Guardians of the Galaxy Volume Two arrives in theaters across North America this evening, and you know what that means... Summer is officially about to arrive, and we need a thread to discuss this blazing hot movie season! If you'd like to make a guess at what will end up being the Top Five films of the season, feel free to give it a shot. Or not. I'm not the boss of you.
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Summer movie topics are a Ten Year Tradition around these parts; here are the links to all previous seasons in case you'd like to take a look back.The Summer of 2007 -
http://elite.speedrunwiki.com/forum/index.php?topic=1418* An incredible May lineup of Spider-Man 3, Shrek 3, and Pirates 3 kicked off what became the #1 Summer of all-time at the box office (though it wouldn't have gotten there without strong returns from Ratatouille, Harry Potter 5, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Simpson Movie, plus the surprising successes of Transformers, Knocked Up, and Superbad).
The Summer of 2008 -
http://elite.speedrunwiki.com/forum/index.php?topic=13628* While not a record breaking season, '08 DID feature one of the most incredible runs in box office history by The Dark Knight, along with some very respectable showings by Iron Man, Indy 4, Hancock, Get Smart, and Wall*E.
The Summer of 2009 -
http://elite.speedrunwiki.com/forum/index.php?topic=14599* Transformers 2, Harry Potter 6, and Up delivered the goods, and we were blindsided by the success of Star Trek and The Hangover, but weaker than expected returns from pretty much the whole rest of the slate resulted in a somewhat disappointing season at the box office.
The Summer of 2010 -
http://elite.speedrunwiki.com/forum/index.php?topic=15297* Toy Story 3, Inception, Twilight 2, and Iron Man 2 got the job done, and Karate Kid/Despicable Me turned into surprise hits, but nearly everything else embarrassed itself (Shrek 4, Prince of Persia, The A-Team). The result was consecutive disappointing Summer seasons.
The Summer of 2011 -
http://elite.speedrunwiki.com/forum/index.php?topic=15779* Harry Potter 8 was huge, Bridesmaids and Rise of the Planet of the Apes were unexpectedly major hits, and most of the other big releases performed reasonably well (Thor, Captain America, Transformers 3, Hangover 2), making 2011 one of the biggest Summers ever. The only especially notable bombs were The Green Lantern and Conan the Barbarian.
The Summer of 2012 -
http://elite.speedrunwiki.com/forum/index.php?topic=17011* Dark Knight Rises, Amazing Spiderman, and Brave put up blockbuster numbers as we had expected, and there were some pleasant surprises like Ted and Magic Mike coming out of nowhere to make a ton of money. Battleship was the only real bomb... but the story of the season was obviously The Avengers destroying the opening weekend record and racking up the 3rd largest box office total in history. In the end my prediction was correct- it was the highest grossing Summer season we've seen and helped make 2012 overall the biggest year for movies in history! (With a notable assist from an incredible holiday season where Hunger Games/Skyfall/Hobbit/Twilight and the Oscar films all did very well.)
The Summer of 2013 -
http://forums.the-elite.net/forum/index.php?topic=18876* Well, I got it half right. I predicted the '13 Summer season would start out hot before tailing off and coming up a little short of record numbers, and that's just what happened: Iron Man 3, Despicable Me 3, Man of Steel, Monsters U, Fast 6, Star Trek Into Darkness, and World War Z were huge hits (all grossed over $200 million), but a few flops like After Earth, The Internship, and The Lone Ranger held the season back. However I went on to guess that a somewhat weaker than usual Holiday slate would likewise hold the full year to below-record numbers... whoops! Turns out the box office exploded from October on to earn a full $11 billion for the year, smashing the old record. You've got Catching Fire/Gravity/Desolation of Smaug/Lone Survivor to thank for that, though of course the real #1 story was Frozen coming out of nowhere to make $400 million.
