Top 5 movies of Summer 2014

[ncexnyc]

Is this what they mean by homecourt advantage?

http://www.deadline.com/2014/08/lucy...or-luc-besson/

[CameronBornAndBred]

My favorite "fresh" review of TMNT so far.

Positive rating only because this was made for the now adult kids who loved this growing up and for their children and not for me. They aren't going to care that I hated it

[YmoBeThere]

TMNT did $65 million at the box office this weekend. Current reports says that this August is 22% ahead of last year and on pace to be the biggest August ever.

Personally, I've felt compelled to see a total of zero movies this summer. I've also been told I get more curmudgeonly with each passing day.

[Duvall]

I continue to be impressed by Michael Bay's ability to give the moviegoing public exactly the kind of blockbusters they deserve.

[BD80]

I continue to be impressed by Michael Bay's ability to give the moviegoing public exactly the kind of blockbusters they deserve.

I would rather you not write my eulogy.

[JasonEvans]

TMNT did $65 mil its opening weekend but has horrible reviews and won't generate much word of mouth. With a $65 mil opening, it would need to do a 3+ multiplier to have a shot at our Top 5 and it is really hard to see a movie like this (released in mid-August) getting a 3.3 or so multiplier. So, unless TMNT shocks the world and holds up really strong mid-week and next weekend, it is not in the running.

Guardians is, as well know by now, another story. It had a really strong mid-week (it did almost $12 mil on Tuesday Aug 5th... whaaaat?!?!?!?) and then held up extremely strong for a summer blockbuster in its 2nd weekend dropping just 55% for a $42.1 mil weekend. It now sits at $176.5 million and is still going strong. I won't be shocked if it ends up as the #1 movie of summer.

So, our current standings are:

1. Cap 2 - $259.6 mil (made $111k over the weekend, its done)
2. Transformers 4 - $242.8 mil (made $550k over the weekend, its pretty much done)
3. Maleficent - $236.0 mil (made $500k over the weekend, also done)
4. X-Men DOFP - $232.0 mil (made $250k over weekend, done)
5. Spidey 2 - $202.7 mil (made $50k over the weekend, done)
6. Godzilla - $200.4 mil (made $130k over weekend, done)
7. Dawn of Apes - $197.7 mil (made $4.4 mil over weekend, it will end up in 6th place, probably just under $220 mil)
8. 22 Jump Street $189.4 mil (made $350k over the weekend, pretty much done)
9. Guardians - $176.5 mil (made $42.1 mil over weekend, pretty certain it will make at least another $60+ mil and be solidly in our top 5)
10. Dragon 2 - $170.1 mil (made about $700k over weekend, done)

My guess is that the final 5 end up being Cap 2, Guardians, Trans 4, Maleficent, and then X-Men. Maleficent fooled all of us but even the folks who voted for Guardians could not have predicted it would be as big as it has been.

-Jason "in a couple weeks, we will wrap this up... been fun even if this is one of the worst summers I have had in terms of predictions" Evans

[CameronBornAndBred]

Like Transformers, I think this is going to be a crappy movie that makes lots of money. I don't think it will make enough (too late in the game) to impact the top 5, but it will make enough to warrant a sequel, I bet.

Paramount Pictures was so pleased by “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’s” $93.7 million global debut this weekend that it said it is moving forward with plans for a sequel to the franchise reboot.

Lovely.

http://variety.com/2014/film/news/bo...79430/?_r=true

[BD80]

Lovely.

http://variety.com/2014/film/news/bo...79430/?_r=true

The phrase "There's one born every minute" originated in the entertainment industry did it not?

[Olympic Fan]

The Turtles and the Raccoon are having a good weekend at the box office ... the old fart action heroes are getting their butts kicked:

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/08/1...s-3-the-giver/

Still not sure the Ninja Turtles have the legs to crack our top five, but Guardians of the Galaxy is not only there (total $222 million), but is tracking almost exactly equal with Captain America ... one or the other is going to be the biggest gross this summer.

