RESULTS: Summer 2017 Box Office Predictions

At the beginning of May I participated in the annual Box Office Prediction game, wherein I tried to guess as accurately as possible this summer's top movies, from May through August (you can read my original post here). Well, now that the leaves are changing colors, it's getting to be hoodie weather, and the summer smells of suntan lotion and chlorine are starting to dissipate, it's time to look back at the 2017 season and see which movies reigned supreme at the box office and which movies completely tanked. Following are some of my overall thoughts on the results, along with my final tally. Enjoy!

General Thoughts:

- If you're one of those people praying for the superhero bubble to burst - you'd better keep on praying. The Marvel Machine is still going as strong as ever Guardians 2 and Spider-Man, and now DC has set the gauntlet with the first major female-led superhero movie, nabbing both the #1 spot and some early Oscar buzz. All three of these flicks were great, diverse films that represented some of the best movies the summer season had to offer - I say keep pumping them out as long as we get products like these!

- Oof... Alien: Covenant ended up really under-performing, making a potential sequel questionable at this point. Although I didn't think its success was guaranteed, I wasn't expecting it to pull in lower numbers than Prometheus, sporting an unheard-of 70% drop from week 1 to 2 for a major release; in recent memory only the final Harry Potter movie managed that, and that drop was only because it had an impossibly high opening weekend.

- The Mummy, while making decent money overseas, landed with a dull thud stateside. Universal has poured a lot of effort into their proposed "Dark Universe," and now its future is on rocky ground. Not a good way to begin a "cinematic universe."

- It took five whole movies for audiences to realize the Transformers series is terrible, but the masses have awakened. The Last Knight is by far the lowest-grossing in the series, and Paramount seems to have been banking on years and years-worth of future movies. Hopefully Michael Bay will hand the reigns off for someone else to reinvent the series.

- I assumed the raunchy female-driven comedy of the summer would be Snatched - there's always at least one that makes the list - but I was completely blindsided by the success of Girls Trip. Wasn't even on my radar before, but it seems that critics and fans are both saying that the film delivers on the laughs, so I'm happy to see it beat its competition in Snatched and Rough Night.

- And finally, a couple unlikely contenders, Baby Driver and Dunkirk, two action movies not attached to an existing property, were both sizable hits. Baby Driver, which just barely missed the Top Ten, marks director Edgar Wright's biggest box office take, and Dunkirk proved that the spectacle of Christopher Nolan alone can drive in audiences, even without a huge marquee star like Leonardo DiCaprio. Pretty incredible that a WWII drama beat out Pirates, Pixar, and Transformers!

Points System:

- 13 points for getting 1 or 10 exactly correct

- 10 points for getting 2-9 exactly correct

- 7 points if movie was one spot away

- 5 points if movie was two spots away

- 3 points if movie was anywhere the top ten

- 1 point for each dark horse (pick three)

My Predictions: 1. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 +7 2. Despicable Me 3 +5 3. Spider-Man: Homecoming +10 4. Transformers 5 +3 5. Wonder Woman +3 6. War for the Planet of the Apes +5 7. Cars 3 +10 8. Pirates of the Caribbean 5 +5 9. Alien: Covenant 10. The Mummy .

Actual (Domestic): 1. Wonder Woman - $406.8M 2. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 - $389.4M 3. Spider-Man: Homecoming - $320M     4. Despicable Me 3 - $255.3M      5. Dunkirk - $174.1M 6. Pirates of the Caribbean 5 - $172M 7. Cars 3 - $149.1M 8. War for the Planet of the Apes - $143.1M 9. Transformers 5 - $130.1M 10. Girls Trip - $109M *Data from Box Office Mojo (as of 8-31-17)

Dark Horses: Captain Underpants Dunkirk +1 Snatched TOTAL: 49

Get back to school kids, the summer's over! Hope you enjoyed this post, even though I let myself down a bit with my picks. This is the fifth straight year of me playing this summer box office game, and my score for 2017 falls in the middle of the pack. Below you can check out my "stats" from previous years, as well as a new reader poll! Hopefully next year I'll do better, though 2018 is packed with heavy hitters, with a Star Wars, Avengers, and Incredibles sequel all contending for that #1 spot. Thanks for reading!

Stats:
2013: 47
2014: 60
2015: 41
2016: 55
2017: 49
Batting Avg: 50