This graph shows Sofia Boutella’s score on our annual analysis of leading stars at the box office. The Star Score represents points assigned to each of the leading stars of the top 100 movies (based on box office) in the current year and two preceding years. For appearing in the number one movie in a year a star gets 100 points, the number two movie 99 points and so on..
Latest Ranking on Selected Box Office Record Lists
This May was an odd month, as Avengers: Infinity War opened on the last weekend of April, rather than the first weekend of May. This meant May started out slowly, but Deadpool 2 and Solo: A Star Wars Story did well enough to give 2018 a healthy lead over 2017. Looking forward, there are two potential monster hits this month, Incredibles 2 and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and another $100 million hit, Ocean’s 8. Last June, there were four $100 million hits, led by Wonder Woman, which pulled in over $400 million. I think 2018 and 2017 will be an even match at the top, so 2018 will have to rely on depth to improve upon its lead over 2017.
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The Mummy came out this summer and was supposed to kick off Universal’s Dark Universe franchise. In fact, Universal had announced about a dozen films in the franchise, at least one of which had a release date, but no star. Then the reviews started coming out. For a short time, The Mummy was the worst wide release of the summer. It bombed domestically and even though it did a lot better internationally, it still failed to pay for its nearly $200 million production budget. Was is unfairly attacked by critics? Or does Universal need to rethink their plans for a Dark Universe?
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May was a really soft month with only one unqualified hit, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, which is climbing towards $375 million domestically. The second biggest hit of the month will be Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and I would be surprised if it tops $150 million by any serious margin. June looks a lot more profitable. There are five weeks and every week there is at least one film with a great shot at $100 million or more. In fact, there are four films with at least a decent shot at $200 million and we could double the number of $300 million hits released so far this year. Wonder Woman is widely expected to start the month with an explosive debut and pulling in more than $100 million during its opening weekend is more and more likely. That said, Despicable Me 3 will probably end up being the biggest hit overall with over $300 million. Meanwhile, Cars 3 and Transformers: The Last Knight are both aiming for $200 million. Last June was not particularly strong, outside of one hit. Finding Dory earned nearly $500 million domestically, while the second best film, Central Intelligence, barely earned a quarter of that. I don’t think any film will come close to Finding Dory, but there’s a lot more depth this time around and I have high hopes 2017 will extend its lead.
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Long time readers don’t need me to explain how much I love Star Trek in all of its incarnations. ... Okay, most of its incarnations. I haven’t been a fan of the firsttwo installments in the reboot franchise. The third film, Star Trek Beyond, was the weakest of them at the box office. Is it also the weakest of the three in quality? Or was the third the charmed?
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Kingsman: The Secret Service is based on a comic book co-created by Mark Millar, who previously created the Kick-Ass comic book series. (On a side note, apparently there is a Hit Girl prequel comic book in the works and if that does well, there might be a Kick-Ass 3 movie that focuses more on Hit Girl. She was definitely the best part of the second movie.) It was a February release, so expectations were good, but not great. However, the film managed more than $125 million domestically and $400 million worldwide. That's fantastic. Is it as good as its box office numbers? Or did it thrive thanks to terrible competition?
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