by Nathaniel R
It's probably foolish to continue to poke fun at The Academy for their desperation in wanting to honor "Popular Achievements" but we can't help ourselves. It's so redundant. Box office success is its own reward and has nothing to do with "best" really, just with "success of brand awareness" and "delivering what people are expecting". The charts prove that it's getting more and more rare for an original picture to make it into the year end top ten. Even in the summer, with a much smaller field of contenders, it's still really hard for any movie that isn't a sequel to be one of "the most popular." Summer movie season kicked off on April 27th with The Avengers and ends right about now on Labor day weekend.
Herewith the TEN biggest hits of Summer 2018... How many of them did you see and if you controlled all box office, how much would they have earned?
| SUMMER TOP TEN (Figures as of 9/2/2018) |
 |
|
1. AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (April 27th) $678+ It was always going to be huge but the phenomenon of Black Panther helped push it way way over the gross of the preceding Avengers picture which made $459 domestic. (Global Gross to Date: $2 billion... the first Marvel movie to ever do that... Black Panther grossed $1.3 billion globally though it's a bigger hit than Infinity War in the US) |
 |
|
2. INCREDIBLES 2 (June 15th) $601+ Proving that audiences were really impatient for a sequel to the 2004 smash, they turned out in droves 14 years later, the rose still in full bloom (Global Gross to date: $1.1 billion) |
 |
|
3. JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM (June 22nd) $414+ I guess $414 is a disappointment... but only in relation to the gross of its predecessor which was over $600. (Global Gross to date: $1.3 billion) |
 |
|
4. DEADPOOL 2 (May 18th) $318+ It was always going to be huge. But who knew that it would also be terrible?! (Global Gross to date: $734 million) |
 |
|
5. SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY (May 25th) $213+ Here we crash directly into the notion that "success" doesn't necessarily equate to "popularity" since people continually bitched about this picture. Only in the land of Brands as Movies does a $200+ gross equal "flop!" but this one kind of is since ---> (Global Gross to date: $392) |
 |
|
6. ANT-MAN AND THE WASP (July 6th) $213+ He's Marvel's smallest hero and also their smallest franchise-within-the-universe. But this one exceeded the comparatively smaller expectations. (Global Gross to date: $594) |
 |
|
7. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT (July 27th) $204+ The latest installment of Tom Cruise's sturdiest franchise (and he tried to build so many of them over the years) is well loved. Curiously if you adjust for ticket price inflation, this franchise has been earning less and less each time (with the exception of the 2006 Mission: Impossible 3, the runt of the litter by any measure) domestically. Worldwide, though, it's definitely going strong. (Global Gross to date: $647) |
 |
|
8. HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 3 (July 13th) $161+ A sturdy franchise, making around the same figure each time. (Global gross to date; $485) |
 |
|
9. OCEANS 8 (June 8th) $139+ The all female version of this franchise did well for itself. Well enough to justify a sequel? We don't know yet. (Global gross to date: $291) |
 |
|
10. THE MEG (August 10th) $120+ The only original to make the top ten and "original" is pushing it, given how many monster shark movies have existed since Jaws (1975) basically created the Summer Movie Season as we know it. (Global Gross to date: $462) |
Box office success is its own reward and has nothing to do with "best" really, just with "success of brand awareness". The charts prove that it's increasingly rare for a non-sequel, non-animated, or non-superhero picture to make it into the year end top ten. Even in the summer, with a much smaller field of contenders, it's still really hard for an original to crack a top ten list.
| runners up |
 |
|
11. MAMMA MIA! HERE WE GO AGAIN (July 20th) $117+ Without Meryl Streep, this sequel's bankability was a big question mark, but it performed pretty well for itself in the US if nowhere near the size of the original overseas. (Global Gross to Date: $366+) |
 |
|
12. CRAZY RICH ASIANS (Augus 15th) $110+ This one will go strong through September and we hope it cracks $200 million because it's success means great things for future greenlights. Most movies fall in the 30-50% drop range each consecutive weekend... with the low end of that scale you're doing pretty well with word of mouth. This one is only doing like 6%-10% drops so far! (Global Gross to date: $130) |
 |
|
13. THE EQUALIZER 2 (July 20th) $100+ Dependable Denzel. The most consistent star at the box office, year after year. The movies are rarely monster hits but they do solid business. Here's a neat bit of trivia that kind of surprised me: If you adjust for inflation his biggest hit ever is The Pelican Brief (1993) with Julia Roberts. His biggest hit globally, not adjusted for inflation, is American Gangster (2007). (Global gross to date: $162) |