Only once in Summer Movie Pool history has a Spider-Man film not finished in the Top 5. The film that didn’t, 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Yes, the film we all like to pretend didn’t exist as it was mostly a 500 Days of Spidey rom-com with Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone hemming and hawing through their lines in so many on-again/off-again scenes we just wanted them off. Still, even that film ended up #6 for the season. That’s a pretty remarkable run for a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, so it’s only fitting that people continued to come out in droves when he took his act out on the road.

There was a great meme going around last week about how the 90’s want their movies back. Theater marquees were advertising Men in Black, Aladdin, Child’s Play, and Toy Story. Unfortunately, that statement in only half true. They definitely want their Whole New World and their Snake in my Boot. However, we’ve already had our memory erased about Men In Black: International and folks have sent Chucky back to the store.

Anyone else remember the 90’s? Len was trying to Steal My Sunshine, NBC Comedy Thursday Nights even included Wings, and 4th of July Weekends meant another big Will Smith movie was coming out. The Men in Black series represented two of those historic 4th of July weekends with splashy debuts and destiny paving the way for Top 5 finishes. As my Fantastic Sams “hair stylist” once had to tell me, “This is no longer the 90’s, sir.”

Who knows whether it was NBA finals games, NHL finals games, Women’s World Cup games, or Fortnite games, but movie goers were having none of the box-office games this weekend. Two big-budget, super-hyped films entered the Thunderdome and both went home with their legs between their tails… Probably, literally in one of the movie’s cases since it’s about animals. How could this have happened?! I suspect Miss Scarlet in the Lounge with the lead pipe.

The onslaught of films at the end of May has brought one contender, a couple pretenders, some nice alternatives if cgi battles aren’t your thing, and, most importantly, helped us forget films like Uglydolls even came out. Now if only Spotify would recognize that liking Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” does not mean I want songs from the Uglydolls soundtrack. It’s like when Thumbs-Upping ABBA music gets you Mamma Mia Movie versions with Pierce Brosnan and Meryl Streep singing. Not the same thing!

After last week’s middling offerings, audiences were “game” for something different. It doesn’t get much more different than a cuddly, yellow, fluffy, wise-crackin’, caffeine-addicted, pokemon with Ryan Reynolds voice. Well, minus the yellow, that might describe Seth Rogen in Long Shot too.

There’s an age-old studio tradition of giving two weeks for “mega” films before you launch another potential blockbuster. The only reason you waiver from this is either you believe that the film before you isn’t really going to do that well or you arrogantly believe you’re the one with the “big” film. I’m not saying someone who titled their film Uglydolls thought their film was going to be big, but then, wow... did they underestimate how many people wanted to see the culmination of 22 superhero films in the past 11 years.