Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/July 2 to 8, 2017

WP:25

The Top 25 Report

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (July 2 to 8, 2017)

Prepared with commentary by Soulbust; assisted by Igordebraga

← Last week's report – Next week's report →

Spidey Swings High

This week, Wikipedia readers continued to read up on the usual suspects: movies (and television), politics, and a bit of sports.

Leading the way for movies is Spider-Man: Homecoming at #1, which this writer personally recommends as the 16th installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe fits in snugly with the rest of the catalog. Wonder Woman (#6), Transformers: The Last Knight (#8), and Baby Driver (#14) also continue to attract readers. In regards to actors, the Top 25 is represented by both those who starred in the aforementioned films, such as Peter Parker himself—Tom Holland (#12)—and the Wonder Woman Gal Gadot (#16), as well as those who appear on this list for miscellaneous reasons: Stevie Ryan (#15), Keanu Reeves (#20), Mercedes McCambridge (#23), and Song Hye-kyo (#24). Also film-related, a list of the 2017 Bollywood films rounds out the list at #25. The seventh season of television's Game of Thrones also appears on the list at #11.

Politics was headlined by Omar Khadr at #3, the G20 at #4, the Indian Goods and Services Tax (#9), and Israel (#10). Loosely related here is the Fourth of July, or Independence Day in the United States (#2).

The sports world is also present on the lower spots on this list, with boxer Manny Pacquiao (#19), footballer Romelu Lukaku (#21), and tennis player Johanna Konta (#22) all attracting attention this past week.

Also making it to the top even 18 years after their deadly killing spree, the Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold make it to #17, after a viral Reddit post.

