What Movies Will Burn Up the Box Office This Summer?

The start of the summer movie season is like the start of the playoffs. This is it. The big moment. When the top dogs come out to play. Flexing their muscles. Delivering all their firepower. Taking their best shot at box office glory. If you like spectacle, this is what you’ve been waiting for all year long.

Optimism floods the hearts of summer moviegoers like butter flowing onto a bucket of popcorn. You think to yourself this will be the year all the movies you want to see will deliver; that something will surprise you; that an all-time experience will come your way. Then it mostly unfolds like it typically does: with a fleeting glimmer of greatness, a lot of mediocrity, and a little too much disappointment.

Still, it should be said summer 2017 looks a lot more interesting than the past couple summers. There’s a lot less certainty and a lot more questions. Are people still on board with “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Transformers” movies? Will “Wonder Woman” soar despite disappointment with recent DC efforts? Can Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” reach the heights of “The Dark Knight” or “Inception”?

With so many wildcards, predicting the top blockbusters of summer 2017 is tough. And that shows in the Speaking Human team’s top 5 domestic box office predictions. There’s some overlap, sure. But also some key differences. So who will take the crown this year? Only the summer season will tell…

Parameters for Our Summer Movie Box Office Predictions

Here are the basic ground rules for our little game of summer movie box office predictions:

We have defined the summer movie season as May 5 through September 5, 2017. Any movie released in that time period is eligible to be included.

This is for U.S. (domestic) box office only. We’re not looking at international numbers here.

The top 5 list with the most box office dollars at the end of the season is the champ!

Patrick’s List: A Wondrous Woman Will Win the Summer

While Guardians will probably own the summer, don’t underestimate the power of a strong female lead. I think Wonder Woman is going to do great. People are craving lead female actresses as opposed to their male counterparts. And that will give Wonder Woman the wide appeal to do big business. Hopefully it will also be a great movie too.

1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

2. Wonder Woman

3. Cars 3

4. Spider-Man: Homecoming

5. War for the Planet of the Apes

Shad’s List: Family Films, Familiar Heroes, and a War Wildcard

I’ve taken my typical approach of mixing family movies (in the past two years, 2 of the top 5 summer movies have been animated films) with superhero sequels (with Spider-Man getting the edge over Wonder Woman). The real wildcard in my top 5 is Dunkirk. My thought is this movie will play to the underserved adult audience and generate a lot of strong critical buzz on its way to over $200 million in domestic grosses.

1. Despicable Me 3

2. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

3. Cars 3

4. Dunkirk

5. Spider-Man: Homecoming

Outside my top 5, here are five other movies I think could perform well and crack the top 10. While these movies are unlikely to outgross the Transformers and Pirates sequels, they’ve got a shot. Or maybe that’s just my wishful thinking.

*War for the Planet of the Apes

*Wonder Woman

*The Mummy

*Rough Night

*All Eyez on Me

Bob’s List: More Wonder, a New Spidey, and Abundant Aliens

Superhero and sci-fi genres are going to rule SUPREME! We already know Guardians of the Galaxy 2 has sidestepped the sequel curse—but will it break a BILLION before the summer is over? That’s the real question. Even if it doesn’t, how can you NOT smile at a dancing Baby Groot? I really believe that Guardians (along with Deadpool) is going to be a game changer for superhero movies and it should be interesting to see how it broadens the genre in the future.

I think the closest contender to the wacky fun cuteness of Guardians will be a bad-ass woman! I’m of course talking about Wonder Woman. I know many, many, MANY people—especially women—have waited for a long, long, LONG time to FINALLY see a powerful female featured in the onslaught of superhero movies. BUT will DC be able to pull it off? Or will it fall flat and be overdone in a very DC slow-mo way? I REALLY hope they knock it out of the park with this one.

Speaking of parks, that brings me to my number three. Peter Parker is back… yet AGAIN! Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is swinging into theaters. Wait, haven’t we seen Spider-Man featured in 5 movies since 2000 (not including Captain American: Civil War). Yes, yes we have. Will Tom Holland be able to breath some new life into the Amazing Spidey and make him fresh again?

1. Guardians Of The Galaxy 2

2. Wonder Woman

3. Spider-Man: Homecoming

4. Alien Covenant

5. Transformers: The Last Knight

And here’s a quick peak outside my top five…

6. The Mummy

7. The Dark Tower

8. Atomic Blonde

9. Kingsman: The Golden Circle

10. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

11. Dunkirk

12. War for the Planet of the Apes

And looking even farther into the future… After summer, these are movies that I MUST SEE!!! Rated by my EXCITEMENT LEVEL!

1. Blade Runner 2049 (10/06/17)

2. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (12/15/17)

3. Justice League (11/17/17)

4. Thor: Ragnorok (11/03/17)