MCU Movies Dominate Most Anticipated Summer 2022 Films Poll

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder have led to the MCU dominating the most anticipated summer movies of 2022 charts. After a five year hiatus from the first week of May that Marvel traditionally dominated, due to both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame being bumped to the last week of April and Black Widow being delayed twice due to COVID-19, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will kick off the summer movie season. Then two months later, Thor: Love and Thunder will hit theaters in July and the studio has just begun the marketing campaign for that film.

Theaters were shut down for the summer 2020 movie season meaning many of the films were either delayed, or released on streaming like Scoob!, Artemis Fowl, and The King of Staten Island. In 2021, theaters began to open but the rollout was slower as Memorial Day weekend saw the summer kicked off with A Quiet Place Part II and Cruella, with Black Widow not hitting theaters until July. However as the year went on, audiences started to return to the theaters in greater numbers as the early successes of films like The Batman and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 have set summer 2022 to hopefully be a nice return to form.

In a recent poll conducted by Fandango, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was the number 1 most anticipated film of the summer with Thor: Love and Thunder at the number 2 spot. The survey was conducted during the first quarter of 2022 in a study of more than 6,000 ticket-buyers. Interestingly audiences were polled before a trailer for Thor: Love and Thunder even came out, so even without any footage audiences were already excited. Other notable films on the list include Jurassic World: Dominion at number 3, Top Gun: Maverick at number 4, Minions: The Rise of Gru at number 5, Lightyear at number 6, and Downton Abbey: A New Era at number 10.

a dinosaur crashes a drive in theater in a prologue of Jurassic World Dominion

Interesting to note, the list includes three non-franchise movies on the list with Baz Lurhman's Elvis, Jordan Peele's Nope, and the Brad Pitt-led Bullet Train (though the latter is an adaptation of a Japanese novel) at numbers 7, 8, and 9 respectively. 2021 box office saw the market dominated by comic book superheroes, horror sequels, and adaptations. Yet these three films making the list, as well as the solid box office performance of The Lost City and Everything Everywhere All At Once, show there still is an audience for original films not connected to a pre-existing brand.

Since 2015, the MCU has dominated the Fandango summer movie charts with the exception being 2017 when Wonder Woman took the top spot. Anticipation for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is high as multiple websites crashed when the tickets went on sale and is expected to double the opening weekend of the first Doctor Strange movie, and with Thor seeing a new resurgence in popularity due to Thor: Ragnarok and the character's important role in both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, both films are likely to keep the MCU box office streak going. The question is how will all the other movies perform, and will other popular beloved franchises like Jurassic World: Dominion, Minions: The Rise of Gru, or Lightyear take the crown as the king of the box office.