The Summer of 2014 -
http://forums.the-elite.net/forum/index.php?topic=19569* For the first time ever an August release was the #1 story of the season- Guardians of the Galaxy surpassed all expectations to headline the Summer. There were some other huge opening weekends as well, from X-Men: Days of Future Past, Godzilla, Amazing Spiderman 2, and Transformers: Age of Extinction, but all four films collapsed in their second week and contributed to what was overall a pretty disappointing season. Fortunately the year ended with one of the stronger holiday seasons we'd seen: Big Hero 6, Interstellar, The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies and Hunger Games: Mockingjay were all very successful. However even with American Sniper turning into a totally unexpected runaway phenomenon in December, the year couldn't quite match up to 2013's record total.
The Summer of 2015 -
https://forums.the-elite.net/index.php?topic=20320* Avengers 2 delivered as expected, Minions made bank, Inside Out was a huge hit... but it was Jurassic World that exploded to become the runaway smash of the Summer. A strong holiday season that featured good results for The Revenant, Spectre, the final Hunger Games film, and (of course) The Force Awakens was enough to just barely put 2015 over the top as the new #1 year in box office history.
The Summer of 2016 - topic lost to space and time in a tragic black hole accident
* Rogue One did extremely well but couldn't match the success of the previous December's Star Wars release... and it didn't have to! Much better than expected results for Deadpool and The Jungle Book and Zootopia combined with the (as expected) huge bank for Finding Dory and Moana and Marvel's Civil War were enough to easily shatter all previous records in making 2016 Hollywood's new biggest year ever.
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2017 Summer Movies* as always everything behind a $ below is in millions of dollars and is based on the domestic gross, not the combined worldwide numberMAY 5TH
Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2 Drax, Groot, Gamora, and Rocket continue to explore the Galaxy together, this time looking into the mystery behind the disappearance of Star-Lord's father in advance of next Summer's little get together with The Avengers.
Related: Guardians 1 $333, Ant-Man $180, Doctor Strange $233
Ng Sez: $293
Guy Ritchie (the director behind Snatch and the Robert Downey Jr version of Sherlock) attempts to put a more modern/stylish/Game of Thrones twist on the classic fantasy of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Looks promising, but might get lost in the mix of people turning out to see Guardian's second week instead.
Related: Sherlock Holmes $209, King Arthur (2004) $52, Robin Hood (2010) $105
Ng Sez: $107
After teasing fans of the series five Summers back with Prometheus, Ridley Scott is finally willing to go "Full Alien". Covenant is the name of expedition to a planet that looks like paradise (and as we all know, looks can
never be deceiving) and is kind of the Rogue One of the series, taking place after Prometheus and leading directly into the events of the original Alien film. Sure the last movie was a little... weird, but I think enough time has passed for people to be eager to return to this world again- should make for some good results at the box office.
Related: Prometheus $126, Aliens (1986) $85, Alien vs Predator (2004) $80
Ng Sez: $133
MAY 26TH
Pirates of the Caribean: Dead Men Tell No Tales I mean, on the one hand no one asked for a fifth Pirates movie but on the other hand it HAS somehow been six years since On Stranger Tides hit theaters (impossible; doesn't it feel like one has come out every other year for the last decade and a half?), so I guess we were due. At least Javier Bardem always makes for a fun villain and we finally get to see some of Jack's backstory, which could be a little interesting. I'm expecting returns to continue to diminish, but not fall off a cliff entirely.
Related: Pirates 2/3/4 @ $423, $309, $241
Ng Sez: $217
Everyone knows The Rock has the Midas Touch, but reviving the Baywatch brand after 20 years? This will be his ultimate test. I like the casting of Zac Efron as the cocky young Olympic medal-winning swimmer for him to butt heads with, and bringing back his co-star Alexandra Daddario is smart business after the two made a surprise hit out of San Andreas. Could make for some good dumb Summer fun!
Related: 21 Jump Street $138, Get Smart $130, San Andreas $155
Ng Sez: $117
DC has everything so backwards... they started with their Civil War (Batman vs Superman), THEN they're going to finally introduce us to the characters we met there with solo films for Wonder Woman and Aquaman and Cyborg in the next three years. But in the middle of that stretch they're also doing their Avengers teamup (Justice League), again before they've actually introduced the people who will be doing the teaming up. Shesh...
On the plus side, this origin story/World War flashback debut for Wonder Woman does look extremely promising, at least based on the trailers. Here's hoping its a big step up from the last two DC films and signals the start of Marvel-level quality for their Universe from here out!
