I am a huge movie fan. HUGE! I see quite a bit of movies throughout the year both in the theater, rented through Redbox, or via different streaming services. I have Diamond Status for Regal Cinema’s Crown Club (20+ visits per year), Top Brass Status for the Alamo Drafthouse’s Victory Program (50+ visits), and hold Legend Status with Redbox (50+ rentals per calendar year). So, yes, I see a lot of movies and television shows as well. I think about my progression of media throughout my life starting with books (I was a voracious reader when I was younger), going to movies, and then TV shows. It’s a thing.
This last year I finally signed up for Movie Pass (MP), although it was probably too late to get all the benefits of seeing the movie more than once or getting to see exactly what I want. Using MP I saw quite a few movies for free. And since you can use MP in conjunction with the various loyalty programs offered by theaters, I gain points for free concessions or more free movies. That’s probably one of the very few reasons I keep my MP subscription going even though they’ve made it more and more difficult to use it.
For this post, I wanted to take a look at the Domestic 2018 Box Office Gross results. Of the list of movies released into theaters in 2018, I saw roughly 18% of them. This initially seemed a bit low to me, but then you have to consider that there were over 440 movies released based on the box office result provided by The Numbers. Of the Top 100 movies, I saw 64% of them, and 40% of the top 200 movies. Unfortunately I don’t have a breakdown of how many I saw in theaters versus rented or watched on HBO, Netflix, etc., but that is something I want to keep a record of starting this year.
So let’s break these box office results, shall we?
Above you can see the Top 20 Grossing movies in the United States for 2018. I saw all but two of those movies: A STAR IS BORN and DR, SEUSS’ THE GRINCH. I tend to love most movies and most genres, so trying to pick the ones from this particular list would be extremely difficult. For sure I loved INFINITY WAR, and I simply can not wait for the sequel when it’s released later this year. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: FALLOUT was also very, very good. The last 30 minutes or so of that movie are just bug nuts crazy. If you’re not making a dent in the arms of the chair you’re sitting in with your fingernails as that movies wraps up, there might be something wrong with you. VENOM was a movie that extraordinarily terrible, and yet it was very good at being that bad. I actually did really like it! THE MEG was also enjoyable and probably didn’t fall onto many people’s radar despite the box office. All of these movies were fun and enjoyable to watch.
In this above table, we have the domestic gross broken up by Genre. No surprise that action movies took the lead followed by adventure stories. These types of movies tend to appeal to the type of escapism and hyper-reality that most audiences want to watch. It feels good to be able to spend approximately two hours of their time watching something that helps take them out of their otherwise mundane lives (okay, that’s just me projecting now).
The above table lets you break out each genre, and I wanted to make a few comments on some of the movies for a few of those genres. The Numbers sets the genre in their table, and I made no adjustments to those. However, I would argue that many of the movies in the Action list could also be considered Adventure movies or vice versa.
Action
Like:
- BLACK PANTHER – audiences really loved this movie as did I. I really can’t wait to see the sequel (spoiler!).
- INFINITY WAR – I recently watched this again on Netflix, and that Spider-Man scene at the end of the movie still gets me. A 2.5 hour movie that doesn’t feel like 2.5 hours.
- DEADPOOL 2 – I didn’t get a chance to see the newly PG-13 rated ONCE UPON A DEADPOOL (which counts into this box office), but the R-rated version was plenty fun for me.
- MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: FALLOUT
- VENOM
Dislike:
- RAMPAGE – fell asleep both in the theater and when I watched it on Redbox later
- THE EQUALIZER 2 – I didn’t quite understand what was going on when I saw it in the theater, and when I saw it again on Redbox, I didn’t really see the point of it
- THE PREDATOR – terrible, terrible movie which was frustrating because I generally love Shane Black who wrote and directed the movie
- MORTAL ENGINES – the orchestral soundtrack was great, but not much else
- DEATH WISH – like THE EQUALIZER, there wasn’t much going on with this one that felt it was warranted.
