Saturday, May 3, 2014

At The Movies - Summer 2014

Its the first weekend of May and you know what that means: Summer Movie season has started and a Marvel Superhero movie has opened. This year seems packed wall to wall with blockbusters and, looking at the slate, I think there will be several good movies that will be eclipsed by the tentpole flicks.

For May, we have sequels and reboots and reimaginings galore. May 2 is Amazing Spiderman 2, which I am sure will do boffo box office, but I think that the April release of Cap has taken some wind of those sails. Plus, five Spidey movies in 12 years has a bit of series fatigue involved.
May 16 is the Godzilla reboot. I'm on the fence about this one. I want to see it, but being a big fan of the old Toho movies leaves me expecting a lot out of it.
May 23 is the date I have circled this month. X-Men: Days of Future Past is one of the perfect moments in the comics and I have high hopes that Bryan Singer can get most of that perfection on screen. If anything, I'll finally get to see Sentinels and Patrick Stewart again.
May 30 is the toss-up weekend. Disney releases Maleficent and they've done wonders with live action adaptations on older properties lately. But...I'm a huge Seth MacFarlane fan so A Million Ways to Die in the West feels like a winner especially after Ted.

The first three weeks of June appear to be a wasteland of underperformers and wannabes. Edge of Tomorrow is straight sci-fi with a great premise, which should satisfy hardcore fanboys like me, but ignore everyone else but Tom Cruise fans. (See Oblivion) Think Like a Man Too and 22 Jump Street are more sequels from surprise hits. But this year sees no Pixar movies released. Instead, we get How to Train Your Dragon 2. Being the only family offering with any pedigree this summer, it should do quite well, much better than the original, yet I still miss my Pixar outing.

The end of June sees Transformers 4. I'm actually excited about this one since they got rid of Shia and it has the introduction of Grimlock. It may be short on plot, but sometimes I like endless violence and mounds of popcorn. There is a cornucopia of second tier releases for July and, to be honest, many of them will cannibalize one another for movie bucks. None of them really stand out as winners, although one or two will undoubtedly break out of the pack.

July does see the release of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, a sequel to the surprise 2011 hit. Rise was an unexpected bright spot in summer 2011 and has gained even more popularity in DVD release. Although James Franco is not in it, this one will definitely outperform the original.

As we hit August, we also hit movie fatigue. Yet there are a few gems amidst the doldrums of summer. August 1 is Marvel's first risky venture with Guardians of the Galaxy. If the previews are any indication, they're going to have another success on their hands. Two more possibilities to breakout are Sin City 2, which has been a long time coming, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Predictions for Summer:
1. How to Train Your Dragon 2 - 300m                  Actuals - 172 million and counting  (-128m)
2. Transformers 4 - 280m                                        ***243 million                                        ( -37m)
3. Amazing Spiderman 2 - 270m                             202 million                                        (-68m)
4. X-Men: Days of Future Past - 240m                    ***232 million                                  (-8m) 
5. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - 230m               ***204 million                                  (-26m)
6. Maleficent - 225m                                                ***237 million                                  (+12m)
7. Guardians of the Galaxy - 175m                          226 m and counting (280 final)
8. Godzilla - 155m                                                    200 million                                        (+45m)
9. A Millions Ways to Die in the West - 140m        43 million                                           (-97m)
10. 22 Jump Street - 125m                                        190 million                                         (+65m)

Honorable Mentions - Blended, Edge of Tomorrow, Hercules, Tammy, Think Like a Man Too
Any of these may break through and see themselves in the Top Ten for the summer.


Recap - Labor Day 2014
So, prediction is not an exact science. Some of mine were spot on (within 20 million), others were way off.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 and A Million Ways were my biggest flops. Dragon underperformed by 130 million and obviously Seth MacFarlane's name cannot sell a movie since A Million couldn't break 50.
Other surprises...Transformers showed franchise fatigue even though it made it up overseas by passing a billion dollars. Which is a step ahead of Spiderman 2. Spidey barely broke 200 million and 700 million global. Still a success, it had declined enough that Spidey 3 and 4 have been derailed for the time being.
Godzilla also overperformed by my estimates, but the super duper surprise of summer came in August with Guardians of the Galaxy. I knew the Marvel name would add some cache to this unknown property, but not this much. As of this writing, it's in line to become the highest grossing movie of the year so far in another week and a half. Marvel did everything right with this one. Perfect marketing (I bought the soundtrack). Different in tone. There was much more humor in this one. It seems as if nothing can derail the Marvel behemoth, which has become more reliable than Pixar. And they aren't stopping yet. Next up...the mega, super, colossal blockbuster that will be Avengers 2.

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