Expendables 3 will not be -- the big-budget, big (old) star action film opened to $16 million, qualifying as the flop of the summer. It even lost out to the ridiculous "Let's Be Cops."

BTW: Interesting piece in Forbes about How to Train Your Dragon 2. Although a domestic disappointment (barely $170 million) , it just topped $500 million internationally.

Looking at my picks in our contest, I think I did better predicting the international gross than the domestic -- I had both Godzilla and HTTYD2 which are top 5 internationally, but not domestically. I'm not complaining, the rules are clear -- we're trying to pick domestic gross. It's just frustrating to be accidentally winning the wrong contest.

[El_Diablo]

It's just frustrating to be accidentally winning the wrong contest.

No need to be frustrated! Neither How to Train Your Dragon 2 nor Godzilla is ranked in the top 5 worldwide, so you're not winning that contest either.

Worldwide box office grosses (millions):
1. Transformers: Age of Extinction - $1,054.4
2. X-Men: Days of Future Past - $744.0
3. Maleficent - $743.8
4. Captain America: The Winter Soldier - $714.0
5. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - $708.2
6. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - $536.6
7. How to Train Your Dragon 2 - $535.5
8. Godzilla - $507.8

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/...er=DESC&p=.htm

[El_Diablo]

Transformers 4 has been crushing it in China (where it has grossed more than in the US). Interestingly, the "movie" production was officially assisted by the Chinese government, and the "plot" appeared to reflect this involvement:

As soon as the action shifts to Hong Kong, the outbreak of alien-engendered chaos is met by a sea captain ordering a call to “the central government” for help, and later China’s defense minister does a walk-and-talk, sternly and seriously vowing to defend Hong Kong. America’s government is portrayed [as] either ridiculous or diabolical, but China’s is assured and effective.

http://variety.com/2014/film/columns...na-1201257030/

[Udaman]

Turtles has no chance at cracking our Top 5. It's $20M below where Apes was after 11 days, and Apes had really strong (and hairy) legs.

Our top 5 is set. It will be:

Guardians - Took my kids to see it this weekend, and they all loved it. This movie is absolutely going to finish #1 overall. It's $22M above where Captain was at this point, and Captain was hurt by low weekday figures because school was still in (Guardians made $2.8M yesterday, on the Monday of Captain America's 18th day out, it made just over $1M). By this rate, Guardians is going to finish with at least $263M, which will beat Captain by $4-$5M. And that's assuming normal drop-offs. This movie is still only seeing 35% drops from week to week, which is crazy. I bet it ends up right around $270M.
Captain America
Transformers
Maleficent
X-Men

Only one person got 4 out of 5, and that was NashvilleDevil. Considering that he's one of only 5 people to pick Guardians, that's pretty impressive.

As JE pointed out earlier, this was (by far) our worst season making these picks. 95% of us picked Spiderman2, and it didn't crack the top 6 (it will be #7). 85% of us picked How to Train Your Dragon 2, and it's going to finish 11th.

As for my own personal preferences....If I had to rank the movies that I saw this summer, I would put them in the following order

10. Maleficent (I seem to be the only person who thought it was shockingly predictable and very scattered. I still liked it, but clearly not as much as most teenage girls)
9. Neighbors (was good, but could have been so much better)
8. 22 Jump Street (ditto)
7. Captain America 2. Fun movie, but didn't like the bad guy (and predicted it almost right away), thought the end was bad and kept wondering, "Where the F&*# are the other Avengers?"
6. How to Train Your Dragon 2 (still shocked this didn't make the top 5. I really enjoyed it, as did my kids. Maybe too dark for the very little ones?)
5. Planet of the Apes. Enjoyed it, but it was too long, and again too predictable.
4. Spiderman 2 (seem to be one of the few people who really enjoyed this).
3. Guardians. Funny, fun, and engaging. Or as the tree would say, "I am Groot." These top 3 stand way ahead of the others
2. X-Men Days of Future Past. It's funny...The Avengers was really Iron Man 3, and this X-Men was really Wolverine 3. The slow motion scene in the kitchen was the best scene of any movie all year.
1. Edge of Tomorrow (I can't tell you how sad it makes me to know that Noah beat out this film, and that it finished with less money than every movie above on this list other than The Purge 2. I thought this movie was funny, believable, and exciting with excellent effects, acting and writing)

My most disappointing films were Godzilla (good effects, awful, awful, awful plot and acting) and 50 Millions Ways to Make An Awful Comedy About the West. My guilty pleasure was The Purge 2, which I almost ranked ahead of Maleficent. I saw and liked Chef, but thought that overall it was mostly fluff. And of the movies on this list, I would only rank the top 3 above The Grand Budapest Hotel, and just barely.

