Highest-Grossing Action Movie For Each Year Of The 2010s, According To Box Office Mojo
The 2010s was a fascinating decade for blockbuster movies, especially when it comes to the box office. Billion-dollar-grossing movies became expected, as there had only ever been a handful of films that reached the 10-digit number before 2010. And as big-budget movies are no longer limited to the summer (simply because there isn't enough room,) it led to so much competition between studios.
This made it especially interesting for action blockbusters that aren't superhero movies. Between globe-trotting spy flicks and a ton of Dwayne Johnson-led movies, there are a couple of big surprises that hit huge numbers. And there's only one original movie amongst them.
Entertaining action movies are released every year, but it's only once every decade or so when a truly thought-provoking action film is released with dizzying and spellbinding visual effects. One of those movies arrived in 1999, which was the zeitgeist-creating The Matrix, and that was followed 11 years later with the riveting Inception. The movie tells a wholly original story and features one of the biggest unanswered questions in movie history.
Inception's box office gross proved to studios that audiences didn't have to be treated like idiots and that they deserved well-told blockbuster movies instead of the mindless action flicks that were being released at the time. Interestingly, Inception is also the only movie of all the highest-grossing action films of the 2010s that is truly original and not based on any existing property.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon is the third movie in the Transformers movie franchise, and by this point, it seemed as if director Michael Bay had found a formula that was impossible to fail. Huge action sequences, extremely detailed CGI and tons of helicopter shots gave the impression that Transformers was an epic statement, and audiences fell for it most with the 2011 movie.
What makes the box office intake more impressive is that it's based on children's toys, and Bay has subsequently built a whole cinematic universe. Dark of the Moon is the highest-grossing Transformers movie of the six, but that might change with the upcoming release of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, one of the most anticipated 2022 action movies.
Skyfall is the most successful 007 movie of all time, as it even overperformed at the box office by making almost double the gross of its predecessor, Quantum of Solace. Its remarkable success is the result of several different things. Having Adele, one of the biggest pop stars in the world, write and perform the title song had a big hand in the film's performance, as did Sam Mendes's expert action directing.
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Mendes also refreshingly told a more personal story that had never been seen in a Bond movie before. As it stands, Skyfall is the only James Bond movie to have ever grossed over a billion dollars, though No Time To Die could have had a good shot if it wasn't released during a worldwide pandemic.
Fast & Furious 6 is far from the highest-grossing movie in the Fast series, as the follow-up, Furious 7, went on to make almost double, raking in $1.5 billion, which is a much bigger feat. However, the 2013 film marks another tentpole in the franchise's evolution into becoming a Mission: Impossible-like action franchise.
As the fifth movie in the series saw the return of some fan-favorite characters from the first couple of movies and introduced Dwayne Johnson, F&F6 built on that by bringing in Luke Evans (and Jason Statham for a brief cameo.) And between the ensemble cast and furthering the globe-trotting adventures by wreaking havoc in London and Spain, there was no stopping the snowballing success of Fast 6.
Three years after Dark of the Moon, Bay returned with another movie in the Transformers series, and this time, it included something that makes all films box office bomb-proof. Age of Extinction included dinosaur Transformers, and whether it's Jurassic Park, Jurassic World, or any other dinosaur-laden movie, they've always proven to do wonders at the box office.
However, the 2014 movie also hinted at the Transformers series' extinction, as, though $1.1 billion is hardly a failure, it couldn't top Dark of the Moon's box office gross. And since Dark of the Moon, each consecutive Transformers movie has made less than the last.
2015 was a stacked year at the box office, and it saw so many movies hitting a billion dollars that it marked the moment when reaching that 10-digit number was the norm and seemingly became every movie's target number. Avengers: Age of Ultron made $1.4 billion, Furious 7 made $1.5 billion, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens made a huge $2 billion, but the biggest action movie of the year was Jurassic World.
The movie was destined for success, as John Williams' score made Jurassic Park fans feel nostalgic, Chris Pratt's starring role turned the heads of younger audiences, and the sheer scope of the narrative was irresistible. In many ways, Jurassic World made the franchise better, but it's looking like the upcoming Jurassic World: Dominion could top it, as it sees the return of all the classic characters.
Compared to every other movie, Jason Bourne is fairly low-grossing, but it's simply because there was no tentpole, blockbuster, action flick that was released in 2014. There was no Fast & Furious movie, no Transformers movie, and no Christopher Nolan-directed movie. The five highest-grossing movies of 2016 were all Disney films, so the year left a lot to be desired in way of action.
Unfortunately, Jason Bourne didn't fill that void, even though it saw Matt Damon return to the character for the first time since 2007's The Bourne Ultimatum. Even despite its decent box office intake, Jason Bourne was considered a disappointment by critics and fans of the series, and it was even worse received than the Jeremy Renner-starring The Bourne Legacy.
At this point in the franchise, Fast and Furious wasn't just a billion-dollar series, but it was making over a billion dollars per movie. But though $1.2 billion is a huge number, it's still quite a steep dive from the previous movie, making roughly $250 million less than Furious 7.
That quarter of a billion hits even harder considering its budget was increased by $60 million too. That loss could have been due to the absence of Paul Walker, who passed away during the production of Furious 7, and based on the reviews compared to its predecessor, the lack of that everyman character badly affected The Fate of the Furious, as it's one of the worst Fast & Furious movies.
While Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is the highest-grossing action movie of 2018, it's not all that impressive. It's another sequel that failed to maintain its whole audience, as it made $370 million less than its predecessor. Though that doesn't sound like a lot when talking about billion-dollar figures, most movies would be lucky to earn $370 million worldwide.
On top of that, Deadline reported that the movie had a net profit of just $220 million, which means that the studio must have thrown hundreds of millions of dollars into the movie's marketing. Some movies could have made half of Fallen Kingdom's box office intake but still earned a much larger net profit.
Yet again, the Fast and Furious franchise prevails, but this time it isn't a main entry in the series and is instead a spin-off. Hobbs & Shaw delves further into the idea of the Fast universe being a world of superheroes and supervillains, as the antagonist has a super-suit that rivals the Iron Man suit, but audiences ate it up.
To say the movie doesn't feature Dom or any of his crew, the Hobbs & Shaw held strong at the box office. However, as the movie had a budget of $200, the same as the Fast movies, Universal was surely hoping to see it far surpass a billion dollars.