好莱坞最看重的观众。
With the release of “The Divergent Series: Insurgent” over the weekend, women have delivered the three biggest live-action openings of the year. The audience for “Insurgent,” which took in an estimated $54 million from Friday to Sunday, was 60 percent female. The opening-weekend crowd for “Fifty Shades of Grey” was 67 percent female, and women made up 66 percent of the audience for “Cinderella.”
本年度最轰动的三次真人电影上映周末都是由女性观众制造的，上周末的《反叛者》(The Divergent Series: Insurgent)是最新的一次。《反叛者》从周五到周日约赚得5400万美元票房，观众中有60%是女性。《五十度灰》(Fifty Shades of Grey)上映那个周末的观众中有67%是女性；《灰姑娘》(Cinderella)的观众中有66%是女性。
It would be easier to dismiss those percentages as a fluke — three big female-oriented movies just happened to arrive in proximity — if a parade of movies aimed at young men had not bombed over the same period. Among the carnage: “Jupiter Ascending,” “Seventh Son,” “Hot Tub Time Machine 2,” “Chappie” and, over the weekend, Sean Penn’s “The Gunman.”
人们很可能会将热门电影中女性观众的高比例视为偶然现象，说这是因为三部以女性为目标观众的大制作影片碰巧接连上映，但在同一时期，一大堆以青少年男性为目标观众的电影却遭遇滑铁卢，包括《木星上行》(Jupiter Ascending)、《第七子：降魔之战》(Seventh Son)、《热浴盆时光机2》(Hot Tub Time Machine 2)、《超能查派》(Chappie)以及上周末肖恩·潘(Sean Penn)的《卧底枪手》(The Gunman)。
The shift has been noticeable enough to prompt movie executives and producers to ruminate about the causes and consider whether the big film factories should recalibrate their assembly lines. Counting on the stability of young men, studios have nearly 30 superhero movies on the way by the end of 2015, each costing well over $100 million to make. But young men are more easily distracted by other forms of entertainment, and women may now be the more reliable opening-weekend audience.
这种变化已经非常明显，足以促使电影公司执行官和制作人们思考它背后的原因，考虑大型电影公司是否应该重新安排生产线。电影公司把赌注压在年轻男观众的稳定性上，到2015年底将有近30部超级英雄大片上映，每一部的制作费都远在一亿美元之上。但是年轻男人更容易被其他娱乐方式吸引，而女性现在可能是更可靠的上映周末(opening-weekend)观众。
“You can never put your finger on it entirely, but you have to ask the questions,” said Dan Fellman, president of domestic distribution at Warner Bros. “Is this just the cyclical nature of the movie business? Or does it point to a more serious shift in habits?”
“你永远也不可能完全弄清原因，但你必须开始思考，”华纳兄弟影业(Warner Bros)的国内发行总监丹·费尔曼(Dan Fellman)说，“这只是电影业的自然周期，还是反映出更重大的习惯变化？”
The uncertainty comes as Hollywood tries to bounce back from a terrible 2014. Admissions fell 6 percent at North American theaters last year, to 1.27 billion, compared with the previous year; ticket sales declined 5 percent, to $10.4 billion. Ticket sales are up about 4 percent so far in 2015, but the high-risk summer months — packed with male-centric movies like “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Terminator: Genisys” and “Ant-Man” — usually set the pace for the year.
这种不确定性出现之际，正值好莱坞努力从糟糕的2014年重振旗鼓之时。去年，北美的观影人次与前年相比下跌6%，跌至12.7亿人次；票房销售下跌5%，跌至104亿美元。2015年到目前为止，票房销售增长了约4%，但是高风险的夏季通常会决定一年的总体形势，因为夏季挤满了以男性观众为主的电影，比如《疯狂的麦克斯4：狂暴之路》(Mad Max: Fury Road)、《终结者：创世纪》(Terminator: Genisys)和《蚁人》(Ant-Man)。
Studios awoke to the power of female ticket buyers in 2008, when the “Twilight” action romances became a global phenomenon. Since then, women have turned films like “The Hunger Games,” “Bridesmaids” and “Frozen” into smash hits. But the muscle of women at the multiplex has recently gone “from sporadic to continuous,” said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior analyst at Rentrak, which tracks box-office data.
