The Highs & Lows, Winners & Losers, Successes & Failures of Summer ’16 at the Box Office:
Hits
ANIMATION DOMINATION…AGAIN – “Finding Dory” topped the season (and is No. 1 for the year to date) with $480 million. “The Secret Life of Pets”, from “Despicable Me” studio Illumination Entertainment, earned more than $350M. And Sony’s R-rated Seth Rogen animated comedy “Sausage Party” shocked the nation with a $34M open.
FUNNY LADIES – While some may hand the title of “Surprise Comedy Hit of the Summer” to “Central Intelligence”, most predicted the audiences would be attracted to the pairing of Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, so its $127M total is hardly shocking. But “Bad Moms”, the R-rated, female-led comedy, exceeded everyone’s expectations and is on its way to $100M domestically. Strong word of mouth has helped “BM”, which has only dropped an average of 30% weekend-to-weekend. It’s also the first bonafide hit for STX Entertainment.
THE LORD OF THE APES – The recent trend of the 4th of July no longer being a blockbuster holiday weekend (as I’ve been writing about for the past several years) continued. Nonetheless, “The Legend of Tarzan” was a solid option for moviegoers. Mostly poor reviews didn’t prevent a $125M U.S. total.
WHEN IN DOUBT: SCARES COUNT – Four horror films scared-up HUGE profits: Universal’s “The Purge: Election Year” (Budget: $10M, Gross: $79M), Warner Brothers’ “The Conjuring 2” (Budget: $40M, Gross: $102M) and “Lights Out” (Budget: $5M, Gross: $65M), and most recently Sony’s “Don’t Breathe” (Budget: $10M, Opening Weekend: $26M).
ADULT FARE – Older audiences had plenty to choose from, and the results were spread across the board between George Clooney’s “Money Monster”, “The Nice Guys” with Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling, “Free State of Jones” starring Matthew McConaughey, Bryan Cranston’s “The Infiltrator”, Woody Allen’s “Cafe Society”, “Hell or High Water” with Jeff Bridges, and Meryl Streep’s “Florence Foster Jenkins”. But none were crossover hits.
SUPERHEROES…I GUESS – “Captain America: Civil War” kicked-off Summer with a $180M open, but its $407M total was $50M less than last year’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron”. As for “Suicide Squad”, negative reviews held the DC action film from even reaching the underwhelming $330M cume of “Batman v. Superman”. And that’s no Joke(r).
Misses
DISNEY FAMILY LIVE-ACTION – While “Cap” and “Dory” make-up much of The Mouse House’s giant 2016, their other three Summer releases: “Alice Through the Looking Glass”, Steven Spielberg’s “The BFG” and the studio’s remake of “Pete’s Dragon” each grossed less than $100 million.
NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE CALLED – Despite mostly positive reviews, the ton of initial negative buzz held “Ghostbusters” to an underwhelming $125 million. Still, it could’ve been worse, and the film will still end-up as one of Sony’s top-grossing movies of the year.
ANGRY ABOUT “BIRDS” – A prime May opening date, an all-star voice cast, a familiar title. You would have expected “The Angry Birds Movie” to earn much more than $107M. Despite the low number, Rovio and Sony are moving forward on a sequel.
Bombs
NEARLY EVERY SEQUEL – “X-Men: Apocalypse”, “Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising”, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows”, “Now You See Me 2”, “Independence Day: Resurgence”, “Star Trek Beyond”, “Ice Age: Collision Course” and “Jason Bourne” ALL disappointed.
IT DIDN’T POP – Andy Samberg and his Lonely Island team crafted “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping”. The featured-length SNL skit only managed to make $9.5M, and Universal pulled it from theaters after just three weeks. I blame the marketing of the film, as the trailers gave away way too much, another frustrating industry trend.
BEN-HURL – Paramount’s remake of “Ben-Hur” was expected to be at the box office disaster…and it didn’t disappoint.
Source: BoxOfficeMojo.com