Back at the end of April, for the third year in a row, I typed up my predictions for what exactly would become the ten biggest movies of summer 2017 at the domestic box office. Here we are just after Labor Day and it's time to look at how my predictions fared against reality. Just one point to make before we go ahead; all but one of these movies listed below (Transformers: The Last Knight is the sole exception) are still in the middle of their box office runs, so the total domestic grosses listed below are projections based on their current box office standings.
Okee-dokee folks, let's get going at looking at the ten biggest movies of summer 2017 at the domestic box office!
10. Girls Trip
Predicted Rank: Not Ranked
Total Domestic Gross: $117 million
Predicted Domestic Gross: N/A
Well, to be fair, I was right about an R-rated comedy coming in as the tenth biggest motion picture of this past summer, but boy was I off on what it would be. The House made about $114.5 million less than I expected, so, whoops. Instead, it was Girls Trip that took off like a rocket this summer, soaring where most other R-rated comedies stumbled (badly) over the past few months. Looking back on it, I was a fool for underestimating Girls Trip given how Malcolm D. Lee's no stranger to surprise box office hits and, more importantly, that it was one of the few female-led projects of the summer. On only a $19 million budget, Girls Trip became one of the few thoroughly unexpected runaway hits of the summer.
9. Transformers: The Last Knight
Predicted Rank: 7
Total Domestic Gross: $130.1 million
Predicted Domestic Gross: $180 million
Franchise fatigue hit many long-running franchises this year and that included the previously impervious Transformers saga, which plummeted to a domestic cume 46% below what the last entry in the series, Age of Extinction, took in back in 2014. Really, it's no shocker this one went so low at the box office given that the marketing refused to offer up anything new to prospective moviegoers. It looked like the same old same old, so of course it went belly up at the domestic box office. We shall see if that new Bumblebee solo movie starring Hailee Steinfeld and John Cena can turn things around for the Autobots and company at the box office next Christmas.
8. War For The Planet Of The Apes
Predicted Rank: 5
Total Domestic Gross: $147 million
Predicted Domestic Gross: $240 million
Like I said, many long-running franchises hit new lows at the domestic box office this summer but this newest installment in the Planet of The Apes saga may have been the most surprising out of all the box office underperformers by far. Unlike Transformers 5 or Cars 3, War For The Planet Of The Apes was following up not one but two super well-liked movies and had great reviews by its side. Unfortunately, War was doomed by a terrible release date that sandwiched it in between Spider-Man: Homecoming and fellow war movie Dunkirk, the latter film likely being particularly harmful since it was invading on the very war movie turf that was supposed to make Caesar's newest movie stand out in the marketplace. It should get over $500 million worldwide if it does well in China on a $150 million budget, so this one still did decent business but there's no denying its domestic result were severely underwhelming.
7. Cars 3
Predicted Rank: 6
Total Domestic Gross: $154 million
Predicted Domestic Gross: $185 million
No shocker here to see Cars 3 fall beneath all but one of PIXAR's previous movies and the underwhelming foreign numbers its generated so far (it hasn't been able to gross more than $20 million in a single foreign territory as of this writing) means this won't get its domestic box office shortcomings mitigated by strong overseas box office like the newest Mummy and Apes movies had. Like I said, this wasn't surprising given that Cars 2 was a major domestic box office underperformer and six years of that movie's lackluster profile hovering around the franchise (plus those Planes movies that DisneyToon Studios did that sputtered out after two movies) damaged the brand mightily. While the initial Cars 3 teaser was eye-catching, the rest of the marketing was muted and generic and failed to justify why this series needed to continue. Hence, Cars 3 became one of the biggest PIXAR box office misfires yet.
6. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Predicted Rank: 9
Total Domestic Gross: $173 million
Predicted Domestic Gross: $165 million
Here's an interesting one that's quite complex to parse out in terms of its box office performance. The newest Pirates movie fell notably from past installments but its 28% decline from the domestic box office of the last film, On Stranger Tides, felt more like a conventional sequel-to-sequel decline compared to the more steep drops seen this summer by other sequels. To boot, the newest Pirates did kick serious booty overseas and it's worldwide cume stands at just under $800 million right now (its got $791 million in the bank right now). Why did Jack Sparrow's newest movie hold on better than other sequels? Probably because the first movie really did register with people back in the day and making sure to emphasize this one was the final entry in the saga was a smart move (The Last Knight tried to do that too with its last week of TV spots but at that point it was too little too late). Disney would be smart to leave this treasure chest closed since Dead Men Tell No Tales didn't generate the kind of word-of-mouth that would suggest future installments will improve on this one's box office, but at least they fared better on the stormy seas of this summer's box ofifce compared to a surprisingly large share of this summer's fellow sequels.
