9. How To Train Your Dragon 2
The suffocating glut of CGI animation for kids was one of the big stories of last year. This summer, there was barely a pixel in sight. As such, Dreamworks’s sequel to their lauded 2010 Viking saga had the field pretty much to itself and reviews were strong (stronger than the first film in many quarters).
It came as something of a disappointment then that it could only – only – muster up $49m on its opening weekend. Just as a comparison, Toy Story 3 took $110 in its first three days. Dragon 2’s final $172m will leave it in profit, but sadly this looks like it will be the final Training session.
8. 22 Jump Street
Enormous good will from the unexpectedly brilliant 21 Jump Street helped the sequel open to a blockbuster-sized $57m but it maintained a steady pace, once it became clear that this was the comedy of the summer – the ‘slam-poetry’ contest is probably the funniest scene of 2014.
Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are fast becoming the best comic double-act of the 21st century, but the spoils must go to writer/directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller. The talent for sequel deconstruction that they demonstrated here will be studied in universities in years to come and with The Lego Movie currently the third biggest film of the year, 2014 belongs to them. Thank you, boys.
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