The sky is falling at the summer box office, and it’s not even officially summer yet.
Hollywood’s bummer summer started at the top of May when “The Fall Guy,” the highly touted action comedy starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, opened to a soft $27.7 million, well below projections. That kicked off a month of disappointing returns, which was capped last weekend when “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” and “The Garfield Movie” combined for the worst Memorial Day box office frame since “Casper” opened in theaters in 1995, when Christina Ricci was still only 15 years old.
Things weren’t any better this weekend, with the new releases led by the dismal Diane Keaton comedy “Summer Camp.” And it looks like “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” (opening Friday) and “Inside Out 2” (set to open June 14) will have a lot of heavy lifting to do before Gru and Deadpool arrive and try to straighten things out in July.
The question everyone in the movie industry wants to know the answer to is, “what happened?” There is no one answer, there are a combination of factors, and there’s no quick fix. And things might get worse before they get better, if they ever get as good as they once were again.
Yes, there will be hits again, and “Deadpool &Wolverine,” due out July 26, is as close to a sure thing as there is this summer. It’s the only Marvel movie opening this year, and while Marvel has had its follies over the last few years, “Deadpool” is a proven entity and the circumstances of Ryan Reynolds’ character reteaming with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine should combine to make it a massive hit. Probably.
But sure things just aren’t so sure anymore, and that’s the lesson Hollywood is learning, one painful weekend at a time.
So what happened? Here are a few things that occurred over the last few years that made this the summer Hollywood would rather forget:
• The strike: Ah, remember the dual strikes last year? Hollywood’s writers and actors strikes, which lasted five months and four months, respectively, slowed down Hollywood’s production pipeline and impacted the summer slate of offerings. That’s partially why it’s a weak summer to begin with, and why unproven entities such as a TV show reboot (“The Fall Guy”) and a “Mad Max” prequel were asked to shoulder the weight of the May box office.
• Streaming: If you didn’t see “The Fall Guy” in theaters, you can watch it at home. Right now. There used to be a monthslong wait between when a movie opened in theaters and when it was available to watch at home, but that window has been shortened to, in many situations, 17 days. So if you want to see a movie but would rather watch it at home, you’re incentivized to just wait a few weeks and bam, you can pop your own popcorn and watch it from the comfort of your couch. Theatrical purists will always go to the theater, but some people just want to watch a movie, and they can now do so from home more easily than ever.
• Other entertainment options: Movies are far from the only game in town: There are the streaming services we all subscribe to way too many of and pay way too much money for, We’ve become scrolling zombies, and there’s no scrolling at the movies.