UPDATED: Summer didn't always begin with the first full weekend in May. It used to be a refuge for movies like Flashdance , With Honors , and The Craft .
Until about 14 years ago, that weekend was seen as a kind of "warm-up" slot for movies that would have been pummeled if stacked against the bigger movies of the summer, or as a resting post for long-running sleeper blockbusters that had opened earlier in the spring and taken up residence atop the box office ever since.
Today, a "summer" movie can open as early as February (A Good Day to Die Hard) and March (Oz the Great and Powerful), but the summer movie creep began in earnest in 1999, when Brendan Frasier and Rachel Weisz chased a digital mummy through pre-WWII Egypt. What were early May movies like before that year? And how have they changed since? Let us count the dollar signs by going through every number one movie for the first full weekend in May since 1982.
All figures for domestic box office only, courtesy Box Office Mojo.
May 7-9, 1982: Porky's
Weekend box office: $3.39 million
Total box office: $105.5 million
Adjusted for inflation: $9.2 million weekend, $284.9 million total
Opening weekend: March 19, 1982
Weeks at number one: 8 — that's right: eight. This was the last weekend that Porky's would sit in the number one slot.
Biggest movie of that summer: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (out June 11, 1982)
Source: impawards.com
May 6-8, 1983: Flashdance
Weekend box office: $3.38 million
Total box office: $92.9 million
Adjusted for inflation: $8.5 million weekend, $234.2 million total
Opening weekend: April 15, 1983
Weeks at number one: 3 — this was also Flashdance's last weekend in the top spot.
Biggest movie of that summer: Return of the Jedi (out May 25, 1983)
Source: impawards.com
May 4-6, 1984: Breakin'
The first film in our list to open the first weekend of May, Breakin' beat out another major release that weekend for the top slot: Sixteen Candles. I know!
Weekend box office: $6 million
Total box office: $38.7 million
Adjusted for inflation: $14.3 million weekend, $91.4 million total
Opening weekend: May 4, 1984
Weeks at number one: 1
Biggest movie of that summer: Ghostbusters (out June 8, 1984)
Source: impawards.com
