A Look Back At The Summer 2018 Box Office (Part Two)

Summer 2018 has come and gone, yes, but the immense box office haul of Summer 2018 leaves a box office junkie like myself with plenty to talk about. With the top ten biggest movies of the summer out of the way, let's take a look at the rest of the summer's high's and low's and what lessons can be taken away from this summer's hits and misses.




A Challenging Toni Collette Horror Drama Outgrossed A Mark Wahlberg Action Movie
At the outset of the summer, the idea that a small-scale original horror film like Hereditary would outgross the tentpole Mark Wahlberg action movie Mile 22 sounded ridiculous, but that's just what happened. Hereditary scored an excellent $13.5 million opening weekend and despite divisive responses from general moviegoers hung on in the weeks afterwards and managed a great $44 million domestic haul while the vastly more expensive Mile 22 is probably gonna end up at about $37-38 million domestically. This was a summer all about upending expectations in numerous ways and the fact that Hereditary ended up so far ahead of Mile 22 is a clear-cut example of this. Smaller movies with enticing concepts like Breaking In and BlacKkKlansman managed to surpass far bigger features with more generic storylines. Spectacle can be fun, but it's the story that matters above all else. That's how an A24 horror film manages to make more dough than the newest Mark Wahlberg/Peter Berg venture.

Comedies Need To Be Unique To Stand Out
I keep seeing articles on the internet about theatrically released comedies being dead in the water, but I really don't believe that at all. They're in a rut to be sure, but that's more on the films themselves than the willingness of audiences to see comedies in movie theaters. Too many of this summer's comedies felt derivative of past movies, whether it was The Spy Who Dumped Me's marketing coming off as a retread of Spy & Central Intellegence, The Happytime Murders looking like Avenue Q/Sausage Party redux or Life of the Party just being a new take on Rodney Dangerfield's Back to School. Even Tag, with a premise so outrageous its marketing had to reassure people that it was indeed based on a true story, couldn't help but feel samey-samey. The vast majority of the comedies this summer paired up unimaginative story executions with comedic actors like Ed Helms, Melissa McCarthy or Johnny Knoxville doing their same old schtick. Notice how the only two breakout comedies of the summer were Book Club and Crazy Rich Asians, features with distinct premises and starring actors who didn't typically star in mainstream American comedies. Make something fresh and funny and the people will come out to it, it's really that simple.

Arthouse Fare Was Thriving
In the year that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has managed to deliver two blockbusters that have grossed over $675 million domestically, you'd think smaller releases would be struggling to get screens or attention, but in the midst of all kinds of record-breaking big movies, arthouse fare actually had a great summer at the domestic box office. Documentaries especially thrived this summer as RBG, Three Identical Strangers and Won't You Be My Neighbor all excelled at the box office and became among the biggest documentaries of all-time. Boots Riley's extremely unusual (and even moreso brilliant!) Sorry to Bother You became the third biggest limited release of 2018 so far with a $17.1 million domestic haul while Searching became a break-out hit over the last weekend of summer. A24 also had a strong summer between Eighth Grade taking in $13 million and First Reformed's $3.4 million domestic haul made it the biggest film for director Paul Schrader in twenty years. Not everything in the limited release circuit managed to find success (Blindspotting, American Animals and The Miseducation of Cameron Post were all Sundance darlings that failed to make a dent at the box office, though to be fair all three were hindered by poorly handled theatrical releases), but it was encouraging to see so many small and frequently challenging movies making a notable financial impact in a summer where the blockbusters were frequently so massive in scale.

The Summertime Wide Release That Fell Flat
Of course, even in a summertime box office as good as this one, they all can't be blockbusters. Thus, there were still plenty of wide releases that missed the mark at the 2018 domestic box office. Skyscraper was handily the lowest-grossing Summer 2018 blockbuster with its $67.4 million domestic gross, a sum that can be chalked up to generic marketing that never managed to make either its lead character or premise compelling. Tag, Life of the Party and Uncle Drew were a trio of comedies released in the first two months of the season that didn't really bomb but all of them came in noticeably under expectations. The aforementioned Mile 22 was a flop coming in way under past Mark Wahlberg action films while fellow STX title The Happytime Murders will likely wind up around $22 million in its final domestic gross, $7 million shy of the 3-day opening weekend of The Muppets from 2011. Superfly tried to be mid-summer crime drama counterprogramming but its $20.5 million domestic haul was underwhelming while the $17.8 million domestic gross of Show Dogs put it way behind the vast majority of other live-action talking dog movies. With only $12.5 million, The Darkest Minds is currently the lowest-grossing movie of 2018 to be released in over 3,000 theaters (Show Dogs is the second-lowest!), Tully struck out in the second weekend of the summer with a dismal $9.3 million gross, Unfriended: Dark Web's $8.7 million domestic gross is only $1.9 million ahead of the opening day gross of the first Unfriended and Dog Days was another live-action dog movie aimed at families that struck out big time over the summer with only $6.7 million.

Both Dinesh D'Souza and Jonny Knoxville, with Death of a Nation and Action Point, found their newest films falling far short of their predecessors, with Death of a Nation's $5.8 million domestic gross being less than half of the previously lowest-grossing D'Souza feature while Action Point's $5 million domestic haul is minuscule compared to what the Jackass movies brought in on their opening weekends, let alone in their entire domestic runs. Exempting Fathom Event features and Beautifully Broken, the lowest-grossing movie of Summer 2018 to open in wide release was...Bad Samaritan! Remember that David Tennant thriller? It opened in 2,007 locations but managed a measly $3.4 million domestic total. The only compliment that can be given to that films box office is that at least it was bigger than the lowest-grossing wide release of Summer 2017 (Tulip Fever with only $2.4 million), Summer 2016 (The Neon Demon with only $1.3 million) and Summer 2015 (The D Train with an anemic $673,151).