[mph]

Turtles has no chance at cracking our Top 5. It's $20M below where Apes was after 11 days, and Apes had really strong (and hairy) legs.

Our top 5 is set. It will be:

Guardians - Took my kids to see it this weekend, and they all loved it. This movie is absolutely going to finish #1 overall. It's $22M above where Captain was at this point, and Captain was hurt by low weekday figures because school was still in (Guardians made $2.8M yesterday, on the Monday of Captain America's 18th day out, it made just over $1M). By this rate, Guardians is going to finish with at least $263M, which will beat Captain by $4-$5M. And that's assuming normal drop-offs. This movie is still only seeing 35% drops from week to week, which is crazy. I bet it ends up right around $270M.
Captain America
Transformers
Maleficent
X-Men

Only one person got 4 out of 5, and that was NashvilleDevil. Considering that he's one of only 5 people to pick Guardians, that's pretty impressive.

As JE pointed out earlier, this was (by far) our worst season making these picks. 95% of us picked Spiderman2, and it didn't crack the top 6 (it will be #7). 85% of us picked How to Train Your Dragon 2, and it's going to finish 11th.

As for my own personal preferences....If I had to rank the movies that I saw this summer, I would put them in the following order

10. Maleficent (I seem to be the only person who thought it was shockingly predictable and very scattered. I still liked it, but clearly not as much as most teenage girls)
9. Neighbors (was good, but could have been so much better)
8. 22 Jump Street (ditto)
7. Captain America 2. Fun movie, but didn't like the bad guy (and predicted it almost right away), thought the end was bad and kept wondering, "Where the F&*# are the other Avengers?"
6. How to Train Your Dragon 2 (still shocked this didn't make the top 5. I really enjoyed it, as did my kids. Maybe too dark for the very little ones?)
5. Planet of the Apes. Enjoyed it, but it was too long, and again too predictable.
4. Spiderman 2 (seem to be one of the few people who really enjoyed this).
3. Guardians. Funny, fun, and engaging. Or as the tree would say, "I am Groot." These top 3 stand way ahead of the others
2. X-Men Days of Future Past. It's funny...The Avengers was really Iron Man 3, and this X-Men was really Wolverine 3. The slow motion scene in the kitchen was the best scene of any movie all year.
1. Edge of Tomorrow (I can't tell you how sad it makes me to know that Noah beat out this film, and that it finished with less money than every movie above on this list other than The Purge 2. I thought this movie was funny, believable, and exciting with excellent effects, acting and writing)

My most disappointing films were Godzilla (good effects, awful, awful, awful plot and acting) and 50 Millions Ways to Make An Awful Comedy About the West. My guilty pleasure was The Purge 2, which I almost ranked ahead of Maleficent. I saw and liked Chef, but thought that overall it was mostly fluff. And of the movies on this list, I would only rank the top 3 above The Grand Budapest Hotel, and just barely.

I more embarrassed about picking A Million Ways to Die in the West than any pick I've made in these polls.

My personal ranking in tiers:

7. Spiderman 2 (Meh. Didn't hate it but if I had it to do over, I'd save the money and see it on video).

Draw a line

6. How to Train your Dragon 2 (Very good sequel and 100% agree with udaman. How did this not make the top 5 with the lack of competition in the animated category?)
5. Captain America 2 (Thought it had a more coherent story than the original Captain America even if it was predictable. Also, saw it on a Regal RPX screen in LA which was cool)
4. X-Men
3. Edge of Tomorrow (Had many of the things I enjoyed about X-Men but a little better in each category. Slightly more interesting plot line and funnier).

