2012 Predictions: Who Will Join the $1bn. Club?

This of course brings us to the start of our summer blockbusters, which will kick-off in superhero style on 4^th July (3^rd in the US) with Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man, which we just saw an awesome new trailer for. Like Men in Black III, I think The Amazing Spider-Man will be coming into the race as a kind of underdog. (Not generally speaking, because it’s bound to do very well, but in terms of the $1bn. mark.)

All three of the original adaptations of Spider-Man with Tobey Maguire are in the top fifty highest-grossing films list, with the third film taking the most at just under $900m. So clearly, there’s a lot of love for Spider-Man, and I think there will be a lot of love for The Amazing Spider-Man too. Like MiB III, it’s being released in two and a half dozen territories beyond the US and UK, which definitely help its chances. And unlike the earlier set of films, it has the added benefit of going to the box office in 3D, which should help boost its earnings further. There’s a part of me that thinks that some people won’t take to it as well, who think a new Spider-Man film is unnecessary, but I’m hoping that the box office will wholeheartedly show otherwise.

Ice Age: Continental Drift is also certainly worth mentioning here, though initially you might call me crazy for thinking so. Due out here on 6^th July and in the US on 13^th July, it’s the fourth film in a franchise that has been successively outperforming itself with its sequels. The first film took in almost $400m., followed by over $650m. from the second, and then $885m. from the third. If the trend so far has shown anything, Continental Drift definitely stands as a possibility, and based on past performance, it has my vote.

This of course now brings us to what should be one of the year’s biggest films, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. As we’ve already seen, The Dark Knight is a member of the club already, and I have every faith that The Dark Knight Rises will outperform it this year at the box office. The trailer we caught at the end of last year was incredible, and was a strong indication of the sheer immensity we can expect from a film that has an enormous level of buzz surrounding it.

Though there are many films that should be awesome between TDKR and later in the year, including The Bourne Legacy, the Total Recall remake, Seth MacFarlane’s feature debut with Ted, Ben Affleck’s Argo, Dredd, Taken 2, Ruben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad, and of course the next James Bond film, Skyfall, I think that our next strongest candidate will be coming in November.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 will be concluding a franchise this year just like The Dark Knight Rises, and though the last three films have all taken around the $700m., the finale could well do better than its predecessors on the fact alone that it is the end. The final part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows took an extra $380m. more than Part 1 the year earlier, and if Breaking Dawn were to re-enact a similar performance, then it would see it just clear the boundary line to enter the list.