2008年，电影公司开始领悟到女性购票者的力量，那一年，刺激的爱情片《暮光之城》(Twilight)在全球受到热捧。从那以后，女性观众使得《饥饿游戏》(The Hunger Games)、《伴娘》(Bridesmaids)和《冰雪奇缘》(Frozen)等影片轰动一时。但是，票房数据跟踪公司Rentrak的高级分析师保罗·德加拉贝迪安(Paul Dergarabedian)说，最近，女性在影院的影响力“由零散性变为持续性”。
Young men used to be Hollywood’s most reliable audience, in part because they tended to be less discriminating than women. “No story? No problem! As long as people got blown up, guys showed up,” Mr. Dergarabedian said.
过去，年轻男人是好莱坞最可靠的观众，部分原因是他们不像女人那么挑剔。“没有故事？没关系！只要有人被炸飞、硬汉能现身就行，”德加拉贝迪安说。
But studio research executives say young men are the most likely to be lured by alternative activities like video games, sports and YouTube comedy clips. Research indicates that teenage boys in particular do not want to be told when and where they have to consume entertainment, which makes herding them into a movie theater difficult.
不过，电影公司的调查主管们说，年轻男人最可能被其他娱乐活动吸引，比如电子游戏、运动或YouTube上的搞笑视频。调查表明，十几岁的男孩尤其不喜欢在确定的时间和地点进行娱乐，因此把他们聚到影院比较困难。
In contrast, “teenage girls still seem to want the experience of going to the movies as a group,” said Terry Press, president of CBS Films, which recently hit specialty film pay dirt with “The DUFF,” an $8 million comedy about a high school pecking order that is closing in on $35 million in ticket sales, overwhelmingly because of female moviegoers.
相比之下，“十几岁的女孩似乎依然喜欢一起去看电影的感觉，”CBS电影公司总裁特里·普雷斯(Terry Press)说。最近，该公司凭借特色影片《丑女也有春天》(The DUFF)大赚一笔。这部喜剧片讲述的是高中里的社会等级，成本为800万美元，票房收入为3500万美元，主要来自女性观众。
The recent box-office gyrations also expose a flaw in studio strategy, analysts say. At a time when so many movies turn themselves inside out trying to attract everyone (a plan that could be summed up as “wide and shallow” in industry parlance), it is clearly possible to fill a big tent by picking a couple of demographics, in particular underserved ones, and superserving them (“narrow and deep”).
分析师们称，最近的票房波动也暴露出电影公司策略的一个缺点。许多电影彻底颠覆自己，努力吸引所有人（行话说就是“广泛而肤浅”）。与此同时，选择明确的目标观众，特别是那些没有得到足够服务的人们，对他们给予特别优待（“细化而深刻”），显然也能收获成果。
“Cinderella,” for instance, was not aimed at everyone. But by being a perfect version of something narrower — a costume romance aimed at mothers and girls — “Cinderella” has sold a stout $122 million in tickets in the United States and Canada in just two weeks. (“Empire,” aimed initially at often-ignored African-American viewers, offers a corollary example from television.)
一个极佳的例子是古装爱情剧《灰姑娘》，它的受众较窄，不是面向所有人，而是针对母亲和女孩。它的北美票房仅在两周内就达到1.22亿美元。大获成功的《嘻哈帝国》(Empire)最初针对的是经常被忽视的非裔美国观众，是电视圈的一个类似成功案例。
“What has been happening at the box office sends a message loud and clear that you don’t need four quadrants to be a massive hit,” said Phil Contrino, chief analyst at BoxOffice.com. In movie jargon, a four-quadrant movie is one that attracts men and women, young and old; Hollywood considers anyone over 25 to be old.
“票房情况发出了一个清晰明确的信号，不是只有‘四象限影片’(four quadrants)才能成为热门影片，”BoxOffice.com网站的首席分析师菲尔·孔特里诺(Phil Contrino)说。在电影术语中，“四象限电影”指的是吸引男女老幼的影片——好莱坞把所有25岁以上的人都归入“老”的类别。
When it comes to the male-female divide, the recent overreliance by studios on visual effects may play a role. The bar for visual effects has been raised so high, experts say, that nothing less than a prolonged smackdown between a raging Hulk and a supersize Iron Man has much hope of turning male heads.