Draw a line

2. Guardians ( I was surprised how much I liked this film and even more surprised how much my wife liked this film. She's lukewarm on most sci-fi and comic book movies but the grammar jokes sealed the deal. Unfortunately they went over my head. By far the funniest movie I saw this summer. Very entertaining.

Draw a line

1. Planet of the Apes (Easily my favorite movie of the summer. I agree with Jason that Andy Serkis deserves oscar consideration. The plot was predictable but the acting, writing, and effects were so good that I didn't care. I felt more emotionally connected to POTA than any other summer movie. Looking forward to the 3rd installment).

[davekay1971]

Given the consistently good remarks and reviews on Edge of Tomorrow, it just goes to show what kind of box office poison Tom Cruise has become. How would this movie have done with a different actor in lead?

Thanks to the DBR folks, Edge of Tomorrow is top on my need-to-rent list.

[JasonEvans]

As long as we are talking about the best wide-release films of the summer...

There are 4 that really stood out to me. I walked out of each one of these and thought, "Wow, that was a really great film. I'm not sure I would have changed a thing." They are:

1. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
2. Edge of Tomorrow
3. X-Men: Day of Future Past
4. Cap 2

(I flip-flop #1 and #2 almost daily).

After those 4, it is such a gap to the next cluster of movies it almost feels unfair to say that something else is #5. I mean, #5 on my list (Guardians) is sooooo much worse than #4... and #6 (Godzilla... I think... or maybe Neighbors) is similarly a pretty big gap down from Guardians at #5. I feel like there are 4 films I would strongly recommend to anyone and then a few more that I would say are worth seeing. After that, at least among the big-budget summer blockbusters, I'd say to stay away!

Worth noting that I missed a few significant films this summer (Dragon 2, Maleficent, 22 Jump Street) so I feel like making a 10 best list is a fatally flawed thing for me at this point until I check the other contenders out at the dollar theater on on DVD. Plus, if I rank all the way down to #10, I would probably be forced to put Tammy or Spidey 2 on the list and that would be a truly painful thing.

-Jason "before I go, a shout-out to the remarkable Boyhood, which may have been long and not exactly super-compelling from a story standpoint, but which was a true filmmaking achievement and worthy of praise when considering lists like this" Evans

[Olympic Fan]

The thought of having to pick a top 10 based on this summer's movies leaves me a bit sick to my stomach. In fact, I think I just threw up in my mouth.

X-men? Planet of the Apes? Edge of Tomorrow in a top five?

Ugh.

Luckily, I was just perusing a preview of the fall movie lineup -- and, unlike the uninspiring summer of franchise reruns, there are some films on the list that have me excited.

I'm most excited about Rosewater (Nov. 7) -- directed by Jon Stewart. Decidedly not a comedy -- it's the story of Maziar Bahari, an Iranian journalist who as imprisoned and tortured for four months in 2009. His torturers cited his appearance on the Daily Show as evidence that he was in league with the United States!

Alejandro Inarrito's Birdman (Oct. 17) looks really good to me with Michael Keaton and Edward Norton ... so does Christopher Nolan's Interstellar (Nov. 7) with Matthew McConaughey (who ever thought he would mature into a great actor?) and Anne Hathaway. I'm a little leery of Anjelina Jolie as a director, but Unbroken (Christmas Day) is based on a great true story by Laura Hildebrand. Into the Woods (Christmas Day) should be the biggest musical since Chicago (Rob Marshall directed that one too) -- Sondheim is helping with the adaptation.

Crowded Christmas Day -- that's also the release date for Selma, the biopic of Martin Luther King. I'm probably more pumped to see John Ridley's biopic on Jimi Hendrix (Sept. 26). The buzz is that Andre Benjamin is a remarkable Hendrix. A third biopic worth watching -- The Theory of Everything (Nov. 7) about the young Stephen Hawking. And a fourth -- The Imitation Game with Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turning.

