The success of Wonder Woman is representative of the growing trend of smarter, better Hollywood blockbusters. Photo / supplied
The success of Wonder Woman is representative of the growing trend of smarter, better Hollywood blockbusters. Photo / supplied
By Kristen Page-Kirby
Ugh, Minions, must you screw up everything?
Now that summer is unofficially over and the autumn movie slump is upon us, it's a good time to take a look back and see what the blockbuster season was like, because otherwise some people wouldn't have anything to write about.
Summer has often gotten a bad rap when it comes to movie quality: "blockbuster" and "tentpole" have become sneering value judgments rather than simple descriptors. So it was a pleasant surprise to look back and realize that most of this summer's top-grossing movies were, of all things, smart.
Out of the top five, four of them - Wonder Woman, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Dunkirk - were great, and the first three weren't just great superhero movies, they were great overall. (Despicable Me 3 snuck in at No. 4, I'm assuming because sometimes you just need to throw the school-less kids in some air conditioning, both to prevent heatstroke and to stop them from taking annoying to new and dangerous levels.)
As you go further down the list, the trend continues with more high-quality hits. War for the Planet of the Apes came in at 8; Girls Trip was 10. Baby Driver was 11. Atomic Blonde kick-punched its way to 19. And The Big Sick, a sharp, sweet indie rom-com that cost a reported $5 million to make, came in 25th, with an absolutely staggering take of over $39 million in domestic sales alone. In contrast, Wonder Woman, the summer's box office champ, pulled in less than three times its $150 million budget domestically.
There were stinkers among the top grossers, of course (people, please stop seeing Pirates of the Caribbean movies; it's the only way they'll stop making them). But this summer was, by and large, a smart season. In comparison, last summer's top 10 had the very good Finding Dory and Captain America: Civil War at 1 and 2, but the quality dropped off fast after that with The Secret Life of Pets, Suicide Squad and Jason Bourne rounding out the top five.
Summer used to be easy for studios: They assumed people were looking for big, dumb fun. Maybe some aliens, some explosions, a little PG-13 nudity and watch the money roll in. That is, thankfully, no longer true. Part of it is that with so many more movie-watching options available, people aren't going to leave the house to pay $12 to see something trite and loud.
Critically-maligned films such as Suicide Squad lead the 2016 summer season. Photo / supplied
I think, though, that audiences have largely become more discerning - and less forgiving. As the quality of blockbusters has increased, audiences have became less willing to overlook shabbiness because something is "just an action movie" or "just a superhero movie." Spandex used to cover a multitude of writing, acting and directing sins, and that's no longer the case.
It is a chicken-and-egg situation: Are studios making better big-budget movies because audiences expect them, or do audiences expect better big-budget movies because the studios started making them? However it began, let's hope it continues. Just because school is out, it doesn't mean audiences need to leave their brains at the multiplex door.
DID YOU KNOW...
Samuel L. Jackson swears a total of 122 times throughout The Hitman's Bodyguard - that's more than one swear word per minute of the film's 118 minute run time.