提到男女区别，近些年电影公司对视觉效果的过分依赖可能也产生了一些影响。专家们说，如今观众对视觉效果的要求很高，恐怕只有愤怒的绿巨人(Hulk)和超大型钢铁侠之间的长时间打斗才能引起男人们的强烈兴趣。
“You used to be able to go to movies and see something that you never saw before — a giant shark, dinosaurs,” said Allison Shearmur, a producer of “Cinderella” and a former senior executive at Lionsgate, Paramount and Universal. “But spectacular visual effects have become routine.”
“过去，你走进电影院，有可能看到之前从没见过的东西——巨大的鲨鱼、恐龙，”《灰姑娘》的制作人艾莉森·什耶默(Allison Shearmur)说。她曾担任狮门电影公司(Lionsgate)、派拉蒙影业(Paramount)和环球影业(Universal)的高级执行官。“但是壮观的视觉效果已成为常规。”
Ms. Shearmur continued: “So what does that mean? It means that we’ve got to make more movies that have a compelling core story. The audience still comes when the story is strong, when we can laugh or cry or be afraid in a theater together.”
什耶默接着说道：“所以那意味着什么？那意味着，我们必须拍出更多具有精彩的核心故事的影片。如果故事很有趣，观众们还会去看，因为他们可以在影院里一起大笑、大哭或者恐惧。”
Mr. Fellman of Warner Bros. predicted that boys would return en masse for coming PG-13 event movies like “Furious 7” and “The Avengers: Age of Ultron.”
华纳兄弟影业的费尔曼预计，男孩子们会一起去影院观看即将上映的PG-13级别的电影，比如《速度与激情7》(Furious 7)和《复仇者联盟2：奥创纪元》(The Avengers: Age of Ultron)。
“Outside of ‘American Sniper,’ which started older and got younger, and ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service,’ there has been a noticeable lack of young men,” Mr. Fellman said. “But a lot of the so-called guy movies recently have been rated R, and you lose a lot of tweeners that way,” he noted.
“除了《美国狙击手》（American Sniper，它本来是针对年纪较大的观众，后来转向年轻观众）和《王牌特工：特工学院》(Kingsman: The Secret Service)，现在明显缺乏针对年轻男子的影片，”费尔曼说，“但是很多所谓的硬汉片最近都被评为R级，因此失去了很多青少年观众。”
Warner will add another R-rated comedy to the mix on Friday with “Get Hard,” which has been generating solid interest from men in prerelease surveys.
周五，华纳公司将在自己的上映组合计划中加入另一部R级喜剧片——《狱前教育》(Get Hard)。这部影片在预映调查中引起了男人们的强烈兴趣。
But the success of Hollywood’s summer box office may well rest with women. Nestled among the superheroes and action movies are an unusually large number of pictures aimed at a female audience, including “Pitch Perfect 2,” an estrogen-heavy musical comedy; “Spy,” an action comedy starring Melissa McCarthy; “Pan,” a splashy adaptation of the Peter Pan story; and the male stripper sequel “Magic Mike XXL.”
但是好莱坞夏季票房的成功可能主要在很大程度上也要看女人。在超级英雄大片和动作影片中通常会夹杂着很多针对女性观众的影片，包括女性色彩浓郁的音乐喜剧片《完美音调2》(Pitch Perfect 2)；梅利莎·麦卡锡(Melissa McCarthy)主演的动作喜剧片《密探》(Spy)；引人注目的改编影片《彼得·潘》(Pan)；以及关于脱衣舞男的后续影片《魔力麦克2》(Magic Mike XXL)。
“The whole notion of the summer blockbuster has always been built around young men,” Mr. Dergarabedian said. “I think we’re about to see that change. The clout and importance of the female audience has never been bigger.”
“夏季大片的概念一直是以青少年男观众为基础，”德加拉贝迪安说，“我觉得我们就要看到变化了。女性观众的势力和重要性从未如此之大。”
