Summer 2009 Sets Box Office Records

You may not have realized it but summer 2009 has become the highest grossing summer ever at the domestic box office. Previously, the 2007 summer held the record for the top grossing summer on the record books with $4.16 billion. Summer 2o09 broke the record by pulling in $4.17 billion in domestic box office receipts. Some of the big summer movies that helped add to this gross included Star Trek ($256.7 million), The Hangover ($270 million), Pixar’s Up ($289 million), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ($294.3 million) and of course Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($399 million.) This summer was filled with popular movies that consisted of blockbuster hits as well as several big surprises.

Here is the list of the top ten highest grossing movies of the summer:

1. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen $399 million

2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince $294 million

3. Pixar’s Up $289.6 million

4. The Hangover $270.2 million

5. Star Trek $256.7 million

6. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs $193 million

7. X-Men Origins: Wolverine $179 million

8. Night at the Musem: Battle of the Smithsonian $176.5 million

9. The Proposal $160.2 million

10. Angels & Demons $133.2 million

Those are the top ten highest grossing films from this summer. There are the obvious hits like Transformers 2 and Harry Potter 6; but what I enjoy about this list so much are the surprise hits like The Hangover and The Proposal. It is nice to see original films receive the attention they deserve.

What do you think about summer 2009? Can you believe that it was the highest grossing summer of all time? Maybe we have become too critical of summer movies because it doesn’t feel like there were that many good movies this summer therefore it is surprising these movies made so much money. As Labor Day weekend approaches we wrap up summer 2009 and look forward to summer 2010!