It would not be an understatement to say that 2020 has been something of a weird year. Six months in and much of the world has spent half of that in lockdown, stuck at home, social distancing, unable to safely take part in leisure activities that would be the norm. One of which is going to the cinema. This is obviously complicated further by movie theaters being shuttered to help combat the spread of Covid-19, which means, although a handful of larger releases went straight to video-on-demand and streaming services, the majority of the summer blockbuster films have been delayed. The effect of this is that the films which make up the current 2020 Worldwide Box-Office at the mid-point of the year are a rather odd collection of titles.
Currently sat atop the global box-office for 2020 is Bad Boys For Life. The third, belated installment in the franchise arrived in cinemas mid-January so got its full theatrical run in before the lockdown. With a close to $420 million take, its would've barely put a dent in the 2019 worldwide top 20, but depending on how the next couple of months pan out there's a chance this may remain somewhere in the top 10 come years end.
Making up the top 3 are Sonic the Hedgehog and Dolittle. Considering the latter was universally panned upon release (although I'd suggest that if you can get past Robert Downey Jr's Welsh accent and the vary obvious post-dubbing then Dolittle is an enjoyable Sunday afternoon flick with the children) it did well to earn $225 million. Although I doubt anyone involved in Dolittle expected it to be sat in third place in the 2020 box office charts half way through the year. For comparison, Ford vs Ferrari earned as much during its cinematic run in 2019, ending that year in position 40! Sonic, meanwhile, delivered a vary impressive $306 million (making it the highest-grossing video game film adaptation of all time in North America, bested worldwide by 2019s Detective Pikachu). Like Bad Boys For Life this one may just still be in the lower half of the top 10 come year's end.
Considered a huge flop upon release, despite fairly positive reviews, Bird Of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) sits at number 4 with $201 million, but the high placing won't be much of a consolation for Warner Bros. who reportedly needed $250–300 million to break even on the picture!
The next few films in the top 10 are The Invisible Man, The Call Of The Wild and Onward, sitting at 5, 6, and 7 respectively. Out of the three only Pixar's Onward would be expected to feature in the top 10 at this stage so far. It's global gross just broke $100 million before the cinemas shuttered, cutting short its theatrical run by some way. It was subsequently made available digitally much earlier than originally intended, but Disney will have certainly taken a hit on this, being that Onward had a production budget of close to $200 million.
The last three films in the half-year worldwide top 10 of 2020 are the most surprising of the bunch. In ninth position is Fantasy Island, Blumhouse's low budget supernatural re-imaging of the 1970s TV series. Grossing $47 million on a $7 million budget is a fantastic return for the company, especially for a film that, one suspects if not for the novelty nostalgia connection, would've likely gone straight to DVD or streaming.
Position's 8 and 10 contain films I suspect you've never heard off; Tolo Tolo and Namsaneui Bujangdeul, with takes of £47 million and $34 million respectively. The story of a failed entrepreneur who seeks a new life as a waiter in a holiday village in Africa before running into trouble with ISIS, saw Italian comedy Tolo Tolo earning half of its worldwide gross in its home country, becoming the fifth highest-grossing film of all time in Italy. Namsaneui Bujangdeul, which translates from Korean as The Man Standing Next, is a political drama based on real life events, set in 1970s Korea under the absolute control of the then President. The film follows the high ranking officials of the Korean government and the Korean Central Intelligence Agency during the presidency of Park Chung-hee, 40 days before his assassination in 1979. With a $34 million take it wouldn't have even made the top 140 in 2019, but with 2020 being the year that it is, here we are with a low budget South Korean picture rounding out the worldwide global top 10 at the mid-point of the year.
What comes next for 2020 is anyone's guess! Although in the UK some cinemas are re-opening, with strict social distancing measures, there aren't a lot of major films risking release just yet, no doubt for fear of a second wave and their theatrical run being cut short thanks to another lockdown. August will, hopefully, see the first big releases, with Disney's live action Mulan and Christopher Nolan's Tenet leading the way.
How theses summer 2020 releases perform will no doubt influence the remaining scheduled and rearranged big name movies of 2020, like No Time To Die, Black Widow, Wonder Woman 1984, Top Gun: Maverick and Soul, Pixar's second feature of the year. Will audiences return to their local multiplex? Will it still be safe to do so come the autumn? Or will these films and more be pushed back to 2021, or even further? If they do premiere on schedule, all these titles will be looking for a place in the top 10. Where they end up remains to be seen in what is a rather bizarre global box office for an equally bizarre year.
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