LOS ANGELES, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- North American summer box office is on track to bring in an estimated 4.39 billion U.S. dollars, up 14.21 percent from last summer box office which was the lowest in more than a decade, according to data from American media measurement and analytics company comScore.
Total box office in North American returns were only around 3.8 billion dollars last summer, well shy of the usual 4 billion to 4.8 billion dollars seasonal returns.
A number of Hollywood blockbusters have propelled the rise of ticket sales in North America this summer. The top three earners in this summer movie season -- defined as the first Friday in May through the last weekend of August -- are Disney's "Incredibles 2," Universal's "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" and Disney's "Avengers: Infinity War."
The big winner of this summer is Disney, occupying three of the top five places.
Disney's animated superhero film "Incredibles 2" has collected 597.05 million dollars so far in theaters at the top spot of the North American summer box office, while Universal's science fiction adventure film "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" has earned 413.01 million dollars in second place.
Disney's superhero film "Avengers: Infinity War" came in third with a date range gross of 340.3 million dollars. The figure doesn't include the 338.3 million dollars that "Avengers: Infinity War", which opened on April 27, grossed in the 7 days before the summer movie season officially started on May 4.
The superhero film "Deadpool 2" of 20th Century Fox landed fourth at the North American summer box office with 318.39 million dollars. Disney's latest "Star Wars" film "Solo: A Star Wars Story" finished fifth with a North American cume of 213.59 million dollars.
"An eclectic and diverse selection of films of every size, scope and point-of-view from all of the studios made this a terrific summer to be a moviegoer and the result was yet another 4 billion plus performance in theaters," said movie analyst Paul Dergarabedian at comScore.
"It was a lineup of great summer movies that brought audiences back to the multiplex in a big way after last year's dismal performance," he told Xinhua.
"Not only did the typical blockbuster movies like 'Incredibles 2' and 'Mission: Impossible - Fallout' do well, but also documentaries such as 'RBG,' 'Won't You Be My Neighbor' and 'Three Identical Strangers' and more thought provoking fare like 'BlacKkKlansman,' 'Sorry to Bother You' and 'Blindspotting' all drew receptive and enthusiastic audiences and that powered this welcomed and unexpectedly strong summer performance," Dergarabedian noted, adding that "Crazy Rich Asians" also provided a late summer boost that is taking box office into this final weekend of the summer on a high note.
