Halfway Mark Box Office (Pt 1: The Mainstream)

Sunday, June 30, 2019 at 9:46PM
NATHANIEL R in Horror, Year in Review, animated films, box office, sci-fi fantasy, sequels, superheroes

As part of our midway through the year report (we've already seen fun halfway top fives from the team and favourite male performances) here's a look at the box office year thus far. Tomorrow we'll get a bit more niche, okay? Figures here are estimates as of Sunday June 30th for films released in the first six months of the year.

BOX OFFICE TOP TENS IN SIX CATEGORIES
🔺= the movie is still in over 100 theaters.

1. TOP GROSSING FILMS WITH A FEMALE LEAD
(Excluding films where a male lead is just as prominent as his female co-star)

Captain Marvel

01 Captain Marvel (Disney/Marvel) $426.7 starring Brie Larson. March 8th
02 Us (Universal) $175 starring Lupita Nyong'o. March 22nd
03 Alita Battle Angel (Fox) $85.7 starring Rosa Salazar. Feb 14th...
04 The Curse of La Llorona (New Line) $54.6 starring Linda Cardellini. Apt 19th
05 What Men Want (Paramount) $54.6 starring Taraji P Henson. Feb 8th
06 Isn't it Romantic? (Warner Bros) $48.7 starring Rebel Wilson. Feb 13th
07 🔺 Ma (Universal) $44.7 starring Octavia Spencer. May 31st
08 Little (Universal) $40.6 starring Regina Hall. April 12th
00 🔺 The Hustle (United Artists) $35.1 starring Anne Hathaway & Rebel Wilson. May 10th
10 🔺Annabelle Comes Home (Warner Bros) $31.2 starring McKenna Grace & Madison Iseman. June 26th

Runners Up: Fighting With My Family  starring Florence Pugh, 🔺 Booksmart starring Kaitlyn Dever & Beanie Feldstein, Unplanned starring Ashley Bratcher, Miss Bala starring Gina Rodriguez, Poms starring Diane Keaton,🔺 Late Night starring Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling, and Greta starring Isabelle Huppert & Chloe Moretz. No other films with a primary female lead scored over $10 million.

Fairly sad returns on movie star bankability in 2019 thus far with high concepts and genres rather than names being the draw. That said perhaps Rebel Wilson is an exception to this, albeit admittedly on a smaller scale than what we generally think of as "movie stars" since both of her films were modest performers. And a name still obviously helps even if its just to sell a genre turn (see Octavia Spencer probably elevating Ma's performance) or to prop up weak material (Poms doesn't do $13 million without Diane Keaton, even though $13 isn't something to crow about for a mainstream comedy.)

It remains a mystery why Late Night and Booksmart weren't bigger hits given the quality overall, the enjoyable star turns, and the good jokes.

  

6. TOP TEN BOX OFFICE HITS
(SO. YOU'LL SEE IT'S MOSTLY SEQUELS, SPIN-OFFS, AND REMAKES AS PER USUAL) 

Avengers: Endgame

01 🔺 Avengers Endgame $841.3 (Disney/Marvel) April 26th
Despite a record breaking run and a reexpansion this very weekend, it wasn't able to become the #1 film globally (still Avatar) or domestically (still Star Wars: The Force Awakens). But being #2 at everything is pretty damn great. Hell, even if you adjust for inflation it's still a phenomenal success and looking likely to end its run in 16th place of all time just ahead of Return of the Jedi (1983) which it's currently slightly behind and Jurassic Park (1993). So anyway you look at it, it was a massive success. This is perhaps a foolish prediction but I suspect this was Marvel's peak in terms of gross capabilities and we'll see a slow dwindling from here. The only superhero film in the forseeable future which feels like it could be this degree of massive (and even that is a stretch) is Black Panther 2.

02  Captain Marvel  $426.7 (Disney/Marvel) Spinoff/Franchise Launch. Mar 8th
Superheroes are still the biggest draws in movie theaters, going on MANY years now. But we're running out of "first" and this film obviously benefitted from the novelty factor. And yes it's disgusting that female superheroes can STILL qualify as a novelty factor. 

03 🔺 Aladdin $305.8 (Disney) May 24th
It's too bad the quality of Disney's live-action remakes of their animated features are so bad (Cinderella being a beautiful exception and, not coincidentally, the least slavish at copying and pasting the previous film) because people just keep lining up for them regardless. 

04 🔺 Toy Story 4 $236.9 (Disney) June 21st
It's Disney's world, we're all just living in it. Yes, Disney has the top four grossers of the year. 

05  Us  $175 (Universal) Original. Mar 22nd
THE ONLY ORIGINAL FILM TO MAKE THE TOP TEN 

06 🔺 John Wick Chapter 3 - Parabellum $159 (Lionsgate) May 17th

07 How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World $160.7 (Universal) Sequel. Feb 22nd

08 🔺 Pokemon Detective Pikachu $142.2 (Warner Bros) May 10th

09 Shazam! $140 (Warner Bros) April 5th

10 🔺 The Secret Life of Pets 2 $131.2 (Universal) June 7th

Runners up: 🔺 Dumbo (remake), Glass (sequel), The Upside (remake), 🔺 Godzilla King of Monsters (sequel), and The Lego Movie 2 (sequel). No other films crossed the $100 million mark.

So, that's 15 pictures that broke the $100 million mark in release for 2019 thus far. Disney's got 5 of them with Universal and Warner Bros each scoring 4. The only other distributors that managed it were Lionsgate (John Which Chapter 3) and STX (with The Upside)

 

What do you make of these top tens? 

 

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).