2016's Enormous Breakout Hits

[cannastop]

Done in the style of @MCKillswitch123's Box office Stories threads, but focusing more on the surprisingly big movies this year.

 

2016 is an insane year at the box office. Heading into the holiday season, there are no movies that have made $200m-$300m dom. However, even before the year has ended, there are 8 $300m+ dom movies, breaking the previous record of 6 in 2015. All but 2 of these movies (Cap3 and BvS) were unexpectedly huge in some way, so let me recount them.

 

Totals current as of September 26, 2016

 

1. Deadpool: $363 dom.

 

This opening weekend of $132m just blew every prediction out of the water. The movie inexplicably reached a mass audience with a character that I thought only nerds knew, and with an R rating. This can truly be called a Black Swan event.

 

2. Zootopia. $341m dom.

 

There were cheerleaders for this movie before it came out, but almost no one thought that it would have a 4.55X multiplier from a $75m opening weekend. Currently, it still has the 7th biggest fifth weekend and the 8th biggest sixth weekend in box office history. It flew over $300m with amazing late legs in April and May as well.

 

3. The Jungle Book. $364m dom

 

The opening weekend of $103m took everyone by surprise. I personally thought that after Zootopia broke out, it would be too much to expect another Disney movie to do it again, but I was enormously wrong. It even managed to one-up Deadpool in the end! It also has the 6th biggest third weekend.

 

4. Finding Dory. $484 dom

 

A great opening weekend of $135m was just the start. It has the 5th biggest non-Holiday Monday ever, and the 4th biggest non-opening Tuesday ever. Some were disappointed that it didn't get to $500m dom, but it's still the #1 movie of the year so far, and the 7th biggest domestic movie ever.

 

5. The Secret Life of Pets. $364 dom.

 

Not only was its opening weekend of $104.3m unexpectedly huge, it also topped the biggest breakouts of the year, Deadpool and The Jungle Book. Many people doubted its rise, and to be honest, I hoped that it wouldn't pass my pet movie, Zootopia. But I also knew that my feelings would have nothing to do with it, and SLOP beat down every arbitrary ceiling people had for Illumination Entertainment, and it's now #3 in domestic movies for 2016.

 

6. Suicide Squad. $318m dom.

 

After ridiculing Suicide Squad for its opening Saturday gross, many people, including me, speculated that it would collapse spectacularly in the next weeks. It didn't. Even with a terrible reception on Rotten Tomatoes, people saw this movie anyways. Its opening weekend, $133.7m, was bigger than Deadpool's and the ending total came surprisingly close to BvS's. This did amazingly well for a movie that has "Suicide" in the title.

 

_______________________________________

 

So what now? Do we view $300m dom as the new normal? Or do we just chalk this year up as being weird, and something we won't see again in quite a while? I'm not sure than the coming years will be able to top this one in terms of surprises.

Edited September 26, 2016 by cannastop

[Eric is Quiet]

The thing that's interesting is that 2015 was kind of a precursor to this; The only movies that ended their run at $200M were Mockingjay Pt. 2, Martian, Cinderella, and Spectre, and the latter two had some fudge in their numbers, so it's debatable if they truly count. I guess in today's world of rising ticket prices and shorter theater-to-ancillary windows, so this will likely be the new norm.

 

I'm almost guaranteed that next year will be a repeat. Even the movies that I currently predict will be in the $200M range (Lego Batman, Kong, Fast 8, Apes, Dunkirk, Ninjago, Thor, Coco) I have a strong suspicion will fall below or rise above that range.

[MCKillswitch123]

Aww, inspiration on me, muchas gracias.

Gotta say, though: I would say that Bad Moms and Don't Breathe are close to as insane breakouts as those, because who the fuck forecast both doing as well as they did? BM w/a 4x multiplier, DB closing in on 100M DOM... damn.

 

[cannastop]

7 hours ago, MCKillswitch123 said:

Aww, inspiration on me, muchas gracias.

Gotta say, though: I would say that Bad Moms and Don't Breathe are close to as insane breakouts as those, because who the fuck forecast both doing as well as they did? BM w/a 4x multiplier, DB closing in on 100M DOM... damn.

 

Well, I wanted to focus on the really big movies this year. Perhaps my lack of appreciation for midsize hits will doom the movie industry.