Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/June 25 to July 1, 2017

WP:25

The Top 25 Report

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (June 25 to July 1, 2017)

Prepared with commentary by OZOO

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

Bit of a Quiet One

In a bit of a quiet week worldwide, the top article this week had less than one million views, which last happened at the start of April. Transformers: The Last Knight tops the list, with Indian film Tubelight in second. It's a very film heavy week, actually, with the 2017 in film (#22), List of Bollywood films of 2017 (#16) and List of highest-grossing Indian films (#23) articles all making it onto the list, alongside the standard bunch of superhero films - the woman who is wonderful (#6), the man who is a spider (#8), the baby who can drive (#15). Tupac Shakur (#20) is also here, on the back of the release of a biopic about him. Curiously, the actual biggest film of the weekend, Despicable Me 3, is nowhere on the list; Wikipedians obviously not quite as enamoured with the Minions as the rest of humanity.

It's not just film getting people interested in pop culture this week - there's also TV! New Netflix drama GLOW is at #11; while the end of the first season of American Gods (#24) and the final season of Pretty Little Liars (#25) both make it onto the list. From the world of music, some representation - as well as Shakur, there's a new album from Jay-Z (#19), a high-profile performance from Ed Sheeran (#17), and Reddit discussing historical allegations against Michael Jackson (#14).

A new Indian tax, the Goods and Services Tax, occupies #3 on the list. Speaking of politics, heard about Donald Trump (#18) and Mika Brzezinski (#13)? I, for one, am extremely relaxed about the way the President of the United States presents himself to the world on Twitter. Sportswise, the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup (#5) finished with a German victory. Victor Hugo (#12) got given a Google Doodle, and Fidget spinners (#21) are still pulling in the punters.

Finally, some sad news with the developing cancer of LazyTown star Stefán Karl Stefánsson (#7), and I'm sure everyone reading this wishes him the best of luck with his fight against it.

