2013 is nearly half-way through, and so far, the line-up has been impressive, can the first half of 2014 match up? I don't know.
The first half of 2014 already has a couple of dueling superhero titles, Captain America: The Winter Soldier (April 4) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (May 2). While the latter franchise has the advantage gross-wise ($262 million vs. $177 million domestically), releasing after The Avengers will certainly help the former. Plus, with a fairly blockbuster-free first three months, audiences should give Captain America a look. Both films are already well-positioned to earn $200 million or more. Opening on the first weekend of the Summer movie season will help Spider-Man to open strong, just nowhere near as strong as Iron Man 3.
The other major superhero movie of 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy, hits theaters August 1, and as of now, has only modest box office prospects.
Besides that, May is packed with other strong releases, including Tyler Perry's Single Moms Club, Seth McFarlane's next theatrical release A Million Ways to Die in the West, while Pixar opens a rare late-May release with prehistoric animated flick The Good Dinosaur. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like May 2014's line-up is strong enough to best 2013's May record.
March and April are looking fairly strong at this point. DreamWorks Animation will launch comic adaptation Mr. Peabody and Sherman on March 7, in what will likely be just a decent performer (the duo isn't very well-known). Disney's first release of 2014 is actually a sequel, Muppets Most Wanted (or The Muppets...Again! is currently the tentative title, I'm just using the Disney Channel early sneak peek title), which releases on March 21. The Muppets was a $90 million-grosser back in November 2011, and with Disney's hefty marketing effort sure to happen, the sequel might just hit that mark. Darren Aronofsky plays a wild card at the end of the month with Noah, which may or may not succeed.
April has Captain America, animated sequel Rio 2 and Johnny Depp sci-fi adaptation Transcendence.
Summer 2014 is shaping up to be strong, with a new live-action adaptation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the works, and sequels to Transformers, How To Train Your Dragon, Think Like A Man, 21 Jump Street and The Expendables. There's also the highly-anticipated X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Besides Rio 2, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, The Good Dinosaur and How To Train Your Dragon 2, there's a handful of other animated titles debuting in 2014. The famous LEGOs are getting their own franchise movie from Phil Lord and Chris Miller, DreamWorks Animation brings Rihanna and Jim Parsons to Happy Smekday!, and the ever-famous Minions from Despicable Me get their own spin-off movie. Rounding out the animation list is another stop-motion entry from the creators of Coraline, something called The Book of Life, and a new movie starring Spongebob Squarepants.
I think that will do it, I will save other 2014 movies for another post...
