The Summer Blockbuster season is already in full swing and we have just started out and we still have a Summer full of hotly anticipated films.
But with boxoffice being easier to rake in with inflation and adjusted costs the record holders become a little blurry so Hollywood.com has compiled a list of the biggest Boxoffice draws for Summer Blockbusters and how they rank with their ticket inflation adjusted peers.
Now remember, this is comparing JUST “Summer” films (May-August)
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#10 – The Lion King Oh the Golden Age of Disney Animation. Lion King was an absolute wonder and while Disney was always known for churning out the delightful animated feature films, this was easily one of the most impacting and broad scoped animated masterpieces that was amazing to look at, catchy as hell music, and a great story. Mufasa’s death made me cry. I was crying over a cartoon. And it deserved every emotional reaction it got. |
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#9 – Forrest Gump Another one of the very few movies to make me cry. And its hard to resist the charm of this truly simple man’s life journey that has him trapsing through some of the most notable moments in history and personal windfalls. Word of mouth alone would have raked in this much attendance. |
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#8 – Star Wars: The Phantom Menace I still enjoy the Phantom Menace and I don’t see the prequels as such a blight as many passionate fans do. But you cannot deny the blue balls the fans suffered after a sixteen year absence on the big screen (not counting Special Edition re-releases). But I don’t recall anyone bashing it that summer. It seemed that it had to sink in before anyone decided to hate it. And the boxoffice reflects my five theatrical helpings as well as others, but also interesting to note that none of the other Prequels make this list. |
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#7 – Jurassic Park Just one look at these dinosaurs on a rampage in the trailer was enough to get me to the theater multiple times. Easily the most successful film that manages to bastardize the novel its based on and STILL manage not to piss off its fanbase. I have watched this so many times and enjoyed every moment that reading the book is difficult with the film running commentary in the back of my head. |
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#6 – Raiders of the Lost Ark Movie patrons were already in love with the sassy snark of one Harrison Ford and while Indiana has some common threads with his space faring counterpart in Star Wars, this pulp adventure had people lining up. And it melts Nazis. |
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#5 – Star Wars: Return of the Jedi People just couldn’t resist seeing this film to see how the story was going to resolve. No bigger fictional scandal has ever been heard than the debates about whether Vader was Luke’s father, or was it some sort of devious plot to win over young Skywalker? Then the promise of massive battles and action sends out this Trilogy on a high note. Yub yub! |
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#4 – Star Wars: Ethe Empire Strikes Back Easily the most dramatic and serious of all the installments in the Star Wars films, this sequel to the film that changed the landscape for Summer Blockbusters showed that it wasn’t just adventure and aliens in Star Wars. The first film had some dark tones but they went hardcore in the biggest film where the good guys loose. This is the heart of Star Wars for me. |
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#3 – Jaws This is a film that doesn’t play out with the same action and smash as typical summer blockbusters, but the movie does go out with a bang. Spawning two sequels that never lived up to the suspense and drama of the first film, they needed a bigger boat to carry off this inflation adjusted haul. This film is credited with starting the “Summer Blockbuster” trend as studios lined up their biggest popcorn films in the summer months trying to duplicate this film’s success. |
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#2 – E.T. The Extra Terrestrial This movie charmed the heart and soul out of its audiences and captivated the wonder of a child and the fantastic adventure of science fiction. It was the first film I recalled being re-released in theaters doesn’t hurt its ranking here. It also holds the record for the WORST video game adaptation of a film with Atari’s 2600 console version that has the monosylabic alien uninspiringly fetching parts to a phone so he can “call home”. |
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#1 – Star Wars: A New Hope It wasn’t known as A New Hope officially when this first came out, but when my babysitter refused to miss out on the opportunity to see this because his parents volun-told him he was watching a nearly five year old me, he dragged me along. My life was forever changed. And even though the theatrical re-release of this also padded the result, A New Hope still remains my all time favourite film for a hundred reasons. |
Clearly being a massive Star Wars fan, I am happy to see four entries on this list from that franchise.
However I also find it very interesting that the “youngest” film on this list is over ten years old – The Phantom Menace, and while 16 years of anticipation of the prequel story had a LOT to do with its boxoffice attendance, if we overlook that its still five years earlier that we got a summer chart topper.
Why haven’t more summer films of the last decade competed with these numbers?
Could it be the advent and improvement of home theater? Rising ticket prices?
And on that same note, will the padded boxoffice of premium priced 3D films affect this list much? Avatar buried the overall boxoffice leader Titanic even if you do remove the increased ticket cost for 3D but not inflation.
With Hollywood anticipating its fourth $4Billion summer in a row this year, why are there not more recent films in this inflation adjusted list?
