2008 Summer Movie Outlook is Bad

The past few years, we enjoyed many major box office successes. In 2002, it was Spiderman, it was Shrek 2 in 2004, it was the Goblet of Fire in 2005, it was Pirates of the Caribbean in 2006, and many films rounding out the lineup in 2007. However, this year will be a different outlook for films this summer. So anyone looking for that major box office film may be disappointed this year. That is mainly because this year, there is an absence of blockbuster films.

This year, I have only found two films that have a good probability of becoming a blockbuster. Every other film that Hollywood will be putting out this summer look to be films that probably will only open big in its first week and then drop off significantly the next week. Of course, I could be wrong about that. After all, Shrek 2, which I found to be one of the worst movies in Hollywood history, grossed over $430 million dollars and was the summer sensation of 2004. Therefore any of these one week films could be the next big thing. It will depend on the people and if they go out to the movies.

Two films however that I do find to be blockbusters will be out in the next month. The one film is the sequel to the very successful Christmas success called The Chronicles of Narnia, the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. This film is called The Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian. In this film, the main characters have to dethrone an evil king who has taken the throne over Narnia. The last installment of Narnia beat expectations by attracting family crowds, the Lord of the Rings crowd that likes those epic adventures, and even a religious crowd, after getting a lot of positive reviews from the religious churches. With those groups coming last time, the film grossed over $330 million dollars and even defeated King Kong, which was supposed to be the big thing over that Christmas. The film should be a good one.

As for the next blockbuster, it should be no surprise this would be a probable one also. After all, this film was a blockbuster three other times and helped Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas all rise to their fame. The film I am talking about is Indiana Jones and the forth installment of this very successful film will be coming to a theater near you the weekend of Memorial Day. On Memorial Day, we have had a major spike in movie sales. It happened the past few times that happened, which boosted successes of many films. Therefore, if you put Indiana Jones together with opening weekend being on Memorial Day, then you can almost count on a major film.

However, it is unclear how much either of these films will make. After all, there were many blockbusters last year that were disappointing compared to expectations. For example, the Pirates of the Caribbean, At Worlds End failed to live up to the hype of the Dead Man's Chest, grossing only $309 million, when Dead Man's Chest grossed over $423 million and was the third of three films to gross over a billion worldwide. Titanic and Lord of the Rings, the Return of the King were the other two. Therefore, I could be really wrong about these two fils being blockbusters. However, I would almost bet that these will be the blockbusters of the summer.

Don't get me wrong here because I do expect many films to gross over the century mark this summer. After all, there are superhero films and even a few comedies that look to have a lot of potential to make over that $100 million. In May, you have Sarah Jessica Parker's Sex and the City, the Movie coming out, which is a very popular show on cable television. Other films coming out include The Incredible Hulk, Hellboy 2, Hancock with Will Smith, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and possibly a surprise film or two. However, the movies seem to lack any interest by the brochures they post on the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB ).

In conclusion, the movie guide for this summer is a rather disappointing one, just like the past few months after the Christmas season. It seems that Hollywood is officially running out of any good ideas that it could present the American people, as well as world audiences. Instead, you get the same old things. You get the same sequels, the same movies coming back for the forth time after years and years of being absent, and you seem to get the same dumb story ideas that are becoming old. As usual I could be wrong about this summer because I did bring up the highly overrated piece of garbage, Shrek 2, up as an example. However, I do expect a despicable summer of the same old crap of bad movie ideas or the same old remakes and continuations of other movies. I am sorry to report that a lot of movies this summer will be the same as any other time period over the course of the year. The movies this summer for the most part will be crap.

Sources:

http://www.imdb.com/nowplaying/2008/05/

http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross