The 2019 summer box office has been all great news for Disney and mostly disappointing for every other studio. Would-be blockbusters keep underwhelming if not flat-out flopping, and "counter-programming" options haven't taken off as hoped.
It's not any surprise that Avengers: Endgame dominated the summer. Aladdin's massive box office was a bit more surprising, given the visceral horror of that first Will Smith Genie reveal, but three weeks into its run, it's the season's second biggest hit at the U.S. box office. With Toy Story 4, The Lion King and Spider-Man: Far From Home (not released by Disney but still produced by its Marvel Studios) all guaranteed to be huge successes, Disney's box office dominance is assured.
Nothing else this summer has even come close to Aladdin's $235 million domestic gross, let alone Endgame's $825 million. As of writing, only two films have even come within $100 million of Aladdin's total.
One of those films, Lionsgate's John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, is one of this year's rare unqualified box office success stories. The mid-budget John Wick series has grown in popularity with each new film as people discovered the original through word of mouth and cable showings. The third film surpassed the whole gross of the second in just 10 days and will continue to add to its $139 million total.
Just behind Wick on the box office charts is Warner Bros.' Pokemon: Detective Pikachu. $138 million in the U.S. is a modest success, and having surpassed $400 million worldwide, the $150 million budget film will end up profitable. However, given the online enthusiasm for the film's marketing and the enduring love for Pokemon, many were expecting Detective Pikachu to end up being a much bigger deal than it was.
Universal's The Secret Life of Pets 2 is also likely to make a profit given its relatively modest $80 million budget, but being the first Illumination film since Hop to open under $50 million has to be somewhat disappointing. More disappointing are the results for Warner Bros.' Godzilla: King of the Monsters. It's one thing to open smaller than previous MonsterVerse films, but its 67.7% second weekend drop is even worse than the 2014 Godzilla's 66.8% drop from a way larger opening.
On the absolute low end, there's Dark Phoenix. The last Fox X-Men film made before the Disney purchase has flat-out bombed and won't even make it to the $100 million mark stateside on a $200 million budget. Given its bland marketing and dreadful reviews, it seems likely Sony's Men in Black: International will end up yet another summer flop.
It would be one thing if all these giant releases disappointing led to audiences seeking out alternative fare in theaters. So far, however, the summer's counter-programming hasn't been doing spectacularly either.
A funny, edgy, diverse original comedy with 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, United Artists' Booksmart is everything audiences say they want more of, but hardly anyone's actually seeing it in theaters. Lionsgate's Seth Rogen-Charlize Theron romcom Long Shot also flopped despite good reviews. Paramount's Rocketman is doing better and will make a profit, but the R-rated musical biopic is unlikely to reach even half of Bohemian Rhapsody's gross despite far better reviews.
So, are any upcoming summer films not made by Disney likely to be financial hits? Well, there's one that's almost certain to: Hobbs & Shaw, the Fast & Furious spinoff. The last four films in the main series all surpassed $200 million domestic and the last two surpassed $1 billion worldwide. Universal has had the best box office luck this year aside from Disney, with the likes of How to Train Your Dragon 3, Us and Glass all doing big business. David Lietch, the co-director of John Wick and director of Deadpool 2, seems poised to have a hit on his hands with this Dwayne Johnson-Jason Statham buddy flick.
Sony's spent $100 million on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the ninth film from Quentin Tarantino. Having received rave reviews out of Cannes, this is certain to be the biggest event film of the year for a certain type of moviegoer. The question is how much wider is its appeal? Leonardo DiCaprio has been one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, but this is his first film since 2015. The trailers look fun but have kept the plot vague. Furthermore, Tarantino's always courting controversy, and it's always possible he could go too far. One can just as easily imagine Once Upon a Time in Hollywood being a hit as being a flop.
Horror's the most successful genre at the box office aside from superheroes and kids' animation, so it's possible some of the many horror films arriving this summer end up being surprise blockbusters. On the franchise side of things, Annabelle Comes Home and Child's Play will challenge each other in the scary doll arena. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark seems like it might have the right combination of spooky imagery, PG-13 accessibility and Guillermo Del Toro-based prestige to be a sleeper hit if the reviews are strong. Midsommar will probably do well by the standards of indie distributor A24, but will it hold wider appeal that Ari Aster's previous film Hereditary? The alligator film Crawl could also be one to watch.
One of the big questions is if any comedies this summer will end up hits. Late Night did great in limited release, so we'll see how it fares when going wide. The hard-R middle school comedy Good Boys got mostly good reviews out of South by Southwest. Reviews have been more mixed on Stuber and Yesterday, but the former has an appealing lead duo in Kumail Nanjiani and Dave Bautista, and the latter has the killer high concept premise of what if only one man remembered The Beatles. The trailers for all three films tend to get laughs when they play in theaters, but do people still go to see comedies in theaters or was Booksmart's theatrical failure an omen that audiences prefer to watch them on Netflix?
Also, The Angry Birds Movie 2 is coming out. Did anyone want it? Maybe not, but it wouldn't be that shocking if people went to see it anyway.