Avengers: Endgame opened in cinemas across Singapore yesterday. For a week or so now there have been news of first-day tickets being snapped up (and of course there are the "private offers"), but nothing beats first day box office numbers.
No, I don't have them, but from what I hear, first day ticket sales across all major cinemas at prime slots for Endgame were pretty good. You had the fanboys- of course- for Community forms the bulk of these comic-book movies, but you also had the millennial working adults who looked like they had specially taken time off to come see the movie. There were the adults who brought their tween boys to the movie, completing the experience with a huge tub of popcorn and soda. Then there were the couples out for a movie date.
Endgame marks the 10th year since the first Iron Man movie was released, and also marks the end for this group of Avengers, whom, if I may say, catapulted themselves into the hearts and minds of nearly everyone who ever watched the movie in the year of 2012. If there was one thing that Avengers 2012 (as I call it) did, it was to put to stamp the definitive looks of the characters.
In other words, few are those who will not associate the character of Chris Hemsworth to Thor. Few are those who will not think of Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury, or Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow. You no longer think of Robert Downey Jr without Iron Man at the back, center or front of your mind, and Chris Evans got the Capt look down to a T.
But it is Hulk of Avengers in 2012 whom Mark Ruffalo literally defined. Hulk, naturally, is not the easiest of characters to create for the screen, and although it has been skilfully performed by Lou Ferrigno for television, and a CGI Hulk in (I think) two more movies thereafter, it was THIS CGI Hulk that, with present day technology, sealed the stature, the pose,and the face. No more can we look at the face of Hulk without thinking of Mark Ruffalo.
This is also the Hulk that was outside Tangs Plaza in the December of last year.
He didn't stand alone. Iron Man was there as well, standing outside the other entrance.
Who attracted more attention from passers-by, I don't know- I didn't have time to observe both characters- but I hung around Hulk more, and can I tell you, he (and I'm sure Iron Man as well) united the passers-by in a way that I think not many movies have ever done before.
Ten minutes.
Ten minutes was all the time that I stood there, and in that span of time, there was a European, stylishly clad in pink collared shirt and tailored short pants, wearing sunglasses with a Panama-style hat on his head, taking selfie after selfie after selfie for the best shot,
There were five groups of Filipino ladies who, having walked by, dropped their shopping bags, whipped out their phones from their crossbody bags and struck poses whilst their friends took pictures for them. There were quite a few repeated takes.
Then there were the children, who, having seen the structure, ran excitedly towards it, reached out to try and touch Hulk's fingers before clamouring their parents for a picture.
And finally, there were a few groups of Chinese, I believe, from Hong Kong and mainland China, who stood by the side and waited patiently for the Filipinos to finish before taking up the same position and snapping the picture.
Three different nationalities, different genders, different ages, different lives, different lifestyles, all strangers from different parts of the world- brought together in that single span of ten minutes by the figure of Hulk standing outside a well-known department store.
Is it any wonder then, that there are groups of people who turn green with envy at the success of these characters? Is it any wonder that, to them, this- and all entertainment- are blasphemy because they do not have religious themes and instead "promote violence" and "bloodshed" and are forms of "idolatry"?
They are the ones that shrug their shoulders and snicker at the 'foolishness' of those who enjoy and pursue such forms of entertainment. They are the ones who point a finger at such characters and such movies and condemn them as distractions and harbingers of everything that is wrong in the world.
Yet, it would not surprise me if what they were really hankering after wasn't the immoral, unspiritual, devil-leaning elements of all forms of entertainment, and neither did they really give a s*** about society's problems and the souls of our children, but what they were really hankering about was the gigantic gap between interest in such entertainment, and the flagging interest in their own presentations from their own groups.
In short, one word, jealousy.
Jealousy over the fact that fans are running to watch a boyband or a Kpop group. Jealousy over the fact that people would rather spend money to watch a comic book movie than drop it into the bag. Jealousy over the fact that their own message gets shut down whilst this secular message engages them and magnetizes them. Jealousy over the fact that people want to take pictures with Iron Man and Hulk and no one wants to take pictures with them.
I could go on and on about this, and perhaps some day at the right time I will, but for the life of me, I really cannot see how evil Iron Man and Hulk can be if their mere presence is a bridge and a point of connectivity to strangers, if it charms them, lets them be a child again, and leaves them wonderful memories to take away.