5. Dunkirk
Predicted Rank: 8
Total Domestic Gross: $191 million
Predicted Domestic Gross: $170 million
Christopher Nolan managed to get another massive box office hit under his belt with Dunkirk, with this one being a particularly surprising box office hit due to it being a PG-13 war drama with no major actors headlining it opening in the middle of the summer. Luckily, the unusual release date (though mid-July is also where Saving Private Ryan racked up massive grosses back in 1998) worked in its favor as it stood out like nothing else in the marketplace. Distinctive trailers that placed an emphasis on spectacle and the residual goodwill from Christopher Nolan's past movies solidified that Dunkirk would be one of the bigger movies of the summer.
4. Despicable Me 3
Predicted Rank: 2
Total Domestic Gross: $265 million
Predicted Domestic Gross: $340 million
The newest Despicable Me movie was yet another example of a major sequel from this summer failing to match the grosses of its predecessor. Being the first Despicable Me sequel to miss the $300 million domestic mark, at least Gru and his Minions were still overseas box office juggernauts as Despicable Me 3 will become the one movie of summer 2017 to gross $1 billion worldwide. How come Despicable Me 3 didn't reach the heights of its predecessor? Maybe the franchise had diluted itself somewhat with Minions, a spin-off that did have noticeably worse retention at the box office than any other Despicable Me movie. Ads that couldn't quite come up with enough of a compelling new plot to lure in moviegoers again didn't help, though it was still a mighty domestic cume all things considered.
3. Spider-Man: Homecoming
Predicted Rank: 3
Total Domestic Gross: $333 million
Predicted Domestic Gross: $325 million
Hey, I finally got one of these predicted ranks right! Homecoming performed right in line with my expectations, soaring well above the Amazing Spider-Man entries and landing in similar domestic box office terrain to Sam Raimi's final Spider-Man movie back in 2007. Made on a considerably cheaper budget than any Spider-Man movie since the first one back in 2002 as well as garnering better audience and critical reception than recent Spidey adventures, Homecoming was one of the few major blockbuster hits of the summer. It's worth noting that the film became the ninth Marvel Cinematic Universe adventure to gross over $300 million domestically and is now the fourth biggest movie ever from Sony/Columbia.
2. Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2
Predicted Rank: 1
Total Domestic Gross: $390 million
Predicted Domestic Gross: $350 million
The Guardians of The Galaxy didn't end up becoming the biggest movie of the summer but they can take solace in having notably exceeded my predictions for how much it would make at the domestic box office. Improving on its predecessor by about 17%, the newest Guardians movie managed to improve on its predecessor thanks to both the high level of praise the first film received and a successful marketing campaign. It's also worth noting that this new Guardians movie held notably better in its box office legs than recent MCU May movies like Avengers: Age of Ultron, Iron Man 3 and Captain America: Civil War, something that likely occured due to both strong word-of-mouth and a lack of big competition in June sans one big blockbuster that opened that summertime month known as.....
1. Wonder Woman
Predicted Rank: 4
Total Domestic Gross: $414 million
Predicted Domestic Gross: $260 million
Wowza, did this one ever bust out of expectations. Wonder Woman touched the pop culture zeitgeist in a way that doesn't happen every day and because of that, it soared to a level of box office that only four other superhero movies in history have managed to surpass. Opening above expectations with a $103.2 million bow, Wonder Woman held like a champ in the weeks afterwards, managing to have the best box office legs ever for a movie opening to over $100 million that debuted on a Friday. People clearly fell in love with this movie and its hopeful message as seen by the massive box office that sent it straight to the top of the summer 2017 domestic box office. Becoming the third biggest movie ever for Warner Bros. and the twentieth biggest movie ever at the domestic box office, the good news just never stops for Wonder Woman!
While I didn't do so hot in predicting exact box office grosses, I was surprisingly accurate in predicting what movies would be among the biggest of the summer. Out of the ten movies that would comprise the top ten biggest movies of summer 2017, I got all but one of them right. The one outlier here was The House, which I predicted would be the tenth biggest movie of the summer and gross $140 million. Considering that already forgotten box office dud only grossed $25.5 million, becoming Will Ferrell's lowest grossing star vehicle ever by far (it fared even worse than A Night At The Roxbury from two decades ago!) it's fair to say I was off by a tad in my box office predictions!
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