It Was A Bad Summer For…
DC Films
How do you release two movies that made around 1.7 billion dollars between them and still feel like you have a lot of work to do? Well, let’s ask the superhero department of Warner Bros. Somehow, despite the toxic reaction to “Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice” earlier in the year and its underperformance at the box office, “Suicide Squad” had plenty of goodwill towards it. It seemed fresh-ish, had a striking marketing campaign and looked to tap into the post-“Deadpool” craving for irreverent superheroics. At the very least, it couldn’t be worse than Zack Snyder’s film. And yet, it turned out that it could, proving to be an uneven, poorly constructed, joyless mess. Box office has been okay: its early August release date means it’s had little tentpole competition, even though it had a brutal drop-off in recent weeks. But at both home and abroad, it’ll come in under “Deadpool,” which cost probably a quarter as much as “Suicide Squad” did, and moviegoers who were twice bitten by a disappointing DC movie may end up thrice shy by the time “Justice League” rolls around.
Studio Movies For Grown Ups
Yes, it’s been a bad year for tentpoles. But moviegoers also didn’t really respond to that by turning up to the adult-aimed studio movies that everyone says they want more of. Despite splashy Cannes launches and big names, neither “Money Monster” or “The Nice Guys” really connected in the U.S. The former got lukewarm reviews, and the latter has stars with somewhat diminished drawing power, but it was still a bummer that they didn’t do better. Similarly, adult-skewing sequel “Now You See Me 2” was a big disappointment, Matthew McConaughey’s coolly-received Civil War drama “Free State Of Jones” flopped, and Bryan Cranston in “The Infiltrator” virtually disappeared. As with the tentpoles, things might have been different if the movies had been better: hopefully, a better fall slate will help to make the argument that this material shouldn’t just be the preserve of TV.
The Veteran Mini-Major Distributors
As we saw above, a newer wave of distributors have had a pretty good summer, but it’s arguably come at the expense of the older hands —the studio subsidiaries or mini-studios who typically dominate the speciality market. After playing release date shuffle, the Weinstein Company didn’t release a movie until “Hands Of Stone” at the end of the summer, and that didn’t do great. Similarly, Focus basically skipped the season, with only “Kubo And The Two Strings” hitting at the end. Sony Pictures Classics did okay with “Maggie’s Plan” but likely hoped for a little better, and “Equity” and “The Hollars” resolutely failed to take off. Even Fox Searchlight, which normally does the best of all of these studios, didn’t have a great season, with “A Bigger Splash” underperforming and “Absolutely Fabulous” performing serviceably (though it was a monster hit in the U.K.). It’s not so long since a “Butler” or “Little Miss Sunshine” could provide great counter-programming in the warmer months: let’s hope these companies can get their summer mojo back another time.
Sequels
We’ve written about this at length, but to reprise it briefly: this was the summer when the sequel, once seen as Hollywood’s surest bet, proved to be as uncertain as… well, anything else. Pixar and Marvel, the surest bets in town, were fine, but from “Neighbors” and “Now You See Me” to “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Independence Day: Resurgence,” the films that studios wanted to see follow-ups to mostly fizzled. “Jason Bourne” bucked the trend a little —despite disappointed reviews, it could come close to being the top-grossing film in the series by the time its international run closes up. But even the well-liked “Star Trek Beyond” looks to come in significantly beyond the previous films in the rebooted series, and may have stalled the franchise on the big screen for now. It’s a lesson to Hollywood (or should be: the studios always learn the wrong ones)— not everything can or should be a franchise, and attempting to force them to exist will end badly.
Nostalgia
The failure of sequels isn’t the only shock to the system executives sustained this summer. Just a few months ago, everyone was talking about the “legacyquel” as the next big trend. These films tied into nostalgic love of ’80s and ’90s movies by returning some of their original cast, while launching new stories and characters at the same time. But if “Jurassic World” and “The Force Awakens” launched the legacyquel to great fanfare, this summer saw the love of things you used to have on your lunchbox fall flat. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows” killed that franchise dead (it actually made $50 million less than the 1990 original film did), “Independence Day: Resurgence” failed to convince anyone it was anything more than a retread (it did fairly well internationally, but likely not enough to sustain a series), “The Legend Of Tarzan” did a little better than expectations but will still lose substantial money for Warner Bros., and a megabudget “Ghostbusters” proved to be misguided —obviously, not because of its female cast, but because it was far too expensive for a comedy, which normally has a certain ceiling on it. It’s not that nostalgia is a spent force —“Stranger Things” is built on a bed entirely made of it— but studios need to be more careful in picking what they revive.
