Is it over? Good grief, what a bloodbath this summer has been.
Here's the domestic box office rankings for this summer:
1. Lilo & Stitch
2. Superman
3. Jurassic World: Rebirth
4. The Fantastic Four: First Steps
5. How to Train Your Dragon
6. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
7. Thunderbolts*
8. F1: The Movie
9. Final Destination: Bloodlines
10. Weapons
Here's what I predicted back in April:
1. Superman (7 points)
2. Lilo & Stitch (7 points)
3. The Fantastic Four: First Steps (7 points)
4. Thunderbolts* (3 points)
5. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (7 points)
6. Jurassic World Rebirth (3 points)
7. How to Train Your Dragon (5 points)
8. Elio
9. The Bad Guys 2
10. 28 Years Later
Wild Cards: M3GAN 2.0, The Conjuring: Last Rites, and Ballerina
I did worse than last year (40 points), but I managed to get a few things right, like the successes of "Superman" and "Lilo & Stitch." Some bad decisions were repeated, like underestimating the "Jurassic Park" franchise yet again. I have no idea how those dinosaurs keep getting audiences into seats for mediocre movie after mediocre movie, but you'd think I'd have caught on by now. I always have a few major titles in my blind spots, and this year I had three: "Weapons," "F1: the Movie" and "Final Destination: Bloodline." I probably should have seen "F1" appealing to the adult crowd that usually goes to Christopher Nolan movies, but the "Final Destination" revival really came out of nowhere, posting the franchise's best numbers by an impressive amount. And "Weapons" had a fantastic marketing campaign and late summer run that completely torpedoed my score in August, when it beat "Elio" for tenth place
The real story this summer, however, is the further downward slide of the MCU. I already put "Fantastic Four" and "Thunderbolts*" in what I thought were pretty low spots, but it turns out that this wasn't low enough. "Thunderbolts*" in particular was a heartbreaker because it's easily the best MCU film since "Avengers: Endgame," but nobody seemed to be interested. "Fantastic Four," despite the massive marketing campaign, underperformed significantly. "Superman" did okay, well enough that it shouldn't impact the plans for the rebooted DC films, but not as well as comic book fans were hoping.
There were a lot of films that briefly looked like they could be breakout hits, but only ended up appealing to niche audiences. These included the "M3GAN" sequel, the "Naked Gun" reboot, "Ballerina," "Karate Kid: Legends," "28 Years Later," and pretty much all of the animated films. There was a lot of fuss about PIXAR's "Elio" underperforming, but so did "The Bad Guys 2" and the latest attempt at a "Smurfs" movie. The "KPop Demon Hunters" soundtrack is dominating Spotify, but the movie was a Netflix streaming release.
While I didn't hit any bullseyes this year, I'm proud of myself for a couple of close ones, including audiences remaining tepid on the newest "Mission: Impossible" movie and embracing the "How to Train Your Dragon" live action remake. Conversely, I vastly underestimated most of the horror titles, and did a poor job with the few I did pick. I don't know how "The Conjuring: Last Rites" ended up in my wild cards list despite being a September release, but I'm playing fair and sticking to the original picks. My alternate pick would have been something equally disastrous like "The Life of Chuck" anyway.
Finally, the chart here is only for domestic box office totals, and doesn't reflect the significant decrease in international box office numbers this year. "Lilo & Stitch" is our only summer blockbuster to break a billion dollars, while none of the superhero movies have managed to garner much overseas interest. Live action remakes of animated films, however, continue to do well. Audiences remain risk averse and continue to place value on titles that they already have some familiarity with, so you can expect next year's "Moana" remake to do well.
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