Last weekend, Sony (SNE 0.21%) Pictures' The Amazing Spider-Man 2 officially kicked off the summer movie season with a modest $91.6 million domestic debut. Now that's all well and good, but I can't help but wonder: Did we just witness the end of the much-hyped summer movie season?
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 couldn't outperform Disney's Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Credit: Sony Pictures
But consider the fact Disney (DIS 1.23%) Marvel's $170 million effort in Captain America: The Winter Soldier grossed $95 million during its own weekend debut last month. Wasn't May supposed to be where the real money is made?
The last two years, for example, Disney's comic book-inspired properties have achieved amazing opening weekends by launching in May -- first with $207.4 million from Marvel's The Avengers in 2012, then last year with $174.1 million from Iron Man 3. And despite Winter Soldier's record-breaking April, those jaw-dropping numbers are one of the primary reasons Marvel's Captain America 3 and Time Warner's (TWX +0.00%) Batman vs. Superman are both slated for release on May 6, 2016.
Could it be, then, that studios should rethink when they can launch their respective tentpole properties? Or perhaps more importantly from our perspective, would investors cheer such a move?
Summer is still where it's at
Not necessarily.
Marvel's The Avengers achieved the highest May release of all time, Credit: Disney
It's easy, however, to forget Disney Marvel's Thor only collected $65.7 million from its own first weekend in May 2011. For perspective, Iron Man 2 fared better the year before with $128.1 million, and the first Iron Man in 2008 grabbed around $98.6 million.
But these were before The Avengers hit the big screen to give the entire franchise a big boost. I think it's fair to say, then, the incredible numbers we saw from Iron Man 3 and The Avengers were the undeniable results of franchise building, and have simply set unrealistic expectations for subsequent early May releases outside of Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe.
And besides, we already have plenty to which we can look forward later this month, including Disney's May 30 release of Maleficent -- which I recently argued could hit $1 billion when all is said and done -- and the extraordinarily promising May 16 reboot of Godzilla from Legendary Pictures and Time Warner. That's also not to mention Paramount's Transformers: Age of Extinction on June 27, and Disney Marvel's wild card in Guardians of the Galaxy on August 1.
In the end, that's why I think it's safe to say the summer movie season is still firmly in tact.
