Saturday coffee: Are summer movies back?

PLUS -- Big movies, and big announcements!

I love the summer movie season.

I have few happier memories of my teenage and early adult years than going out several nights each week to catch big new releases. It was an event. I wrote last year about the summer of 1996, and how the movies released that year — including Mission: Impossible, Twister, Independence Day and The Rock — solidified my status as a movie geek. 

It wasn’t just that year, though. There are several big movie summers that stick out. In summer 1998, I took several unsuspecting friends to see There’s Something About Mary on the big screen, reveling in laughs that had an entire theater doubled over. I waited in line for six hours outside the now-defunct Star Southfield the next year to buy tickets for Star Wars - Episode One: The Phantom Menace, and just a few months later left a theater dizzy when The Sixth Sense unveiled its final twist. 

I have vivid memories of geeking out with friends in the lobby after Gladiator and Mission: Impossible 2, getting lost on the way home from Face/Off, and wanting to drive as fast as I could after The Fast and the Furious. I cheered like I was at a rock concert during The Avengers, wept after a matinee of Saving Private Ryan, and left with deep thoughts after The Truman Show. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t say one of the most crucial moments in my life was going to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on opening weekend in July 2009, a second date with the woman who is now my wife. 

I’ve always kept an eye on the summer movie season, but I’ll be honest that my obsession with it started to wane in my mid-twenties. Coincidentally, that’s about the time I started attending press screenings. I still enjoyed the summer movies, don’t get me wrong, but the charge that came with sitting in a packed house on opening night was gone. It’s convenient to see things early, and when I’m reviewing something, it’s pretty essential, but there have been certain films where I’ve avoided press screenings altogether because I want that opening night experience (that’s how I saw Avengers: Infinity War, Endgame and the last few Star Wars movies). 

The last two years obviously saw the cancellation of the summer movie season. In 2020, the vast majority of theaters around the country were closed down. Even Christopher Nolan’s Tenet couldn’t get much traction on the handful of screens it opened on (and I think my enjoyment of it was hurt by seeing it on HBO Max). And last year’s box office was anemic, with the top film (Marvel’s Black Widow) only making $182 domestic and the final five films in the top 10 not even cracking $100 million, nearly unheard of for a time of year when movies regularly bring in three to four times that amount. 

And it’s understandable. No movie theaters should have been open in 2020, and I don’t blame people for exercising caution last summer. Heck, there are certain pockets of the country where theaters might want to consider requiring masks or even shuttering again as covid waves rise and fall. But the lack of a robust summer movie season has been noticeable, and the pandemic, coupled with the dominance of streaming, has done potentially irreparable damage to the movie industry. 

Which is why this summer movie season seems both encouraging and concerning at the same time. 

Make no mistake, summer 2022 is much different than summer 2021. Big films that have been reshuffled several times are finally seeing the light of day, starting with this weekend’s Top Gun: Maverick. Warner Brothers is no longer simultaneously sending its films to theaters and HBO Max (although windows have shifted enough where it’s about a month and a half before most films show up on a streamer). And Disney’s actually letting a Pixar movie hit the big screen (that it looks like the most disappointing cash grab from the studio in years undercuts my excitement a bit). Indeed, just this week I hit the theaters twice for press screenings for movies I’m eagerly anticipating. Movies are back, baby! 

Except…

After this weekend, it's two weeks before the next would-be blockbusters, Jurassic World: Dominion and Lightyear, are released. And after that, it’s two weeks before the next major theatrical release at all (and that’s The Black Phone, an R-rated horror movie that will likely be a sleeper at best; the next huge release is Minions: The Rise of Gru on July 1). July sees only a handful of big releases; and sure, Thor: Love and Thunder (July 8) and Jordan Peele’s Nope (July 22) will be huge. August appears completely devoid of tentpoles, aside from Bullet Train, which is a question mark at best. This time of year, each weekend traditionally has at least two big movies going head to head, so this marks a huge decrease in releases. 

