'Yesterday' Surprises As The Summer's Biggest Hit
As expected from the summer’s box office, Disney dominated, the films of beloved New York-based independent studio A24 made modest returns, and X-Men: Dark Phoenix flopped. For the most part, the summer’s box office was highly predictable outside its a sleeper hit Yesterday —a film about singer-songwriter Jack Malik portrayed by Himesh Patel who wakes up in a world where the Beatles no longer exist.
This summer also featured various franchise titles such as Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, John Wick 3: Parabellum, The Secret Life of Pets 2, Godzilla: King of Monsters, and Men in Black International which all placed in the summer’s ten highest-grossing films but weren't as commercially successful as director Danny Boyle’s Yesterday.
Since releasing on June 28th, Yesterday has grossed over $69 million at the domestic box office, generated around $52 million overseas pulling in a worldwide total of $121 million. Boyle’s film also currently sits at number 14 on this summer’s highest-grossing titles list and has quadrupled its $26 million budget.
Despite its success, Yesterday isn’t a win for the ‘mid-budget film’
As this summer has fully shown, the only two existing tiers of films are big-budget franchise installments and smaller independent titles which squeeze themselves between their release dates. Mid-budget films like Yesterday which lie in between the two aforementioned tiers are becoming more of a rarity in Hollywood. The only successful films with a similar $20-$30 budgets are Rocketman—a biopic on British icon Elton John - and Once Upon A Time in Hollywood —Quentin Tarantino’s 9th film. And although all Yesterday, Rocketman and Hollywood all fared well at the box office performances don’t mirror the returns for the average mid-budget title. Rather, the underwhelming performances of Shaft and Stuber are more representative of the industry perspective on mid-tier films.
The tentpole film continues to thrive in Hollywood because it can make money in avenues the mid-budget film cannot access. King of Monsters and Detective Pickachu, for example, may not have had the best commercial success but will continue to generate revenue in toy sales and digital re-release. With the serialization of film, studios can now continue to profit off their properties’ months or sometimes even years after release.
With the Disney-Fox merger officially solidified, it is reasonable to consider how or if the mid-budget films will continue to survive in the summers to come. As the mouse house’s track record shows, it has very little interest in independent properties and is fully invested with pushing as many sequels, reboots, and live-action remakes as possible. The question then is what happens to films like Yesterday and Stuber, a Fox property, in an industry which has a clear lust for billion-dollar box office returns.
Fox
Box Office Roundup: Shaft is also a mid-budget film, but unlike Yesterday, hasn’t fared too well at the summer box office. Despite housing well-known stars such as Samuel L. Jackson, Regina Hall, Alexandra Shipp and Method Man. The quiet June release has failed to earn back its estimated $30-35 million budget, after grossing only $21,346,182 in eight weekends.
Aladdin may not have been a critical success, but it’s low 56% on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer hasn’t stopped film-goers from seeing one of the mouse house’s latest live-action reboots. The Disney titled has crossed $50 million domestically and has crossed the $1 billion mark at the global box office.
In its fourth weekend since the release of the buddy comedy movie, Stuber, a film about an Uber driver portrayed by Kumail Nanjiani who is thrust into an investigation with a cop portrayed by Dave Bautista, has grossed $22,191,923 million nationwide and a modest $$8,497,000 totaling about $30 million worldwide. Nanjiani’s film is now $2 million dollars away from doubling its estimated $16 million budget.
The Lion King is this summer’s biggest film and is second to Endgame as this year’s highest-grossing title. In its third weekend, the live-action reboot of the beloved 90s classic has grossed $458,820,826 at the domestic box office and has generated a worldwide total of $768,612,731.
Lulu Wang’s feature-length directorial debut The Farewell broke box office records 3 weeks ago with the highest per-theater average ever. Wang’s film released nationwide August 2nd and has now grossed an estimated $8,709,431 at the domestic box office. The Farewell returns are expected to grow in the weeks to come as it’s set to release in several other countries throughout September.