Related: Suicide Squad $325, Batman vs Superman $330, Captain America $177
Ng Sez: $267
Positive Side: The 90s/00s Mummy films were pretty much just wacky special effects/disaster setpieces; while this new entry definitely has some crazy blockbuster action scenes as well they appear to be taking things in more of a psychological horror direction overall, which seems promising. I also like the decision to gender-swap the villain, and hey, "Tom Cruise sprints for his life for 80 consecutive minutes" is a tried and true formula that's never let us down in the past, don't fix what isn't broken!
Questionable Side: Universal is hoping this turns into a big hit so it can anchor their launch of a whole World of Monster movies over the next couple decades. As in Dracula, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, Van Helsing to hunt them all down, etc. Doesn't seem like something the world really needs but... okay?
Related: The Mummy (1999) $155, Oblivion $89, The Scorpion King (2002) $91
Ng Sez: $106
Look, I understand Pixar's problem. Disney is writing the checks and the Mouse is in the business of billion dollar tentpoles ONLY, meaning they demand every other Pixar film from now on be a surefire hit sequel. Continuing the story of Nemo and Monsters and The Incredibles I get, but why force out a third entry in your one series that's already shown significant diminishing returns (both critically and commercially)?
The movies continue to do very well at the box office but the sad thing is Pixar's only released one truly fantastic original film since 2009's Up (Inside Out) while other studios have been on fire over that same period with Zootopia, Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, Moana... Here's hoping this holiday's original entry Coco is a major return to form for Pixar!
Related: Cars 2 $191, Cars $244, Brave $237
Ng Sez: $169
"Finally, a Hangover for the ladies!" (Okay so it's already been done a few times before, most notably with Bridesmaids, but still.) Scarjo leads a killer cast that's a veritable who's who of female comedy over the past few years with Kate McKinnon (SNL), Jillian Bell (Workaholics), Ilana Glazer (Broad City), and Zoe Kravitz (Mad Max- where, okay, she was just one of the brides and not actually funny BUT STILL). And I love the premise of killing a male stripper and having to go full-on Weekend at Bernies to try and dispose of the body. This could be the surprise comedy smash of the season for sure!
Related: Bridesmaids $169, Bad Moms $113, Ghostbusters (2016) $128
Ng Sez: $83
JUNE 23RD
Transformers: The Last Knight Welp I don't know if anyone asked for a fifth Pirates movies but I most
certainly know no one asked for a fifth Transformers. Or at least no one in North America, but that's exactly the problem- despite plummeting interest on the domestic front these movies continue to be guaranteed billion dollar blockbusters because people go crazy for them internationally, especially in China. And don't let the "Last" in the title fool you into thinking they're finally wrapping things up- two more movies are already in production and will grace us with the presence in the Summer seasons of 2018 and 2019. Gosh!
Related: Transformers 2/3/4 @ $402, $352, $245
Ng Sez: $213
While the first two movies were perfectly acceptable, I wonder if the main series lost some of its pop after being spun off into a whole solo movie for those annoying, awful minions. In any case DM3 will try to get back on track by having Steve Carell channel his inner Michael Scott as the main character's mysterious long lost brother which, ehhh, might be okay. I'm sure this will still do well for itself based largely on how Cars 3 isn't going to light the world on fire a couple weeks prior so the family movie competition won't be too fierce.
Related: DM1 $251, DM2 $368, Minions $336
Ng Sez: $291
Counter programming the family fun is this R-rated Amy Poehler/Will Ferrell teammup that wants to topple Rough Night as the adult comedy hit of the season. It's certainly got a relatable premise for older audiences (Amy and Will didn't save enough money over the years and have to turn to shady business to afford college for their daughter) and I love the supporting cast of Jason Mantzoukas, Allison Tolman, Nick Kroll, and plenty of fun cameos. Looks like a winner in my book!
Related: Daddy's Home $150, Get Hard $90, Sisters $87
Ng Sez: $93
JULY 7RD
Spiderman: Homecoming Okay so to be fair, sometimes Marvel does things backwards as well, because here's our introduction to Tom Holland's young Spidey one year AFTER we met him in Civil War. It's also pretty backwards that the hero's been rebooted for a new solo series again only three years after Andrew Garfield took off the suit.