Maybe that’s not a horrible thing. Blockbusters tend to suck all the air out of the room, and it’s possible that a thinner crop of movies might allow some small movies to gain some traction. But the audiences for those small movies hasn’t been coming back to theaters in droves, although the success of Everything Everywhere All at Once and the promising early numbers for the Downton Abbey  sequel seem to suggest people are testing the waters again. My hope is that this is a transitional year, getting closer to a more robust summer season so that 2023 can be more like in years past. 

Except that revenues continue to drop, anything that’s not a superhero movie seems to be a giant question mark, and who knows what the theatrical experience will even look like in 12 months. This seems to be the summer where streaming is making the big push to be even bigger than the movies. This weekend alone, Tom Cruise and Bob Belcher have to compete with Obi-Wan Kenobi on Disney+ and the Demigorgon on Netflix. Cha Cha Real Smooth, which could have been good summer counterprogramming for adults, is debuting on Apple TV+. The Russo Brothers are debuting their action epic The Gray Man on Netflix. Between Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and Thor, Marvel will keep multiplexes alive; but Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk are also debuting on Disney+ during the summer months. Heck, this isn’t the only weekend for Stranger Things domination; Gru and the Minions will have to compete with the Upside Down when the final episodes of the show’s fourth season debut July 1. 

One the one hand, audiences kind of win in the end, no matter what. There’s good and exciting stuff in the pipeline, and I don’t think the majority of people care where that content hits their eyeballs. But I do. The summer moviegoing season holds special memories for me; it was a time for hanging out with friends, escaping the July heat and taking in one of the great communal experiences we have. I’m hoping this isn’t the end of it all. 

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Now in theaters 

Like I said, two big movies hit this weekend, and I had the chance to review them both over at CinemaNerdz. 

As I wrote a few weeks back, I’m not the biggest fan of Top Gun. Which is why I was surprised with how much I enjoyed Top Gun: Maverick, the new sequel that manages to deliver the surface thrills of the original while also bringing some actual emotional stakes to the table. 

I’m a long-time fan of Bob’s Burgers. It’s a show my wife and I have loved to watch together. A few years back, we bought tickets to see the entire cast do a live reading and stand-up comedy showcase in Detroit. I even have The Bob’s Burgers Burger Book on my bookshelf. And so I was delighted that The Bob’s Burgers Movie recaptures the weirdness and warmth of the show. It’s essentially a long episode, but for those of us who’ve binged three or four episodes at a time, it’s just part for the course. 

We’re Watching Here talks The Beatles 

The job change over the last month meant I had to temporarily pull back on a few outside projects while I acclimated and dealt with the mental exhaustion (it didn’t help that illness and computer issues complicated things). But Perry and I returned last week for a super-sized episode of the We’re Watching Here podcast. We chatted about Everything Everywhere All at Once, compared notes on the TV we’re watching, and then strapped in for a long conversation about The Beatles, discussing A Hard Day’s Night and The Beatles: Get Back. Perry is a Beatlemaniac and I’m more of a casual fan, so it made for a fun conversation. Listen and subscribe at our site or on iTunes or Spotify. 

ALSO! If you live in the metro Detroit area, circle your calendars for Thursday, July 21. Perry and I will be hosting the Maple Theater’s Secret Cinema at 7:30 p.m. We recently learned which film we’ll be showing, and I’m so excited for the event. Learn more at the Maple’s website. 

I’m in a book! 

Finally, a fun announcement. Last November, I was contacted by film writer and editor Cody Benjamin about possibly contributing to a book he was compiling on faith and the movies. I’m thrilled to say that the book, Movies From the Mountaintop: 100+ Films that Express God, Explore Faith and Enlighten the Church, became available this week on Amazon. There are some writers I really admire in here, and I’m honored that my essay on Planes, Trains and Automobiles and its focus on empathy was included! You can buy the book online, and I’m hoping to set up a conversation with Cody in the very new future about the book.