This graph shows Taron Egerton’s score on our annual analysis of leading stars at the box office. The Star Score represents points assigned to each of the leading stars of the top 100 movies (based on box office) in the current year and two preceding years. For appearing in the number one movie in a year a star gets 100 points, the number two movie 99 points and so on..
Latest Ranking on Selected Box Office Record Lists
Some major movies hit streaming services this week, with Fantastic Mr. Fox debuting on Disney+, and Rocketman coming out on multiple services. I highly recommend both. There is also some original fair and some smaller releases that likely slipped beneath most people’s radar. Of these, The Lovebirds is the film I’m looking forward to the most. It was supposed to be a wide release in April, but it was one of the films affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, and was picked up by Netflix.
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The Golden Globes winners were announced on Sunday and we have some interesting developments for the rest of Awards Season. 1917 wasn’t considered a front-runner with five films earning more nominations. However, after this result, it might be the front-runner to become the big winner on Oscar night.
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The Screen Actors Guild announced their nominations this week and we are starting to see some patterns with similar names appearing over and over again. This time Bombshell led the way, earning four nominations, but four other films earned two or more nominations.
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The Golden Globes nominations are the second major Awards Season set to come out. It is still very early in the year and the predictive value of the Golden Globes is a little suspect, but there are still some things to learn here. (This is especially true on the TV end, as there’s talk about how strange the nominations are this year.) Marriage Story led the way with six nominations, just ahead of The Irishman and Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, both of which picked up five nods.
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October continued 2018’s phenomenal box office run, for the most part. There were a couple of films that missed expectations by $10 million or more, but on the other hand, Vemon and Halloween were smash hits and are now the first and second biggest October debuts of all time. Furthermore, 2018’s lead over 2017 is, as I’m writing this, just shy of $1 billion and if 2018 can maintain this lead, it will be one of the biggest year-over-year increases of all time. It won’t. The fun times end now. Why is that? Last November was amazing. There were only eight wide releases, but six of them earned more than $100 million. Three of those hit $200 million, including Thor: Ragnarok, which earned over $300 million. This year, there are a lot more movies opening in November, but it is a case of quantity over quality. No movie is expected to come close to $300 million and it would take a bit of luck just to have five $100 million hits. The film I’m looking forward to the most is Ralph Breaks the Internet, while it, Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch, and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald are all aiming for $200 million this month. Fortunately, even if 2018 is behind 2017’s pace by around $300 million, 2018 has built up such a large lead that it should still go into December with an insurmountable lead at the box office.
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As bad as July was, August actually managed to be worse. 2017 was over $300 million behind 2016’s pace during August alone. That’s worse than the rest of the summer combined. The only film that was an unqualified hit was Annabelle: Creation, although there were a couple of other films that are doing well enough to be considered financial hits. There’s some good news and some bad news for this September. The month gets off to a slow start with no wide releases the first weekend, but there are three films opening during the rest of the month that are expected to top $100 million and all three should be better than the best August had to offer. It is expected to be the biggest hit of the month and is tracking to break the record for the biggest September weekend. Both Kingsman: The Golden Circle and The Lego Ninjago Movie are expected to cross $100 million, although they are opening the same weekend, so that could hurt both of their chances. Meanwhile last September, Sully was the biggest release of the month earning $125.07 million. It should top that, while Kingsman: The Golden Circle and The Lego Ninjago Movie won’t be too far behind. 2017 should cut the gap with 2016, but sadly only by a little bit.
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Sing was the last big animated film released in 2016 and it was a good year for animated films. Both Zootopia and Finding Dory earned stunnign reviews and more than $1 billion worldwide. Sing couldn’t compete with those box office numbers, but is it at least close in terms of quality?
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November was good, but not great. Fortunately, 2016 had a large enough lead going into November that the month only needed to be good. In fact, it could have been mediocre and 2016 would have still had an excellent shot to end the year above 2015. As for December, it’s a race between Star Wars and Star Wars. Almost no one thinks Rogue One is going to match The Force Awakens, but if Rogue One earns just half of what The Force Awakens managed, then 2016 will come out on top in the year-over-year comparison. There are only two other films with a better than 50/50 chance of hitting $100 million, Passengers and Sing. Either one could earn second place for the month, but Passengers will likely start faster. Last December, the only other film to earn more than $100 million was Daddy’s Home, which earned just a hair over $150 million. There’s a chance both Passengers and Sing will earn more than $150 million, which would be a boon to the box office. However, Star Wars: The Force Awakens was just too strong last year and it would take a miracle for 2016 to have a stronger December. That said, it would take a complete collapse for 2016 not to top 2015 in raw dollars. The growth might not be enough to keep pace with ticket price inflation, on the other hand.
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As expected, January was dominated by holdovers with Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Revenant leading the way. That's not to say there were no new releases that did well, as Ride Along 2 and Kung Fu Panda 3 were hits with moviegoers. Looking forward, there is only one film that looks like a sure hit, Deadpool. There's a slim chance it could be a surprise $200 million hit. There's a much better chance it will be the only $100 million hit. Conversely, last February started with a $100 million hit coming out, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, while there were two other $100 million movies to come out that month, Fifty Shades of Grey and Kingsman: The Secret Service. Looks like 2016 is going to lose in the year-over-year comparison.
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The BAFTA nominations were announced and you can read them on their site... in alphabetical order. Alphabetical order is very useful in most circumstances, but not here. On the other hand, the nominees within each category are not presented in alphabetical order. ... Are the BAFTAs trolling us? As for the actual nominees, the big winners here are Bridge of Spies and Carol, both of which earned nine nominations. For Carol, this is just another impressive score, but this was a pleasant surprise for Bridge of Spies.
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Kingsman: The Secret Service is based on a comic book co-created by Mark Millar, who previously created the Kick-Ass comic book series. (On a side note, apparently there is a Hit Girl prequel comic book in the works and if that does well, there might be a Kick-Ass 3 movie that focuses more on Hit Girl. She was definitely the best part of the second movie.) It was a February release, so expectations were good, but not great. However, the film managed more than $125 million domestically and $400 million worldwide. That's fantastic. Is it as good as its box office numbers? Or did it thrive thanks to terrible competition?
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It was a record-breaking January thanks entirely to American Sniper, which set records, both during its limited release run and especially when it expanded wide. There were a couple of other films that did well, but for the most part, it was a typical January. The question is, will American Sniper boost the overall box office, which would help February, or will its effects fade as it does? There are ten wide releases in February; there are a few films that may or may not open in the top ten. Of these, there are only two that have a real shot at true box office success. The biggest film in terms of buzz is Fifty Shades of Grey, which looks so, so bad. Personally, I would rather watch The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water a hundred times than sit through just the trailer for Fifty Shades of Grey. If Fifty Shades of Grey becomes the biggest hit of the month, it will mrean the end of civilization. Because. I. Will. End. Civilization. Last February was mostly mediocre, except for The LEGO Movie which was a huge early year hit. There's no chance any film opening this month will match The LEGO Movie; the top two films likely won't match The LEGO Movie. Because of this, 2015 will need to rely on depth to come out ahead. I'm not sure how likely that will be.
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