For the week of June 25 to July 1, 2017, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	Transformers: The Last Knight	924,583	The fifth instalment in the live-action Transformers series rises one place from last week to top the list. Directed by Michael Bay (pictured), as all the previous films in the series, the film features Mark Wahlberg, Josh Duhamel and John Turturro returning from previous films, as well as featuring Sir Anthony Hopkins as a new character. The film has disappointed on arrival, currently scoring just 15% on Rotten Tomatoes and had a US opening weekend of $45.3 million, the lowest for the franchise to date. While future installments are currently planned, Bay is not intending to direct them.
2	Tubelight (film)	847,609	A new Indian film, this from director Kabir Khan (pictured). It stars Salman Khan as a good-hearted person setting out to find his brother during the 1962 Sino-Indian War. The film, which is an adaptation of the 2015 American film Little Boy, has received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics in India and has grossed ₹200 crore (US$31 million) worldwide after 10 days.
3	Goods and Services Tax (India)	819,765	Touted by the government to be India's biggest tax reform in 70 years of independence, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) was launched on midnight of 30 June 2017. The tax is applicable throughout India, and replaced multiple laxes levied by central and state governments. A historic midnight session of the Indian houses of parliament marked the launch on 30 June - 1 July (launch pictured), but was boycotted by members of the opposition.
4	Deaths in 2017	694,533	This may be the deathlist's highest ever placing. And yet, no change in the numbers. Definitely an indicator of where we're at this week.
5	2017 FIFA Confederations Cup	646,276	The 10th running of the FIFA Confederations Cup ran from 17 June to 2 July. The Confed, as no-one calls it, is rather an oddity amongst tournaments; as a World Cup warm up tournament containing the winners of six continental championships, as well as the world champions, you'd think it would get a bit more prestige. But of course, it is coming at the end of a long season, and if your country's not in it (as most aren't), you'll struggle to care. 2014 World Champions Germany triumphed in the final at Krestovsky Stadium, Saint Petersburg (pictured), despite sending a young squad to the tournament with many regulars absent. This year's tournament was the first major tournament to have the Video assistant referee system, but the performance of the VAR was largely seen negatively.
6	Wonder Woman (2017 film)	565,167	Patty Jenkins's superhero film – seen by many as a long-overdue test of how female-led superhero films will do in the modern era –- is doing very well indeed, being currently the third highest-grossing movie of the year worldwide and having overhauled Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice as the highest-grossing DC Extended Universe film in the US. How it will hold up with the impending release of the next Marvel Cinematic Universe film – Spider-Man: Homecoming (#8) – is another matter.
7	Stefán Karl Stefánsson	529,728	Stefán Karl, the Icelandic actor best known for his role as antagonist Robbie Rotten in fitness-themed children's show LazyTown (pictured, in character), was diagnosed in October last year with pancreatic cancer. A GoFundMe to help raise money for treatment set up by one of the show's writers was popularized by YouTube users predominately involving the LazyTown song "We Are Number One". Despite previous positive signs, on June 21 it was announced by Stefán Karl's wife, Steinunn Ólína Þorsteinsdóttir, that the cancer was now in Stage IV. I'm sure everyone reading this wishes the best of luck to Stefán.
8	Spider-Man: Homecoming	485,168	Well, here we are again, back in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for – blimey – the sixteenth time (not counting the multitude of short films and TV shows); and rebooting the character of Spider-Man for the second time this decade. The Only Connect sequence round starting Hammond - Maguire - Garfield now continues with Tom Holland, who made his debut as the web-slinger in last year's Captain America: Civil War. Michael Keaton will be playing the antagonist, The Vulture; while Robert Downey Jr. will be returning as Iron Man to keep the universe all joined up. The film will be released in the states on July 7, although your Britain-based scribe already has a seat booked at the World of Cine for July 5.
9	Gal Gadot	474,537	As interest in Wonder Woman (#6) remains, so does interest in the film's lead actress. Her next scheduled film is the next for the DC Extended Universe, playing Wonder Woman in Justice League.
10	FIFA Confederations Cup	459,724	I wonder how many of the viewers for this article were looking for 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup (#5), and how many were just trying to remind themselves what the FIFA Confederations Cup actually is.
11	GLOW (TV series)	452,726	Positive reception for this new Netflix series, currently standing at 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. Starring Alison Brie and Betty Gilpin, the comedy-drama series is a fictionalization of the characters and gimmicks of the 1980s women's professional wrestling circuit, the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. The 10 episode long first season was launched by Netflix on June 23.
12	Victor Hugo	440,197	Victor Hugo's most famous work Les Misérables was completed on June 30, 1862, and received a Google Doodle this year to mark it. Les Mis is, of course, probably best known these days for the musical adaptation, and later the film of said adaptation, which, as I recall, largely consisted of Wolverine and Borat singing at each other. I wonder what Victor Hugo would think of that if you told him? You'd probably need to explain who Borat was, in fairness.
13	Mika Brzezinski	424,087	Mika Brzezinski is one of the co-hosts of MSNBC's morning broadcast show Morning Joe. President Donald Trump (#18) has been a previous critic of this show, and they in turn have criticised him. On June 29 Trump referred to Brzezinski as "low I.Q. Crazy Mika" on his Twitter feed, and claimed that he had previously seen her "bleeding badly from a face-lift". Brzezinski and her fiancé Joe Scarborough then accused Trump and the National Enquirer of attempting to blackmail them, a story that may well come back one way or another.
14	1993 child sexual abuse accusations against Michael Jackson	403,476	Reddit launching this articles boost, asserting that the father of the boy who accused popstar Michael Jackson of abusing him in 1993 drugged him with sodium amytal, which allegedly can allow false memories to be implanted. You may judge this for yourself. I'm staying well out of this.
15	Baby Driver	394,032	Edgar Wright (pictured), previously known for the comedic Cornetto Trilogy, has directed this action film, which stars Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey and Lily James. The film, which concerns a getaway driver named "Baby" who constantly listens to music to drown out tinnitus, has made $37m worldwide thus far on the back of very positive reviews – it currently holds a 97% score on Rotten Tomatoes, and I can confirm that on this one, the critics aren't wrong.
16	List of Bollywood films of 2017	385,232	The biggest Indian film of 2017 so far is Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, directed by S. S. Rajamouli. Lovely to get to use his picture again.
17	Ed Sheeran	342,833	Guitar-playing human Ed Sheeran was the headliner on Sunday 25 June at the Glastonbury Festival in England; a prestigious honour that has also earned him a place on the list. Less beneficial for the article, perhaps, but more interesting to me personally, was the news that the UK's Official Charts Company is changing its rules in a bid to prevent a repeat of the time in March when Sheeran occupied 14 of the top 15 places on the UK Singles Chart. He's also making an appearance in the forthcoming series of Game of Thrones. Please enjoy all these Sheeran facts.
18	Donald Trump	332,309	Trump had quite a good week, by his standards. The Supreme Court partially reinstated his travel ban, he met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, and CNN had to withdraw a news story concerning the Russian allegations after it failed to meet their standards. Yes, a triumphant week, as long as he didn't do anything stupid to end it like accuse anyone of bleeding badly after a face-lift; and then being accused of blackmail. Oh.
19	4:44 (album)	330,102	4:44, the fourteenth solo album by the American rapper Jay-Z (or Jay-Zed as we call him in Britain) was released on June 30 as an exclusive for subscribers to streaming service Tidal and mobile network Sprint. Reviews thus far have been positive.
20	Tupac Shakur	325,992	On June 16, 2017 – which would have been Shakur's 46th birthday – a biographical drama film of the late hip-hop artist entitled All Eyez on Me was released. The film – which stars Demetrius Shipp Jr. as Shakur – has received negative reviews but did open well above predictions with $26.4 million.
21	Fidget spinner	319,284	On June 16, an article on FiveThirtyEight predicted that the reign of the spinning toy was top "thing" was over, based on the decline in Google searches and YouTube videos. If you are one of the many schools who have felt obliged to ban them, you may be relieved by the news. If, however, you're still flashing back to the days before the United States presidential election, 2016, you may be considering investing in them heavily, as they clearly have a long time left to go!
22	2017 in film	318,526	Beauty and the Beast, starring Emma Watson (pictured) and Dan Stevens, is the highest-grossing film of 2017 so far. It will be interesting to see if it can hold onto that place, with the second half of the year to contain two new MCU films, one new DCEU film, some nonsense Disney are pushing about space wizards, and, not to mention, A Bad Moms Christmas
23	List of highest-grossing Indian films	316,358	Dangal, starring hat-wearer Aamir Khan (pictured), currently tops the list, with the aforementioned Baahubali 2: The Conclusion in second.
24	American Gods (TV series)	315,736	The first season of the acclaimed drama series – based on the book by Neil Gaiman (pictured) – finished on June 18. Cable network Starz have commissioned a second season.
25	Pretty Little Liars (season 7)	314,584	The seventh and final season of the acclaimed mystery drama series, based on the books by Sara Shepard, ended on June 27. If you are one of those people who waits to know that a series will finish before starting to watch it, you may now begin.

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, Lali Esposito & Earth are excluded.

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