The X-Men
WB were hardly the only studio to have superhero-related strife this summer. 20th Century Fox must have been bullish going into “X-Men: Apocalypse” —“Days Of Future Past” had seen a big upswing in the franchise, and “Deadpool” had done mega-blockbuster numbers on a mid-level budget. But Bryan Singer’s latest, despite being sold as a world-destroying epic unlike any the mutant series had seen before, delivered results that few at the studio must be happy with. It cleared $500 million, which is impressive out of context, but at a $200 million budget, it’s simply not enough. Frankly, for the film to make $200 million less than “Deadpool” or “X-Men: Days Of Future Past” is as embarrassing financially as the movie was creatively. It was the “Amazing Spider-Man 2” of the series, and with contracts for expensive stars like Jennifer Lawrence already up, don’t be surprised if there’s a fairly heavy reboot in the near future.
Comedies
Normally, comedy is only second to horror as the most reliably profitable genre — sure, the occasional film will flop, but they’re usually cheap to make, and can take in many, many times their budget. But aside from the surprise sleeper “Bad Moms,” and the animated “Sausage Party,” this was a bad summer for comedy movies. Despite being decent, and following up a well-loved movie, “Neighbors 2” couldn’t convince people that there was more to be mined, while “Popstar” (which is great) had the worst wide opening of the summer. “Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates” made $45 million, not ideal for a film that cost a bafflingly high $33 million, and “Ghostbusters” took less than “The Heat” or “Bridesmaids” did despite the brand name. Hopefully studios don’t have a knee-jerk response to this — don’t forget, at Christmas, “Daddy’s Home” quietly made $150 million and “Sisters” did $87 million despite opening against each other AND “Star Wars.” But some wounds will definitely be licked this year.
“Warcraft”
By any standards, a $47 million domestic total for a $160 million-budgeted franchise starter like “Warcraft” is a disaster. Even fans of the video game didn’t seem to like Duncan Jones’ film all that much — it dipped 70% in its second weekend, a worse fall-off than “Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice.” And yet to some, the movie looks like a hit, thanks to a stunning $220 million total in China. The franchise might yet live — we’re getting a “Pacific Rim” sequel, after all, and that did about the same numbers. But this still isn’t a result that Legendary can be delighted with, even given their Chinese ownership that should seem them get more of the profits there than the 25% most U.S. studios end up with.
Amazon
We love that Amazon has become such a haven for quality filmmakers, and we hope that continues forever. And we love that they’re much more committed to theatrical releases than their chief rivals Netflix are, letting movies get proper releases in theaters and only debuting movies on their streaming services a few months later. But boy, their partnership with Broad Green for “The Neon Demon” didn’t go so well. Admittedly, the film was a curate’s egg, a difficult movie even by Nicolas Winding Refn’s standards, and had mixed reviews to boot. And it did outperform “Only God Forgives,” at least. But a curious decision to open the movie straight onto 800 theaters went very, very badly, with a screen average of less than $800, and the film ended up taking just $1.5 million. We want these films to do well, because we want Amazon’s big bucks helping trickier fare find audiences, but results like this and “Wiener-Dog” (released with IFC) aren’t going to make things look all that viable. Hopefully “Manchester By The Sea,” “The Handmaiden” and “Paterson” come to the rescue in the fall.
Steven Spielberg
It’s not often that you’d include Steven Spielberg in a list of summer movie underperformers. It sort of breaks our heart that he’s here, but despite being ostensibly one of his most commercial movies in a while, “The BFG,” his adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s classic, was a straight-up flop in the U.S — adjusted for inflation, it’s his worst performing movie since “Empire Of The Sun” in 1987. The movie did better abroad — it was a legit hit in the U.K, where it’s set — but even then, it stands as his fourth-lowest grossing movie internationally. Spielberg will probably still get to make whatever he wants for as long as he wants — he’s earned that much — but it’s nevertheless a shame to see a decent film failing to find the audience it deserved.
Click over to the next page about our favorite, and least favorite, films of the summer.