REGINA - Cairns on Cinema is back!
Yes, folks, after my brief stay outside the organization I have returned to Harvard Media this fall, and that means the revival of the Cairns on Cinema columns. Two things I really missed during my time at the other place: (1) the Legislature beat and my cozy office at the Legislature, and (2) doing this movie column. But one thing I did not miss: covering the Roughriders (lol), with the team on this latest losing streak.
When the summer blockbuster season began, it looked like Hollywood was on its own losing streak, with May numbers way down from last year. But June and July numbers saved the day and the cartoons and comic books came to the rescue, although perhaps not to the same extent that “Barbieheimer” rescued the box office in 2023. In 2023 Hollywood didn't have quite the same hole to dig out that they did in 2024, due to the fallout from labour stoppages and so on.
Here are the domestic box office results as of Sept. 3 of the top grossing summer releases at the cinemas, starting with the domestic numbers:
Inside Out 2 - $651 million
Deadpool & Wolverine - $603.8 million
Despicable Me 4 $355.6 million
Twisters $260.4 million
Bad Boys: Ride or Die $193.5 million
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes - $171.1 million
A Quiet Place: Day One - 138.9 million
It Ends With Us -135.7 million
IF - $111.1 million
The Fall Guy - $92.9 million
Now here are the worldwide box office numbers for the summer releases:
Inside Out 2 - $1.66 billion
Deadpool & Wolverine - $1.26 bullion
Despicable Me 4 $915 million
Twisters $260.4 million
Bad Boys: Ride or Die $402 million
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes $397 million
I want to point out that as of this moment, we are looking at a photo finish for the domestic box office title for the summer releases. Latest projections are for Inside Out 2 to come in at around $660 million domestic, with Deadpool & Wolverine just a few million behind. We won’t know for sure who won the summer for a few weeks yet — and as it stands now, this is also the race for the box office title for the whole year as well, so keep an eye out for that.
Records that fell this year: Inside Out 2 became the highest grossing animated movie of all time, beating out Frozen II whose worldwide gross was $1.46 billion. It beat out The Incredibles as Pixar’s biggest movie ever, and had the biggest opening weekend of the year worldwide at $295 million from June 14-16. And its current haul is better than Barbie from last year ($636 million domestic, $1.44 billion worldwide). Think about that: Inside Out 2 a bigger hit than Barbie. Unbelievable.
Deadpool & Wolverine meanwhile set the record for the biggest grossing R rated movie of all time, topping Joker’s $1.06 billion haul, and had the biggest domestic opening weekend of the year at $211.4 million from July 26-28.
Based on these numbers you would think it was a fantastic summer for Hollywood. Wrong! Hollywood Reporter is reporting that domestic revenue this summer fell 10.4 per cent, at $3.67 billion. A big reason for that was the slow start in May which suffered due to the lack of a Marvel superhero movie to open the month for the first time in ages.
The month also produced the most notorious flop of the summer with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga opening to only $26 million domestic and a current domestic haul of $67 million.
So it could have been worse. But with last year’s Hollywood labour strife now out of the way the hope is for Hollywood to finally get back on track and revive itself at the box office. Now attention turns to the fall and whether any fall releases could challenge for the box office title.
It’s great to be back here at Cairns on Cinema, and I will see you next time.
