Alright, my fellow Mercs, the Summer film season has officially come to a close, and with it come the end of the SUMMER FILM CHALLENGE!! It's been a crazy ride, full of ups and downs, but we finally have the results. Check out the Top 10 Domestic Box Office earners and the point standings below along with some words from the challengers.
TOP 10 DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE EARNERS - SUMMER 2017
| 1 | Wonder Woman | $408,939,021 | 6/2/2017 |
| 2 | Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 | $389,639,205 | 5/5/2017 |
| 3 | Spider-Man: Homecoming | $324,051,546 | 7/7/2017 |
| 4 | Despicable Me 3 | $257,895,405 | 6/30/2017 |
| 5 | Dunkirk | $178,754,545 | 7/21/2017 |
| 6 | Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales | $172,293,066 | 5/26/2017 |
| 7 | Cars 3 | $150,846,869 | 6/17/2017 |
| 8 | War for the Planet of the Apes | $144,254,763 | 7/14/2017 |
| 9 | Transformers: The Last Knight | $130,168,683 | 6/23/2017 |
| 10 | Girls Trip | $111,581,945 | 7/21/2017 |
POINT STANDINGS
Joshua "The Merc" Raynor: 58 points
Jonathan Youngblood: 49 points
Ryan McKenna: 44 points
| Josh: | 58 | Jonathan: | 49 | Ryan: | 44 | |
| Rank | GUESS | POINTS | GUESS | POINTS | GUESS | POINTS |
| 1 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 3 |
| 2 | 1 | 7 | 1 | 7 | 1 | 7 |
| 3 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 10 |
| 4 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 5 |
| 5 | 10 | 3 | 9 | 3 | DH | 1 |
| 6 | 6 | 10 | 8 | 5 | 8 | 5 |
| 7 | 7 | 10 | 6 | 7 | 4 | 3 |
| 8 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 5 |
| 9 | 8 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 5 |
| 10 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
THE MERC'S THOUGHTS
So the Summer is over. There were some great films, and some not so great films. And there were plenty of surprises to go around. When I was first trying to figure out what my Top 10 predictions would be, I tried to go about it in the most clinical, logical way possible. So I looked at previous installments of the various franchise films that came out, I looked at films from the same director, and films in similar genres, and from there I made my picks. I think this is what helped me to actually hit three of my pics right on the dot.
Even though the top 4 weren't in the exact order I had predicted, it is nice to see that the four that I chose all made it to the Top 4. The biggest reason for this mix up was the surprise smash hit from DC/Warner Bros., Wonder Woman. I don't know anyone who actually thought Wonder Woman would crack the Top 3, but to become the biggest film of the Summer...that's incredible, and made me really hopeful for the future of DC Films.
This Summer also saw three other big surprises. The first is Christopher Nolan's latest endeavor, the war epic, Dunkirk. This film managed to come in at #5 for the Summer, but none of us thought it would get that high. The closest any of us came was Jonathan who predicted it hitting the 9th spot. The next surprise was the new comedy, Girls Trip, a films that none of us had anywhere near our lists, which managed to grab the 10th spot. This is a film that most people didn't have high expectations for and it soared past. The final surprise isn't actually on the Top 10 list, but I felt it deserved a mention. In the #11 spot sits the latest film from director Edgar Wright, Baby Driver. This is a film that absolutely no one would have thought would reach the levels it did, and for me, it became my favorite film of the entire year.
JONATHAN'S THOUGHTS
This summer was a mess.
Occasionally, it was a beautiful mess. However, for someone like me who bet
strongly on the “conventional” picks of the summer and failed to take any real
risks with his rankings, I am still dumbstruck by the power of so many films.
It comes as a moderate shock that Marvel Studios was unseated by DC’s Wonder Woman, which catapulted past both
Guardians of the Galaxy:Vol. 2 and Spider-Man: Homecoming. However, in the
end, the Top 4 of the year did shake out to be right around what everyone
expected, just in a slightly different order. It also comes as little surprise
that Cars 3, Transformers: The Last Knight, and War for the Planet of the Apes stayed in the Top 10 of the Summer.
