16. The Purge: Anarchy
The ball for this sequel would have started rolling the moment the weekend grosses for last year’s original came in. A wider scope than the first housebound Purge and clever marketing pushed this to a very impressive $70m gross. Given that the budget was a piffling $9m, it is safe to assume that Purges will be an annual occurrence for at least the next four years.
15. Tammy
Melissa McCarthy’s comedy is the first of three films in the top 20 where actresses play title characters, giving further cheer to female audiences traditionally shut out in the teen-pleasing, adrenaline-fuelled summer months. After Bridesmaids, Identity Thief and especially last year’s huge hit, The Heat, McCarthy is clearly an enormous box office draw.
Half-baked material like this might not be the best way to proceed however – £83m in the bank notwithstanding. Don’t forget, Paul Hogan was popular once, until he started making laughter-free comedies like Almost An Angel.
Great summary of the summer. I am not sure why opinions were SO mixed on Godzilla. I thought it was EASILY the best Godzilla movie of all time. I mean have the complainers actually seen any of the source material? The new Godzilla was The Godfather comparatively. Apes, Xmen and Guardians were my other favs of the summer. Disappointing though Michael Bay will be reinforced to make more Transformers of the same ilk. T4 was the worst. I liked Revenge of the Fallen better for goodness sake. Yet it still made a billion globally so another one is on the way. I mean, Optimus easily flying at the end kind of defeats the purpose of a lot of the crap from the first three doesn’t it? Sigh…..
I hear tell that Michael Bay is handing the reins to another director for Tran5formers. It would be nice if they gave it to Lars Von Trier to play with but I suspect that Louis Leterrier is already on the phone to Hasbro. Thanks for the comments