If not for the superhero movies this summer would have been a domestic disaster. As of yesterday, the total domestic grosses of the 2017 summer slate is around $3.081 billion between May 5, 2017 and Aug. 6, 2017. And about $1.083b, or 35% of that came from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Wonder Woman and Spider-Man: Homecoming. Tossing in Dunkirk, Despicable Me 3 and Pirates 5 gets you another $545m, which makes the top six movies (yes, Dunkirk will eventually pass Cars 3) responsible for 52% of the entire domestic box office from the beginning of May to the beginning of August. If you take those three comic book movies out of the equation, you get a running domestic total of just under $2b thus far, and I don’t think the August slate is going to add much to the equation between now and Labor Day....
But now, audiences have fully embraced the at-home options (Netflix, VOD, cable, etc.). If audiences want to see a specific movie in theaters, they will go. If they don’t want to see a given release in theaters, they will no longer go to the movies just to go to the movies, opting instead to binge-watch a buzzy episodic series, watch a previous incarnation of a rebooted franchise or catch up on earlier theatrical offerings on VOD or DVD. That’s one reason why reviews are seeming to have more of an impact of late, and why bad reviews are hurting bad movies more than good reviews are helping good movies. Moviegoers are using reviews (be it the prominently displayed Rotten Tomatoes score or pre-release social media buzz) as an excuse to not go to theaters, as opposed to a reason to see something they otherwise might not have sampled.