The Hollywood Reporter has a piece up highlighting the fact that Wonder Woman has had a really solid hold at the box office:
That also means Wonder Woman will earn roughly 3.8 times the $103.3 million it collected when it launched over the June 2-4 weekend — the best multiple for the genre in decades. Currently, the film's multiple is 3.6, slightly ahead of the first Spider-Man in 2002. The first Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) was also a word-of-mouth sensation, sporting a 3.5 multiple, while Nolan's sequel, The Dark Knight (2008), powered to a 3.4 multiple.
There are a couple of reasons for this mentioned in the piece—critics and audiences alike love it! Girl power! Etc.—but allow me to suggest another one: This summer has sucked, and hard.
I mean, seriously. Look at the movies that have opened since Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 debuted in early May:
- Chav King Arthur, which sucked, opened extremely poorly, and dropped off the face of the planet within weeks;
- That same weekend saw Snatched open, poorly, and hold equally poorly (I haven't seen it, but consensus seems to be that it sucked);
- Alien Covenant, which I liked but audiences seemed to think sucked, opened relatively poorly, and dropped off the face of the planet within weeks;
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Oh My God Why Was This Made, which sucked, opened relatively poorly, and dropped like a stone thereafter;
- The same weekend as POTC:DMOMGWWTM opened saw Baywatch, which sucked, open, poorly, and hold equally poorly.
Then Wonder Woman opens, bigly (because audiences were starved for something decent), and holds, bigly, in part, I would argue, because of what followed:
- The Mummy, which sucked, opened disastrously and sank like a stone;
- Rough Night, which (apparently) sucked, opened disastrously, and might not make its ad budget back;
- Transformers: The Last Knight, which both sucked and was amazing, opened relatively poorly and sank like a stone;
- Baby Driver, which was actually good and opened (relatively, for a low-budget, R-rated action movie) well, but for reasons of rating and genre had a relatively limited audience;
- And, finally, Spider-Man: Homecoming, which opened huge and will likely hold well, if its A Cinemascore is any indication.
I hate to beat a dead horse or whatever, but seriously, guys: This summer has REALLY SUCKED. It's not super-surprising that the one non-sucky movie to come out in a two month stretch not only opened huge, it also held pretty well.
Now, the obvious rejoinder to this is, "Yes, Sonny, but summers often have many bad movies." And that's true, kinda! Summer has been a wasteland for a long time. Last year saw Captain America: Civil War followed by a bunch of crap, with Finding Dory rising to the top of the heap. 2015 was a better, more-evenly-distributed season: Mad Max, Spy, Jurassic World, Inside Out, Ant-Man, Trainwreck, Mission:Impossible — Rogue Nation. Still, I feel like this year, in particular, has been a real raging dumpster fire.
Anyway. I'm glad summer is winding up. New Christopher Nolan movie next week! We're hitting awards season soon! The doldrums, they are breaking.