While studios continue to place tentpoles throughout the calendar, the summer movie season is still a warzone where every weekend new films vie for supremacy at the box office. It’s easier to be a film in February or March and make a splash rather than one that’s released from May through August. Furthermore, summer 2017 wasn’t great for the domestic box office as theaters reported declining sales, and rather than look at how to revitalize their business, whined about Netflix and shorter release windows. Nevertheless, summer 2017 had its share of success stories among the flops.
I’ve gone through wide-releases from the six major studios (Disney, Warner Bros., Sony, 20th Century Fox, Universal, and Paramount) and looked at their worldwide grosses for their major films. That’s not to disrespect the work of mid-range studios like STX, Lionsgate or Open Road, or subsidiaries like Fox Searchlight. Additionally, if a mini-major like New Line or TriStar had a wide opening weekend release, I grouped it under its parent studio.
The other challenge is trying to gauge success beyond raw dollar figures. For example,Transformers: The Last Knightmade far less than the previous installment, but it still probably accomplished its primary mission, which is to sellTransformersmerchandise. By the same token, a movie likeGirls Tripmay not have made $600 million worldwide, but breaking $100 million off a budget of less than $20 million is a huge return on Universal’s investment.
So with all that in mind, there’s a bit of a tilt here, since we also have to consider when a film was released, how many territories it has hit (for example,Spider-Man: Homecomingstill hasn’t opened in China), and other factors. You can argue with the rankings, but here’s my take on how each studio fared over the summer.
[Note all figures are viaBox Office Mojo]
6) Paramount
Paramount’s kind of in a weird place right now with regards to its slate. Although it’s ostensibly a major studio, their biggest successes right now are dramas likeArrivalandFenceswith tentpole stuff likeBaywatchandTransformersunderperforming.Transformersshould have raked in the dough like it does every time a new one is released, but it’s become clear that audiences have grown tired of what directorMichael Bayis pushing. In 2014,Transformers: Age of Extinctionmade $1.1 billion worldwide; three years later, andThe Last Knightbarely scraped past $600 million. While we’re bound to get moreTransformersmovies, it will be interesting to see if a different director can revitalize the series (asTravis Knighttackles the first spinoff,Bumblebee) or if audiences are tired of space robots.
5) 20th Century Fox
It would be a stretch to say 20th Century Fox had a “bad summer”; more accurately, they had a summer where their tentpoles simply underperformed.Snatchedwasn’t the summer’s runaway R-rated comedy.Alien: Covenant, a film that was seemingly made to get back people who were unhappy withPrometheus, ended up making almost $200 million less worldwide thanPrometheus.Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Hauldidn’t cost a fortune to make, but it made less than the first three entries.Captain Underpantsdid fine, but it wasn’t the runaway success you’d hope for when it comes to a kid’s film. And whileWar for the Planet of the Apeswas great, so far it has made less thanRiseandDawn.
That all being said, I think 20th Century Fox is still doing some great things as a studio. The fact that they were willing to back “downer” films likeLoganandWar for the Planet of the Apeshelps them stand apart from their competition, and with threeX-Menmovies lined-up for 2018 (New Mutants,Deadpool 2, andDark Phoenix), they’re probably not too worried.
So,The Dark Towerwasn’t the franchise starter that Sony hoped it would be (don’t count on that TV series happening), andRough Nightalso was not the R-rated comedy of the summer. It didn’t really matter becauseBaby Driverand especiallySpider-Man: Homecomingwere two gambles that paid off big.Baby Driver, an original film, turned out to be the biggest hit ofEdgar Wright’s career by far, and the studio was wise enough to cut its losses fromThe Amazing Spider-Manseries and relaunch with Marvel’s help to make a newSpider-Manseries that people absolutely loved. While I’m not sure how all of theirSpider-Manspinoffs will pan out, when it comes to this summer, Sony did pretty well, although the less said aboutThe Emoji Moviethe better (yes, it did well relative to its budget, but it’s trash and they should never make a sequel).
3) Universal
Universal quietly flew under the radar to have an amazing summer. While they didn’t reach the dizzying highs of 2015 where it seemed like every movie they released made over a billion dollars, they still did incredibly well. WhileThe Mummylooked like it would be a major flop, the movie found success overseas and rocketed to over $400 million.Girls Tripwas the R-rated comedy of the summer and has likely given birth to a new franchise for the studio.Atomic Blondedidn’t explode, but it did fairly well for a summer action film. And yet, it all came back to (as it so often does), those darn minions.Despicable Me 3grossed almost a billion worldwide because kids cannot get enough of those gibberish-speaking yellow beans. Go figure.
This is where it kind of becomes a toss-up. Disney had an amazing summer as they almost always do. They just have all the franchises, and while we all expectedGuardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2andCars 3to do well,Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Taleswas not DOA as many had predicted. That being said, it still fell far shy of the previous installment,On Stranger Tides($1 billion worldwide), so the studio may not want to rush into aPirates 6. Additionally,Cars 3was the lowest-grossing of the trilogy thus far, although I’m sure it still pushed a lot ofCarsmerchandise as these movies always do. That being said, the purposes of a Disney movie is to always push other enterprises, whether it’s merchandise or theme parks or some other extension of the IP.Guardians 2outgrossed the original by almost $100 million and showed that the Marvel brand is unstoppable when people like the characters.
1) Warner Bros.
So how does a studio with flops likeKing Arthur: Legend of the SwordandThe Housealong with a non-entity likeEverything, Everythingcome out on top? Because where they succeeded, they succeed in a massive way and against expectations.Wonder Womanwon the summer box office domestically, and pretty much saved the DCEU. If that film flops, then it throws the entire DCEU into disarray. Yes, they’re still going to makeJustice LeagueandAquaman, but they have to go back to the drawing board on how to approach their superhero movies. Instead,Wonder Womanshowed a way forward by blending thoughtful subtext with an uplifting character.
Then there’sDunkirk, which was pretty much being sold on the strength ofChristopher Nolan’s name and shows why he gets to do whatever he wants. A triptych World War II movie shouldn’t be one of the biggest hits of the summer, and yet here we are. Additionally,Dunkirk(along withWonder Woman) could be headed to some Oscar love on top of their box office success.
Finally,Annabelle: Creationshowed that there’s always a market for horror if it comes at the right time during the summer. Movies likeWish UponandIt Comes at Nightcouldn’t make a splash, butAnnabelle: Creationhas grossed over $200 million worldwide off a reported budget of only $15 million.
Not everything went Warner Bros’ way, but they made some of the biggest gambles of the summer, and those gambles paid off huge.