That negativity aside, I really do think this one has a chance to be something special. This is the first time Hollywood is delivering the cocky, dumb, teenaged Spiderman of comics fame and I think Robert Downey Jr's mentorship combined with Michael Keaton's long-awaited return to comic book movies will give this Marvel entry the extra punch it needs to put it over the top.
Related: Amazing Spiderman (2012) $262, Thor $181, Civil War $408
Ng Sez: $319
JULY 14TH
War for the Planet of the Apes Logically these movies should be awful, but in reality they're somehow
actually great and it's hard to wrap my head around. New player Woody Harrelson leads one final attack as nearly-extinct humanity's last stand against Caesar (the first super intelligent ape from the original 2011 film) and his monkey friends. I'm sure it will still be highly entertaining but I don't think there's as much excitement as for the last movie so returns will likely be down a little bit.
Related: Rise $177, Dawn $209, Planet (2001) $180
Ng Sez: $166
The year's early front runner for Best Picture at the Oscars... releasing in the middle of the Summer? Now I've seen everything! Christopher Nolan sets out to prove that Call of Duty isn't the only one who can return to World War II with strong results as he channels Saving Private Ryan to tell the story of one of the most incredible events in the long War's bloody history. It's gonna be huge.
Related: Saving Private Ryan $216, Fury $86, Interstellar $188
Ng Sez: $252
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Counter programming all the serious blood and guts is this bit a flashy fun from Luc Besson. He appears to have created a spiritual successor to his cult hit The Fifth Element, with a splash of Guardians of the Galaxy thrown in for good measure. Hard to say if audiences will be in the mood for this much colorful mayhem or if they'll be put off by it looking too weird, as they were with 2015's similar Jupiter Ascending.
Related: Lucy $127, The Fifth Element $64, Jupiter Ascending $47
Ng Sez: $78
Gone are the days when the world's most beautiful women were doomed to spend their whole careers trading one liners in romantic comedies... and good riddance, now they get to be badass action stars instead! Continuing the tradition of Angelina Jolie's Lara Croft/Mrs. Smith/Wanted/Salt and Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow/Lucy/Ghost In The Shell, now Charlize Theron gets her shot, and it certainly looks like she's going to make the most of it
Although hmmmm, I guess you could say she's been the female action star of the year once already thanks to Mad Max. Oh wow and much like everyone else on the planet I'd entirely forgotten about the existence of 2005's Aeon Flux. Regardless! This should be great.
Related: Tomb Raider (2001) $131, Kill Bill $70, Wanted $135
Ng Sez: $123
After over a decade in pre-production, it's finally happening. Not much has been known about the first entry in Stephen King's biggest fantasy epic until recently (the first trailer only arrived a few hours ago in fact) other than that they did a fantastic job of casting the lead roles. Idris Elba should make for a perfect Gunslinger, and Matthew McConaughey seems like an ideal fit as the slimy, deceptive Man In Black. Much as I love this book I'm not expecting the movie version to be a huge hit as it's a pretty simple story... if it does well enough for them to continue the series though the sky's the limit as the story goes some pretty amazing places from here out.
Related: 1408 $72, The Green Mile $137, The Fellowship of the Ring $316
Ng Sez: $83
AUGUST 18TH
The Hitman's Bodyguard Samuel L. Jackson is the world's most dangerous hitman, but he'll never survive long enough to testify at the International Court of Justice without the help of the world's greatest bodyguard, Ryan Reynolds. If that sounds dumb to you, rest assured that it really,
really is. And I'll be laughing all the way! If the musical references to 1992's Bodyguard in the trailer weren't enough to tip you off, just check out the official poster:
How could you not root for something this ridiculous?!
Related: Safe House $126, Deadpool $363, The Bodyguard (1992) $122
Ng Sez: $79
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Ng's Top Five Picks:
1. Spiderman @ 319
2. Guardians @ 293
3. Despicable Me @ 291
4. Wonder Woman @ 267
5. Dunkirk @ 252