Under the Radar Faves:
- PEPPERMINT – hey, I’m a huge fan of Sydney Bristow…I mean, Jennifer Gardner
- OVERLORD – more a war movie than it was a zombie-type movie, but I can see how general audiences might be fed up with zombies at this point
- THE COMMUTER – I always love Liam Neeson
Adventure
Like:
- THE INCREDIBLES 2 – this was well worth the wait and definitely worthy of the original. The Jack Jack vs. Raccoon fight was an instant classic!
- SOLO – Hampered by so many production issues including the original directors getting dumped near the end of the production vexed this movie. But it’s STAR WARS, and it was really, really good. The character reveal at the end was tremendous and showed Disney’s willingness to meld the animated television shows with the movies.
- SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE – this could very well be the movie of the year. It has everything…character growth, humor, emotion, dialogue, just everything. The animation is a little unnerving when you first watch, but you get used to it as you go along…or at least I did.
Dislike:
- FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD – I really didn’t like the first movie, but I should have at least watched it again before seeing this one. So much going on that I didn’t remember. However, this movie is over 2 hours long and yet only the last 15-20 minutes (not including credits) really matter as they tie-in to the HARRY POTTER series.
- A WRINKLE IN TIME – this might be a little controversial, but I hated this movie. Boring, terrible dialogue and motivations.
Under the Radar Faves:
- TEEN TITANS GO TO THE MOVIES – I’ve never watched the television series for this, but I do know the characters at least. The movie is very meta and takes quite a bit of pot shots at the superhero genre, but it’s cute and fun.
Comedy/Musical
Like:
- GAME NIGHT – This one came out earlier in the year and was a clear favorite for me. Extremely funny (the Denzel Washington impression in the middle of the movie had me rolling) and engaging!
- CRAZY RICH ASIANS – another good movie that came out in the last couple of weeks of the summer. I wasn’t actually familiar with many of the actors. And hey, who doesn’t wish they could be just that freaking rich.
- MARY POPPINS RETURNS – I mentioned this on Facebook, but, while fun and light, I felt that this movie was more about Jack the Lamp Lighter played by Lin-Manuel Miranda than it was a Mary Poppins movie.
Dislike:
- Just about everything else in this genre. Sorry, not sorry!
Under the Radar Faves:
- SORRY TO BOTHER YOU – the less said about the plot of this movie the better. Thankfully the trailers don’t reveal much, but this movie is bat-shit crazy in a good way. However, I know that this one is definitely not the type of movie that most people would pay to see, unfortunately.
Documentary
Like:
- WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR? – I dare you to watch this one and not be reaching for the tissues within the first few minutes of the movie. When I saw it at the Drafthouse back in June, they were actually handing out packages of tissue paper that plenty of people were using while watching.
- THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS – this one gets dark and mysterious and really downright creepy considering that it’s a true story.
I wish I had seen (so no commentary):
- FREE SOLO
- RBG
Drama/Thriller/Suspense
Like:
- BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY – not factually correct but extremely enjoyable; I immediately sought out footage of their Live Aid performance on YouTube and listened to it several times.
- CREED 2
- A SIMPLE FAVOR – saw this on video recently, and it’s so much fun.
- BLACKKKLANSMEN
- WIDOWS
Under the Radar Faves:
- ANNIHILATION – such an odd movie with so much going on, but it’s definitely a very thoughtful movie.
- BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE – I really like these oddball movies with disparate story lines that all meet up in the end
- UPGRADE – insanity!!
- THE ENDLESS – watch this movie and let me know if you understand what the heck was going on
- THE FAVOURITE – that ending!
Horror
Like:
- A QUIET PLACE
- HEREDITARY
- SUSPIRIA
The above table shows the domestic gross by distributor. Disney was far and away the leader here since they had three Marvel releases as well as SOLO and THE INCREDIBLES 2. The below table lets you see the Top 10 Movies by Distributor if you’d like to see how that is broken out.
These last two graphics give you an idea of the box office results per quarter and per month. Keep in mind that this is based on release date. For instance, JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM was released the last week of June so all of it’s box office results show in second quarter and in June when in reality most of its box office take probably occurred in July. The same for AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR that was released in April and went on through May.
So that’s it for 2018. There’s so much more to look for in 2019, and there will more than likely be a different post on that in the next few days especially before my most anticipated movie of the year is released next week…a little movie called GLASS!!!