David Fincher turns the best-seller Gone Girl into a thriller with Ben Affleck ( I can see him much easier as the did-he-murder-his-wife husband than as Batman). Speaking of Batman, I'll also be interested to see what Ridley Scott does with his remake of The Ten Commandments -- Christian "Batman" Bale as a Moses?

So many others -- St. Vincent, The Judge (Robert Downey and Robert Duvall!), the WWII tank movie Fury, Pail Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice, Foxcatcher (with Steve Carell trying to pull off a non-comic role).

Not getting a lot of buzz, but I'll definitely see Mr. Turner -- the story of JMW Turner (my favorite all-time painter) and The Better Angels, a no-name cast in a story about Lincoln's childhood. And I might be tempted by the latest remake of Left Behind -- not because of the silly story ... but I've got to see Nicholas Cage as the pilot of a 747 at the moment of the rapture!

I'm not as hyped for franchise movies -- another Dumb and Dumber, another Horrible Bosses, the third Hunger Games, the next Hobbit movie, the next Night at the Museum (with Robin Williams in his final role).

I know that several of these will be disappointing, still the volume and range of potentially great movies has me thrilled. As terrible as the summer was for movie buffs, the fall looks great!

[Reisen]

I haven't seen Planet of the Apes yet, but both Edge of Tomorrow and Captain America 2 were really, really, really good.

X Men was just ok. I probably feel about it the way JE does about Guardians.

I thought the trailers for Neighbors looked absolutely hilarious, but did not like what I saw of the actual movie (we switched to Edge of Tomorrow after 30 minutes).

[JasonEvans]

A couple quick comments off of Oly's post...

Birdman is shot in a way to make it all look like one continuous take. I've seen that kind of thing in music videos and all movie buffs recall the wonder that was Alfonso Cuaron's one-take battle in Children of Men, but I can't recall a full movie that has done that. I think Birdman will either be a total wreck or a work of genius. A critic friend of mine recently said, "It will either revive Michael Keaton's career or send him permanently into 'direct-to-video' hell."

You really glossed over Foxcatcher. The buzz on that flick is HUGE. There are bookmakers online and in Europe who are making Channing Tatum and especially Steve Carrell favorites to get Oscar nominations. The film is considered a near-lock to get a best picture nomination.

Finally, St. Vincent is also getting tremendous buzz. Bill Murray has somehow only gotten 1 Oscar nomination in his career (Lost in Translation) and only 1 Golden Globe win (4 total Globe nominations). He will likely increase those totals this year thanks to St. Vincent... though the mid-Oct release date bothers me. I would rather see it with a late-Nov or Dec date if it really is an Oscar contender.

-Jason "oh, and Interstellar is going to be huge... remember I was the one telling all of you that Inception would be awesome a year before that one hit screens" Evans

[Udaman]

Hmmmmm....I saw my first preview for Interstellar and thought it looked awful (and it was a long, long trailer). It looked slow and also very much been there, done that (something bad is going to happen to the world, so we need to send up spaceships to find another place to live). I could be wrong, but my early inclination is that it will disappoint.

Looking forward to many of the other films on Olympic's list....but he short changes X-Men, Edge of Tomorrow and Planet of the Apes.

[Olympic Fan]

Birdman is shot in a way to make it all look like one continuous take. I've seen that kind of thing in music videos and all movie buffs recall the wonder that was Alfonso Cuaron's one-take battle in Children of Men, but I can't recall a full movie that has done that. I think Birdman will either be a total wreck or a work of genius. A critic friend of mine recently said, "It will either revive Michael Keaton's career or send him permanently into 'direct-to-video' hell."

Alfred Hitchcock did it in 1958 -- in Rope.

He was restricted by the technology of the day. With no digital cameras or the like, he had to film in 10-minute (or less) segments (the longest tape segments that could be loaded into a camera). He covered the stoppages by focusing on a dark object for an instant. I think I remember that the 80-minute film was shot in 10 takes -- but to the viewer it's one, long continuous take.

Not a great movie -- more of a stunt -- but it was a remarkable technical achievement.