The summer of 2024 was a “big time” for movie fans. The avalanche of summer blockbusters first began with Disney’s Inside Out 2. As of right now, the film has grossed a whopping 1.67 billion dollars at the box office. This surpassed The Lion King (2019) to become the most successful animated movie of all time. In early July, another successful animated movie debuted in Despicable 4. Although the reviews were far more mixed than that of Inside Out 2, the film still performed very well at the box office. The film grossed 900 million dollars, proving that the animation industry remains strong amidst doubts.
Later on in the summer, Twisters, a standalone sequel to the 1996 film, hit theaters. The film starred Glen Powell and Daisy-Edgar Jones and it managed to eclipse overall expectations earning a 75% critics score. The movie received an audience score of 91% on rotten tomatoes. The film earned a bit over 350 million dollars. Although it wasn’t a massive success, it did fine considering it was geared to a smaller audience, unlike Inside Out 2 and Despicable Me 4, which were able to crush it in the box office because of the family audience.
Even with declining visits to theaters and a worsening box office in the past few years, this summer showed that people were eager to see movies they believed were good. This was proven when Marvel released Deadpool and Wolverine on July 26, 2024. This movie became only the second ever R-rated film to surpass 1 billion dollars. Although reviews were mixed among critics, the consensus among fans was that it was a fun and exciting comic book action movie, something that Marvel hadn’t been able to deliver since 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Out of the major summer blockbusters, the year finished up with Alien: Romulus, another sequel to the Alien franchise directed by Ridley Scott, an experienced and well-known director for making popular films such as Alien (1979), Gladiator, and the original Blade Runner starring Harrison Ford. The film grossed 283.4 million dollars and was decently well-received with an 80% rotten tomatoes score and an audience score of 85%. If this summer proves anything, it is that movie theaters are not dead. Although box office returns will likely continue to decline in the age of streaming, if studios can deliver well-made movies, then fans will still show up.
