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Kim Hollis: Depending on when you think it started, we're at least a month into the summer box office season. What are your thoughts on the big stories so far?

Edwin Davies: For me, the biggest stories are the handful of surprises we've seen so far in terms of films either flaming out ridiculously quickly or showing surprising holding power. A few weeks ago, I would not have imagined that Maleficent would outgross both Godzilla and The Amazing Spider-Man 2, yet both of those films look likely to tap out at around $200 million despite opening to over $90 million, while Maleficent has shown tremendous staying power after a less stellar, but still impressive, opening weekend. Even in an age where blockbuster legs are pretty much non-existent, those performances are kind of astonishing, especially since they came so close together.

At the other end of the budget spectrum, the performance of low-budget films like The Fault in Our Stars must be giving pause to whomever it was who green lit Edge of Tomorrow. Even with its own burnout, which has been almost as steep as Godzilla's even if the numbers are far lower, the success of TFIOS has been pretty remarkable, in both good and bad ways. This has been a weird summer so far, to be sure, and it's got me wondering if Transformers will flop as well. (Obviously it won't, but a man can dream, though. A man can dream.)

Matthew Huntley: First of all, I too hope that Transformers will flop, if only to discourage the studio from green lighting more sequels. (Even if Age of Extinction is good, we don't need more Transformers movies.)

Anyway, and this ties in with what Edwin stated, what I find interesting is blockbusters like The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Godzilla and Edge of Tomorrow, which I thought were good (especially Godzilla), have shown very little staying power or made much of a dent in the box-office despite their positive reviews, humungous profiles and industry expectations. Perhaps we're entering an age where audiences simply want different material, although movies like Neighbors, Maleficent and 22 Jump Street are hardly original; but crowds are responding to them more. The 2014 season has been one where the expected winners are turning into the losers. Again, this I find interesting.

Tim Briody: My top five stories of the summer to date:

1) The Lego Movie is still the #1 movie of 2014. Only for another day or two, but still. Kinda weird it hung on this long.
2) Maleficent legging it out to $200 million. Big win for Angelina Jolie.
3) The relative disappointment of How to Train Your Dragon 2. What do kids want?
4) The Fault in Our Stars earning $100 million with 25% of that coming on opening day.
5) The breakout of 22 Jump Street, having the kind of performance we thought How to Train Your Dragon 2 would have.

Jay Barney: My top story for the summer and for the year would be the lack of staying power of any film. The flame out issue is part of it, but on a larger scale, we are not seeing films approach the $300 million domestic mark. BOP has gone to great lengths in the last couple of weeks to explain the differences between domestic box office and foreign receipts and I find the domestic results interesting...almost crazy.

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