In May I wrote a list of 10 box office predictions for the summer of 2016. And just like the quality of films this summer, I did meh, alright, fine (by box office prediction standards I did not too awful; it is a fickle game). There were a few surprises this summer but a lot of duds and a lot, A LOT of box office bombs (which for me is always a guilty pleasure to see and write about, although you almost never hope for them).
The summer movie season officially ended last week with “Don’t Breathe” (which surprised everyone with a $26 million opening) so now I will go through and recap how my predictions lined up with actual totals. Links to my review of each film can be viewed by clicking the title of said motion picture.
Note: at time of initial posting, some of these films are still in theaters or have yet to open overseas, so they have been updated accordingly.
Honorable Mention: Captain America: Civil War
Predicted: $1.2 billion
Actual: $1.15 billion
I wrote my article the Sunday of “Civil War’s” opening weekend, so fully including it would have been cheating, but much like I said back in May, it fell right in line with “Iron Man 3.”
Predicted Opening/Total: $17 million/$70 million
Actual: $14.8 million/$93.2 million
This played better overseas that I thought it would ($52 million to its $41 million domestic haul) but overall not a horrible misfire for me to begin my list with.
- The Angry Birds Movie
Prediction: $45 million/$600 million
Actual: $38.2 million/$349.7 million
I don’t know why I though this thing would fly so high (no pun intended) but I overshot by $250 million. My opening guess wasn’t far off, but yeah, this one was a swing and a miss.
Prediction: $90 million/$750 million
Actual: $65.8 million/$543.9 million
In my defense here, I did say it would perform well barring critical backlash, which this film (rightfully) got. Not horrible numbers by X-Men standards (unadjusted for inflation it is the third highest grossing of the series) but a noticeable step down from “Days of Future Past.”
Prediction: $115 million/$1 billion
Actual: $135.1 million/$1.026 billion
Very few had this opening as high as it did, but overall this one was pretty on the nose for me, becoming the highest-grossing domestic animated film in history.
Prediction: $45 million/$195 million
Actual: $35.5 million/$217 million
Again, pretty solid prediction on my part. It didn’t open as high as I thought, but in retrospect $45 million was a little ambitious (and even went against the points I argued in my article).
Prediction: $19 million/$90 million
Actual: $7.6 million/$25 million
[cough] um…let’s, uh…let’s move on.
- The Legend of Tarzan
Prediction: $25 million/$270 million
Actual: $38.5 million/$356.7 million
It is still a relative flop, but “Tarzan” opened bigger and stayed longer than I or most people predicted.
Prediction: $45 million/$400 million
Actual: $46 million/$229.1 million
I predicted the opening weekend perfectly but gave the film way too much credit with how much its legs would carry it. I didn’t account for the film being bad (despite what Rotten Tomatoes will seemingly tell you, many critics and fans alike gave it lukewarm reviews at best) or that comedies are country/culture specific. Sony is on track to lose around $100 million on this film, and a sequel isn’t likely.
Prediction: $65 million/$680 million
Actual: $59.2 million/$415.2 million
I may have overestimated how much people missed Bourne, and mixed reviews hurt this thing’s legs, but this still made some money. Although it’s unclear if we will ever see Matt Damon punch people in the throat for the CIA ever again.
Prediction: $75 million/$720 million
Actual: $133.7 million/$745.6 million
I undersold the opening weekend (and undersold how much I undersold it by, I was off by nearly 50%) but my final gross was right on par and it passed “Man of Steel” ($668 million) for second place in the DCEU.
And that’s it for my Summer Movie Season box office recap, thanks for reading and let’s look forward to a hopefully better movie season as Oscars begin to roll around
The Reel Deal 