Have you heard? Hollywood just suffered a historically bad northern summer, with the US box office plummeting by 16 per cent compared with last year. Attendance hit a 25-year low. All agreed it was a season of dismal underperformers and outright duds.
When the sad history of the Summer of 2017 is written, special mention will surely be made of misbegotten enterprises such as King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, two notably lame attempts at mining popular source material - medieval folk legend and a comic book, respectively - for their franchise potential. Their swift demise - along with the tanking of The Mummy and the latest Pirates of the Caribbean and Transformers movies - indicated that the studios' old assumptions about fans showing up regardless of the quality of the movie no longer hold. Even War for the Planet of the Apes, Matt Reeves' emotionally involving, visually impressive chapter of the rebooted series, failed to connect, suggesting that fatigue has finally set in among sequel-weary viewers.
In the comic-book world, both Wonder Woman and Spider-Man: Homecoming brought vitality and rich production values into a genre that is showing signs of wear. Strong returns for Christopher Nolan's structurally novel, cinematically lush World War II epic Dunkirk, Edgar Wright's snappy crime musical Baby Driver and Taylor Sheridan's moody thriller Wind River proved that well-executed original ideas hold far more promise than facile Baywatch adaptations. The summer's most crowd-pleasing sleeper hits, Girls Trip and The Big Sick, as well as a steady performer like the provocative chamber piece Beatriz at Dinner, showed that originality plus inclusivity can be a winning proposition.
If Americans are showing signs of sequel-itis, foreign markets still seem game. Studios surely took heed when a patriotic action thriller called Wolf Warrior 2 - a Chinese production - dominated that country's enormous and growing film market.
During a northern summer when hurricanes, super-hyped prizefights, Game of Thrones finales and reality show-worthy political drama competed for filmgoers' attention, quality and originality helped, but might not have been enough: Reportedly, Comcast, Apple and Amazon are close to launching a US$30-per-month premium video-on-demand rental system that will allow viewers to rent select titles 30 to 45 days after they appear in theatres. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the system could be in place as early as next year.
