Time just keeps on passing by relentlessly and that means Summer 2019 is already finished. This also means that the winners, losers and everything in between of the Summer 2019 domestic box office has been revealed. Back in April 2019, I wrote down my predictions for what I thought would be the ten biggest movies of Summer 2019 and now it's time to see how wrong (and maybe sometimes even kind of right) I was! Strap in folks, let's look at what ended up being the ten biggest movies of Summer 2019!
Let's start with the biggest film of the summer...
1. Avengers: Endgame
Avengers: Endgame proved to be the titan release of the summer with a domestic haul above all other movies in history save for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Even when adjusted for inflation, Endgame still managed to come in ahead of all but fifteen movies in history. This impressive feat can be chalked up to the massive amount of goodwill prior Marvel Cinematic Universe movies have generated and the fact that this was the concluding chapter for a number of storylines in this expansive franchise. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is far from over but it's hard to imagine any future titles being able to top the extraordinary box office of Avengers: Endgame.
Projected Domestic Gross: $680 million
Actual Domestic Gross: $858 million
2. The Lion King
It doesn't matter how dead-eyed the lions were, audiences showed up in packs for The Lion King. The biggest non-Marvel/PIXAR/Lucasfilm title ever for Disney at the domestic box office, this remake roared to life right from the get-go with the biggest July opening weekend in history and just kept on making money hand over fist from there. This was one of the rare titles this summer that I was pretty accurate on in predicting. Just as I predicted five months ago, The Lion King ended up being a massive grosser above all other titles save for Endgame that ended up slightly ahead of the domestic cume of 2017's Beauty and the Beast remake. If only such accuracy could be at all found in my Detective Pikachu box office predictions...
Projected Domestic Gross: $520 million
Actual Domestic Gross: $535 million
Now here's a weird title in terms of what kind of box office expectations it generated. Two months prior to its release, I thought Toy Story 4 would end up doing fine business but it would make less than Toy Story 3. Then initial box office tracking suggested the title would open better than last summer's Incredibles 2. When it opened to "only" $120 million, well, that was a mild problem. But Toy Story 4 hung on like a champ through the rest of the summer and ended up becoming the fourth-biggest animated movie of all-time domestically and surpassed the domestic gross of Toy Story 3. Maybe it didn't top the most optimistic box office forecasts, but Toy Story 4 still managed to score an impressive domestic box office haul.
Projected Domestic Gross: $350 million
Actual Domestic Gross: $435 million
4. Spider-Man: Far From Home
Marvel Studios didn't just have one box office hit this summer, they had two. In fact, their two hits were the only PG-13 movies of the summer to soar above $180 million domestically. The latest Spider-Man movie became the second-biggest Spider-Man movie ever domestically and soared above the domestic gross of its predecessor, Spider-Man: Homecoming. Who knew plopping a big o'l fishbowl on the head of Jake Gyllenhaal would prove to be so popular? If this was truly the end of Marvel Studios and Sony working together on Spider-Man movies, at least they went out with a bang that managed to make a lot of money at the domestic box office.
Projected Domestic Gross: $415 million
Actual Domestic Gross: $390 million (projection)
5. Aladdin
Boy was I ever wrong on Aladdin. I thought this was the next box office dud in the making, but it turns out people were nuts over this new version of Aladdin. Not only did Aladdin manage to have a way bigger opening weekend than expected, it also held incredibly well over the rest of the summer, in the process becoming the biggest movie ever released over Memorial Day. A big-scale live-action musical adaptation of a beloved animated movie turned out to be a recipe for success. Dumbo may have flopped back in March (remember Tim Burton's tedious Dumbo?), but between The Lion King and Aladdin, Disney is unlikely to give up on these lucrative remakes anytime soon.
Projected Domestic Gross: $160 million
Actual Domestic Gross: $355 million
6. Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
Hobbs & Shaw didn't quite live up to expectations domestically as it became the first Fast & Furious movie since 2009s Fast & Furious to fall below $200 million domestically. That's despite a massive $200 million budget and two big lead actors. Maybe people domestically just weren't as enthusiastic about these two characters as expected? In its defense, its domestic haul was still decent while its massive overseas gross helped to compensate for any domestic box office shortcomings and ensured that we'll be seeing more Hobbs & Shaw adventures in the future.
Projected Domestic Gross: $315 million
Actual Domestic Gross: $173 million (projection)
Two movies managed to crack the actual Summer 2019 Top Ten that I did not predict would enter this chart. One of those was the newest John Wick adventure, which did nearly twice as much domestically as the second John Wick film. People loved those first two movies and each new installment in the series has just been steadily building off all that goodwill. This box office success also shows off the box office durability of Keanu Reeves, who's been consistently headlining box office hits for three decades now.
Projected Domestic Gross: N/A
Actual Domestic Gross: $171 million
8. The Secret Life of Pets 2
Easily the most surprising box office disappointment of the summer was the newest Secret Life of Pets movie, which brought the outstanding box office track record of Illumination to a screeching halt. Up to this point, every computer-animated title from the studio had crossed $200 million domestically but Pets 2 topped out at $157 million domestically, a 57% drop from the domestic gross of its predecessor. Why did people not show up for more pets like they did for more Minions? The marketing for Pets 2 ended up being too derivative of the first movie whereas each Despicable Me sequels has made sure to emphasize a new gimmick (Minions gone missing, Minions in the 1960s, Gru's twin) to make them stand out to moviegoers. Will next summers Minions 2 restore Illumination back to their box office glory? Time will tell.
Projected Domestic Gross: $400 million
Actual Domestic Gross: $157 million
9. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
Well, I missed this one by a smidge. But in my defense, there really did seem to be a whole bunch of special hype surrounding this title when its marketing began. The prospect of a live-action Pokemon movie seemed like the kind of thing that could easily become one of the biggest movies of the year. Detective Pikachu still did solid business, but why didn't it go bigger? Well, the domestic box office suggests the film didn't resonate with the broader public like your average Marvel comics or Star Wars movie did, instead, Pikachu seemed to attract just Pokemon fans. That fanbase is clearly enough to score the biggest domestic box office haul ever for a video game movie and to start a new franchise but it also wasn't nearly enough to make Detective Pikachu go as high as it could.
Projected Domestic Gross: $435 million
Actual Domestic Gross: $144 million
And here's the other Summer 2019 movie I didn't predict would crack the Summer 2019 Domestic Box Office Top Ten. On paper, Quentin Tarantino's newest movie seemed like a major commercial risk with its elongated runtime and heavy emphasis on casual dialogue exchanges but it turned out to be just what the doctor ordered for moviegoers looking for something that wasn't a tentpole at the end of the summer. A star-studded movie with a comedic marketing campaign involving famous 1960s celebrities hailing from a famous filmmaker turned out to be a recipe for one of the biggest coups of the year so far for original storytelling at the domestic box office.
Projected Domestic Gross: $N/A million
Actual Domestic Gross: $144 million (projection)
As for the two movies that I predicted would make the top ten but didn't, there first of those was Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which ended up being one of the big commercial underperformers of the summer with only $110.5 million domestically, a steep 45% decline from the domestic box office take of 2014s Godzilla movie. The other title that missed the top ten was Rocketman, which wasn't the next Straight Outta Compton or Bohemian Rhapsody but still generated a plenty respectable $96 million in its leggy domestic box office performance.
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