For the week of July 2 to 8, 2017, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	Spider-Man: Homecoming	1,286,802	Swinging in with 1.2 million+ page views, the third iteration (director Jon Watts pictured) of the beloved comic book character Spider-Man has made its domestic debut. Its July 7 opening day haul of $51 million was the second highest out of the six Spider-Man films, and its $117 million ($250 million worldwide) opening weekend was a tad higher than the $114 million opening of the 2002 Raimi original. Fun Wikifact, the last Spidey flick—The Amazing Spider-Man 2—spun out less than half of the page views (~618,000) that Homecoming did in its opening weekend. Homecoming might also have some legs on this list (8, right?) thanks to its glowing critical and audience reception (93% on Rotten Tomatoes and 8.2/10 on IMDb).
2	Independence Day (United States)	1,087,915	For the fifth year in a row, Independence Day misses the top spot in its respective week. Views are also slightly down from last year's ~1.14 million viewership for the article. The featured picture shows festive fireworks over the Washington Monument, which is coincidentally the setting of an integral action scene from Homecoming.
3	Omar Khadr	892,465	Notable for being controversially detained at Guantanamo Bay for around a decade, Canadian citizen Omar Khadr (pictured circa 2001) attracted the attention of readers this past week because on July 4, an unnamed government source leaked that the Canadian government would apologize and pay C$10.5 million in compensation to Khadr. A few days later, Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale confirmed the settlement and issued a formal apology on behalf of the Canadian government.
4	G20	712,798	The last time there was a G20 summit, this article racked up ~340,000 page views. However, this year's summit, hosted on July 7 & 8 in Hamburg, Germany, brought additional attention from Ivanka Trump briefly holding her father's (you know, Donald Trump?) seat as he stepped away to meet other leaders. Host leader and Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel (pictured) defended Ivanka, explaining that she was part of the American delegation and that the delegations themselves decide who takes a leader's seat if they cannot be present for a meeting. Additionally, riots and protests related to the summit occurred throughout the week.
5	Deaths in 2017	679,901	I always find it a little morbid how this list always seems to have a steady 500,000 to 700,000 readers every week. But then again, as time keeps chugging along, this list is updated and checked on the daily.
6	Wonder Woman (2017 film)	608,598	Amazingly (or wonderfully, perhaps), Wonder Woman (director Patty Jenkins pictured) stays at #6 on this list, and actually goes up in page views from last week. Without adjusting for inflation, Wonder Woman is now one of the top 10 grossing superhero films in the U.S.
7	Hustler	511,025	Hustler's appearance on this list is a product of a July 5 thread on the Subreddit, Today I Learned (TIL). Apparently, every month, copies of Hustler are mailed to all members of the U.S. Congress for free (perhaps this is why Congress is so ineffective?) Hustler, like all print magazines, is a little before my time, so I tend to watch interviews of models online.
8	Transformers: The Last Knight	501,661	The Last Knight slides down from the #1 spot, suggesting that unlike Wonder Woman, director Michael Bay's (pictured) fifth Transformers installment has no real staying power on this list. In terms of box office, it's also seriously lagging behind its four predecessors both domestically and worldwide.
9	Goods and Services Tax (India)	499,825	Down from #3, this tax is still attracting readership. The tax was touted by the government to be India's biggest tax reform in 70 years of independence, but did face protests from members of the opposition.
10	Israel	495,779	Like other nations of the world, Israel finds itself constantly in the news. Page views spiked from July 4 through 6, however, due to Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, visiting Israel during that time frame. Modi became the first Indian PM to visit Israel.
11	Game of Thrones (season 7)	459,350	Winter Is Coming, and not soon enough for GOT fans. Season 7 debuts on July 16.
12	Tom Holland (actor)	455,977	Holland portrayed Spider-Man/Peter Parker in Homecoming, and is receiving critical acclaim for his work as the character. Holland really nailed the aspect of Parker's character in which he has to balance being both a high schooler and a superhero, so that acclaim is well-justified.
13	Stan Lee	437,188	With his most popular character receiving its solo film introduction into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Stan's appearance on this list makes sense on the surface. Unfortunately, Stan's article most likely attracted this much readership due to the death of his wife, Joan.
14	Baby Driver	426,505	Edgar Wright's (pictured) Baby Driver is up from #15 last week, as it hold well at the box office. Its staying power at the box office can be attributed to its stellar reviews and positive word-of-mouth, so we'll see how long it keeps that up. It'll be earning at least a few more dollars, as watching it is essentially number 1 on my to-do list.
15	Stevie Ryan	422,603	American actress and old school YouTuber Stevie Ryan, who starred in the sketch comedy Stevie TV, appears on this list as she unfortunately was found dead in her home from an apparent suicide.
16	Gal Gadot	422,465	Star of Wonder Woman (#6) slides down from #9, but she is still attracting attention from readers for her performance as Wonder Woman. She should continue to stay on this list for a few more weeks, but shouldn't be off for long as Justice League hits theaters this fall.
17	Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold	416,481	The infamous Columbine school shooters appear on this list because of an another TIL thread, in which Reddit users learned that "the families of the Columbine shooters have paid out millions in settlements to the victims and their families." (Columbine Memorial pictured.)
18	Amelia Earhart	415,403	While Amelia Earhart's article did get a nice bump in page views on July 2, the 80th anniversary of the pilot's famous disappearance, she's on this list due to a spike in readership attributed to news reports from later in the week regarding a photograph, which supposedly supports the theory that the Japanese captured her.
19	Manny Pacquiao	396,393	Pacquiao lost to Jeff Horn in "The Battle of Brisbane", a fight for the WBO welterweight championship. It was Pacquiao's 7th career loss, while Horn remains undefeated.
20	Keanu Reeves	364,680	Reeves is starring in To the Bone, a film about about a girl named Ellen (portrayed by Lily Collins), and her struggle with anorexia; the subject of the film has attracted controversy and criticism by some outlets and individuals. The film made its premiere at Sundance back in January, but will be released onto Netflix on July 14, so we'll see if it plays out similarly to 13 Reasons Why (another Netflix release which attracted controversy because of its subject matter).
21	Romelu Lukaku	359,181	Belgian striker Romelu Lukaku was in the news because adding his talents was a goal of Manchester United and Chelsea's. Then Chelsea was gutted on July 10, when it was confirmed he would be joining Man United on a reported contract worth an initial £75 million, plus £15 million in add-ons. He's definitely striking a good deal.
22	Johanna Konta	359,078	British tennis star Johanna Konta has spent the past week advancing through the Women's Singles bracket at the 2017 Wimbledon Championships. Much attention is on her now to see if she can become the first British female to win a Grand Slam singles title since Virginia Wade's 1977 victory.
23	Mercedes McCambridge	356,429	Once dubbed "the world's greatest living radio actress" by Orson Welles, Academy Award winning actress Mercedes McCambridge appears on this list thanks to a Reddit TIL thread. Reddit learned that McCambridge "swallowed raw eggs, chain smoked and drank whiskey to make her voice harsh," for her voice work in The Exorcist. The thread also explained that "she was bound to a chair during recordings and requested no credit for the film."
24	Song Hye-kyo	351,184	Congrats are in order for South Korean actress Song Hye-kyo, as in a joint statement, her and Song Joong-ki's agencies announced their engagement. The two co-starred in the hit television drama, Descendants of the Sun (2016), and were both ranked in the top 10 of Forbes's 2017 Korea Power Celebrity list.
25	List of Bollywood films of 2017	350,315	Well, here we are at the bottom of the list… with another list. Pretty meta. Baahubali 2: The Conclusion is at the top of this list, in terms of box office gross. However, Tubelight is currently the draw in the theaters, and barely missed this list, coming in at #28.

Exclusions

This list excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish.
Per consensus, Earth and XXX are excluded.

Note: If you came here from the Signpost article, please take any discussion of exclusions to this article's talk page.

Note: Original blurb for Israel at #10 attributed its appearance to: "possibly because of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu receiving controversy from American Jews after he ceased a plan to provide a space for non-Orthodox men and women to worship together at Jerusalem's Western Wall." This was edited after this helpful comment.