Summer Movie Season has come and gone once again. And what is our conclusion?
In terms of box office success, the numbers were much better than last year. In the Summer of 2021, no movie made over $200 million domestic. This year, half of the Top 10 made over $300 million domestic. So it appears as though the COVID slump is gone.
Below are my predictions along with the actual box office numbers:
So as you can see, I did not do as well at predicting the box office as I did last year. I correctly predicted one more than last year, but I wildly missed the order
-I predicted 8 out of the Top Ten. There is still a small chance that Bullet Train and DC: League of Super-Pets could inch their way up, but it is highly unlikely.
-I only correctly predicted one movie in its correct spot: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
-I had The Black Phone in my wild card spot, but Where the Crawdads Sing was nowhere on my radar.
So here are my conclusions.
WINNERS
1. Tom Cruise
There are a lot of people who are responsible for the success of Top Gun: Maverick. But I think that the lion's share of the credit has to go to Cruise. He wisely waited patiently for the right script and right director. As producer on the film, he helped give the movie its non-CGI real-life thrill. Cruise also has been a reliable star who delivers crowd-pleasing hits like the Mission: Impossible franchise. Cruise used this cache to get people to see Top Gun and then word-of-mouth made this the highest grossing movie of the year, making it the 6th highest grossing movie of all time. This is the biggest hit of Cruise's career and has cemented his film legacy (if it had not already been).
2. Universal Pictures
While Paramount has taken the top spot with Top Gun: Maverick, four of the Top Ten are Universal films: Jurassic World: Dominion, Minions: The Rise of Gru, Nope, The Black Phone. There is an opportunity going forward for Universal to regain box office dominance with Marvel and PIXAR movies underperforming.
LOSERS
1. PIXAR
Lightyear made it to #7, but a movie in the Toy Story franchise should have performed much better. Compared to the budget, this movie was a bomb. There were so many reasons why this movie failed, including inserting mature content into a kids film. But the main reason, based on my conversations with parents, is that kids did not think that this movie was about the "real" Buzz.
2. Marvel
I hesitate to label them as "losers," but there is a clear drop in box office returns. I predicted Thor: Love and Thunder would be the biggest hit of the summer. But its mediocre execution and sloppy story-telling made it slip to number 5. It still earned a respectable $333 million. But Marvel has not had a phenomenal hit since Spider-Man: No Way Home and that is technically a Sony movie. This summer's box office may be why Kevin Feige has announced the quick end to Phase 4 so that they can course correct in Phase 5.
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An observation also is the gap between the top 5 and the bottom 5. Take a look at these numbers from Boxofficemojo.com
There is a nearly $200 million gap between #5 and #6.
The total revenue for the top 5 is $2.16 billion. The total revenue for the bottom 5 is $550 million. So you can see that the top half made 4 times as much as the bottom half.
Thoughts?
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