It was a terrible summer at the U.S. box office, but does that mean the movies were also terrible?
Jenny Chang for BuzzFeed / IFC Films; Marvel; Columbia Pictures; Radius-TWC; A24; Warner Bros.; Universal Pictures; 20th Century Fox
Adam B. Vary: Now that the dust has settled on this year's summer movie season, Alison, we can see plainly what we've suspected since at least June — this was a terrible summer at the domestic box office. Like, really, really, really bad. Collectively, Hollywood hasn't grossed this little at the box office since 2006 — and when adjusting for ticket price inflation, it appears this was the worst summer since 1992.
Breaking things down even further, it wasn't until August that a summer movie became the top-grossing film of the year so far — that would be Guardians of the Galaxy , which supplanted Marvel Studios' other movie this year, Captain America: The Winter Soldier (which was released in April), for the No. 1 spot atop the U.S. box office. As far as I can tell, before this year, an August movie hadn't won the summer domestic box office since at least 1980, and possibly ever. And Guardians did it with just $251.5 million (and counting) in domestic receipts. If current projections for the movie to top out around $290 million are correct, it will be the lowest-grossing summer movie champion since Shrek in 2001 (and adjusting for inflation, since Ghost in 1990 — there are BuzzFeed staffers who weren't even born in 1990).
Put simply: This year's summer movies just were not popular with American audiences. Are the movies themselves to blame? Do you think they were that bad?
Alison Willmore: No. Not at all. When it comes to shiny summer entertainment, I thought this year's crop was pretty good, from the supergroup pleasures of X-Men: Days of Future Past to the unexpectedly dark dramas of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes to the glorious weirdness of Guardians of the Galaxy . Not everything worked — ahem, Sex Tape — but in a season that's mainly about uncomplicated good times, uncomplicated good times were frequently had.
But now it's late August, and I do feel a little queasy, like I've been gorging on junk food for months. Here's what I do wonder, Adam: Does the idea of a summer blockbuster season make sense anymore? One thing that this job of seeing so many of these movies in a row emphasizes is a certain sameness. Many of them are about saving the world, many of them are heavy on explosions and destruction, and many of them are continuations of a franchise, brand, or series, meaning they have an obligation to be bigger than and to up the stakes from whatever came before. Marvel and DC have both staked out dates years in advance for their upcoming releases, mostly for prime summer territory, plenty of those opening weekends reserved for projects that don't yet have announced titles. So, the clutter isn't going to change anytime soon. Do you think these movies are drowning each other out?
Columbia Pictures
ABV: I think you hit the nail on the head: There was a feeling of homogenized sameness creeping into so many of the big summer movies this year — both within the individual franchises, and across the grand Hollywood VFX-blockbuster industrial complex. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 felt like the most disappointing example to me — a franchise reboot that tried so hard to find a kind of winsome indie rom-com sensibility, yet was utterly drowned out by its obligations to cover so much of the same visual and storytelling territory as other superhero movies (and, especially, earlier Spider-Man movies). Transformers: Age of Extinction, meanwhile, was exactly the same numbing visual onslaught as every other Transformers movie, despite the Mark Wahlberg and dinobots of it all — and it was almost three hours long. Maleficent was a weird mash-up of Snow White and the Huntsman, Oz the Great and Powerful, and the various Lord of the Rings/Hobbit movies, with its only genuine special effect being Angelina Jolie's unmatched star power (and enhanced cheek bones).
But this problem wasn't restricted just to bad movies. X-Men: Days of Future Past and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes were highly competent and entertaining experiences that nonetheless held very little by way of genuine surprise for me. Even the insanely fun and often surprising Guardians of the Galaxy leaned heavily on a bare-bones basic plot that felt virtually the same as several previous Marvel Studios movies.
And yet, all of these movies were far more successful in the U.S. than my favorite big effects movie of the summer, Edge of Tomorrow . Despite its obvious sci-fi invasion meets Groundhog Day structure, it most consistently surprised and delighted me. And no one saw it — or, rather, not nearly enough people saw it for anyone in Hollywood to consider it a success.
I'm depressed, Alison. Cheer me up!
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