Gabbing Geek Box Office Report: There May Be Ten Movies Making $300 Million This Year. Who Cares?

Watson was amazed that, with Suicide Squad nearing $300 in box office receipts, we could have a year where all ten movies in the top ten for the box office earn over $300 million dollars.  Now, I have little interest in this stuff.  And yet, here I am still writing about it.  And no one, and I mean no one, has said “boo” to me about what I’ve been doing here, so I’m going to continue to do it.  Someone here, probably Watson, pointed out that if we, the geeks of Gabbing Geek, want to see more geek movies, then we want geek movies to do well at the box office.

That’s true, but both Suicide Squad and Batsoup were, at best, mediocre movies.  Do we want more movies like those?  Because no matter what the drop off, having those films make well over $300 million says that maybe there’s nothing wrong with them, so why not make more like it?  Of that, I am not a fan.  Popular doesn’t mean good.

So, with that out of the way, I want to say something about the death of Gene Wilder.

We here at Gabbing Geek did not, for some reason, react publicly to Mr. Wilder’s death.  We totally should have.  Wilder was a talented actor and comedian with a lot of classic comedies under his belt.  If all he ever accomplished was Willy Wonka, that would have been enough.  Who didn’t love that movie?  Well, the author of the book Roald Dahl hated it, but he had other issues.

Here’s what got my attention:  a number of people in my Facebook feed were saying stuff like, “Damn you, 2016!  Why do you have to take so many beloved celebrities?”

That bothers me.

For one thing, in the case of Mr. Wilder, he was 83 years old.  For another, he had Alzheimer’s disease.  For yet another, he hadn’t really made a public appearance in years.  While we should mourn the passing of a man that, you know, most of us never met, we also perhaps shouldn’t be surprised given his age and general health.

And that’s where the whole “It’s too many this year!” problem comes in.  Every year, a number of older famous people pass away, alongside a few tragic younger ones.  Some can be genuinely shocking.  No one saw Robin Williams ending his own life or Heath Ledger dying so suddenly.  But the thing is, that is part of the human condition.  We grow old.  We die.  It gets weird with celebrities because many times they touch our hearts or inspire us or just entertain us, make us feel like we know them even when we clearly don’t, and then they’re gone just like everybody else.  Chances are, everyone saying there was some sort of record number of famous people, mostly on the older side, passing away this year were probably saying something similar in years past.  Every year features a number of celebrity deaths.  We can and should mourn the ones we will genuinely miss, but let’s not pretend that somehow there were more of them in any given year.  The “In Memorial” section of any large awards show will prove otherwise each and every time.

And now the box office report.

1. Don’t Breathe $15.7 million.
2. Suicide Squad (again) $10 million.
3. Pete’s Dragon $6.471 million.
4. Kubo and the Two Strings $6.467 million.
5. Sausage Party $5.3 million.

Huh, no new releases.  Maybe because the big release was what looked like a tear fest about a couple at a lighthouse that adopt someone else’s baby they find alone in a boat.