However, what should (and did) shock pundits is that Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales¸ which rightfully
was considered to be a dead franchise by so many, resoundingly beat its
competition, locking in the #6 spot. Franchise fatigue might be kicking in for
some, but Disney properties seem to be largely immune.
The greatest surprise, to me, of
the summer is just how well two niche films performed. Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan’s most divisive and controversial effort,
absolutely demolished its opponents, finishing a very strong #5 behind the
franchise behemoths of Marvel, DC, and Minions. I bet the highest of the three
of us for Dunkirk and, even then, I
considered it to be my least logical placement and only put it at a weak #9,
swapping it repeatedly with The Emoji
Movie, which I thought stood a chance of raking in the
lowest-common-denominator money in theaters. Taking the #10 place is a movie I
never in my wildest dreams foresaw making over $100mil. Girls Trip wasn’t even mentioned by any of the three of us, despite
all of us expecting an R-rated comedy to finish fairly well (following the
pattern set by Bad Moms). Rough Night and Baywatch faded into obscurity, and this niche-comedy with fairly
horrid marketing proved to be the underdog story of the summer. I couldn’t be
happier. Girls Trip is an outstanding
comedy.
In the end, I am most proud that,
of the movies I dreaded writing about at this point at the end of the summer,
almost none ended up performing well. The
Emoji Movie, The Mummy, and The Dark Tower all received their due
failure. Even mediocre projects like yet-another-Transformers flopped
domestically, hopefully cementing the truth that American audiences have
finally seen through Michael Bay’s uncreative, uninspired shtick. And, in the
end, the best blockbuster of the summer finished in its rightful spot. Now, we
prepare for Oscar season, and begin to place our bets for Best Picture. This
year is far from over, Mercs and Geeks and Gamers.
RYAN'S THOUGHTS
Summer 2017 was an interesting venture. On the one hand, I
think we saw many quality films, some of which are early contenders to be in
the awards discussion. On the other, we saw a lot of big misses and some of the
lowest box office returns in many years. There are many things to be hopeful
for yet, at the same time, the business of what we saw this summer reveals some
highly worrying trends for the future of this industry that we all love.
It sort of comes as no surprise that this summer was dominated
by superhero fare with Guardians of the
Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming,
and Wonder Woman occupying the top 3
positions. Although none of these have broken that $1 billion worldwide mark,
they have all performed incredibly respectfully at the domestic box office and
offer evidence that that craze is far from over. On the flip side, neither major
animated film (Cars 3 or Despicable Me 3) managed to break into
those top 3 spots. With the wild success of Finding
Dory last year it was easy to see why the predictions for those films were
so high. It looks like kids might have gone outside instead.
In addition to the animated fare, major franchise films
outside of the superhero bubble struggled this summer. The early summer entry Alien: Covenant made a fraction of what
its reviled earlier entry, Prometheus,
did. The Mummy was a failure almost
as soon as it began. Even the three major franchise films that did find their
way into the top 10 (War for the Planet
of the Apes, Pirates of the
Carribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and Transformers:
The Last Knight) all distinctly underperformed in a year that we could
rightly call sluggish. It’s clear that conventional wisdom with these films is
starting to go out the window and the audiences that are making their way to
cinemas as finding other avenues to get their entertainment.
What I am happy to see are the two films that shocked
everyone. Dunkirk (my favorite movie
of 2017) and Girls Trip both took
pundits by surprise as they found audiences and ended up reaping huge rewards
as a result. Quality marketing, filmmaking, and word of mouth seems to have
contributed to these smash successes that have prevailed where other good films
have failed in this competitive movie season. Overall, I’m happy with how
things shook up, but there is no question I am worried about what the poor
returns mean for the future. Good game gentlemen!
nice
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