I'm fond of beginning this post-summer report by citing Michael Crichton who once said that no one can actually predict a movie's box office, even though studios pay millions of dollars for people to do exactly that. In the end, there is always an X-Factor that cannot be seen in advance.
And this is especially true for me predicting this past summer's box office.
In terms of box office success, the numbers were a mixed bag. Last year, six of the Top Ten made over $300 million dollars. This year, only two movies did that (Inside/Out 2 and Deadpool and Wolverine). There is also a WIDE gulf between number one ($651 million) and number 10 (around $92 million).
Below are my predictions along with the actual box office numbers:
So as you can see, I was way off this year.
-I did not correctly guess the position of any of the Top Ten movies this year
-I predicted 7 out of the Top Ten, as I did last year.
So here are my conclusions.
WINNERS
1. Franchise Movies
7 of the Top 10 movies, including the number 1, were movies that were sequels or part of an existing franchise. This is different than last year, when 4 of the Top 10, including the top movie itself, were non-franchise properties.
2. Disney Studios
4 out of the Top Ten films are produced by Disney (Alien:Romulus is made by Fox which is owned by Disney). With some high profile flops, Disney did very well. Their total domestic take for this summer is around $1.5 billion at least.
3. Crowd-pleasers
It sounds like a no-brainer, but crowd-pleasing movies make a great deal of money. I think was particularly the case with Inside/Out 2. This movie surpassed almost all expectations because Disney/PIXAR has aquired a reputation of putting content in their movies that turned families away. If word had gotten out that Inside/Out 2 had the same agenda as Onward, Strange World, Lightyear, and Turning Red, then I think families would have stayed away from this one as well. But I was relieved to see a return to form of universal story-telling
Deadpool and Wolverine also is a big win that the MCU needed right now. But poking fun at the recent downturn in the franchise, Disney indicated that they were interested in laughs rather than lectures.
LOSERS
1. The Mad Max universe
I enjoyed Furiosa as much, if not more than, Fury Road. But audience did not seem interested in this prequel for whatever reason. This does not bode well for George Miller's dystopian fantasy franchise going forward.
2. Kevin Costner
It pains me to say this, but Costner took a gigantic gamble with Horizon and it looks like it did not pay off. Originally, Chapter 1 was to premiere in May and Chapter 2 in August. But the returns on the first one were not what was hoped for, the second part has been postponed. This is a real shame, because I think Horizon is one of the better movies to come out this year.
3. Borderlands
It is hard to describe how big of a disaster this movie is. The studio spent probably close to $200 million total and it has brought in only $15 million. To give you an idea of how big of a bomb this is, Borderlands is only 3 spots ahead of the 25th Anniversary re-release of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.
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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 $250 million gap between #2 and #3.
The total revenue for the top 5 is $2.06 billion. The total revenue for the bottom 5 is $739 million. So you can see that the top half made almost 3 times as much as the bottom half. Last year, all the movies in the Top 10 made over $150 million. This year, only the top 6 made at least that much each.
Thoughts?
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