Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/June 2 to 8, 2019

The Top 25 Report

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Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (June 2 to 8, 2019)

Prepared with commentary by Igordebraga

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Everything Old Is New Again

The report might be about new events that are bringing in reader interest, but the subjects are mostly very old. The most represented decade are the 1980s: a nuclear disaster from 1986 (#1, #6, #19); crime (#2, #7) and political incidents (#15) from 1989, plus two boxers from that year (#3, #11) and one from the year before (#23); a movie adapting a comic from 1980 (#5); and the subject of a Reddit topic introduced in 1983 (#24). Also on movies, there's the remake of a 1992 cartoon (#22), the biopic of a rock star who broke out in the 1970s (#16), monsters dating back to 1954 (#12), an action star already into his fifties (#10), and a Bollywood movie that goes through Indian history (#14). And along with an historical event from 1944 (#4), there's some "old" in how we seemingly cannot get rid of the Avengers (#8) - and by extension the list of moneymaking movies (#9) - and the death list (#17), and in recent months, Billie Eilish (#25). At least there's something new in some wrestling (#13) and sports (#3, #11, #18, #20, #23), along with new episodes of Black Mirror (#21).

Without further ado, for the week of June 2 to 8, 2019 the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	About
1	Chernobyl disaster		3,194,812		HBO just finished a miniseries (#6) about the worst nuclear incident ever, where a simulated power outage instead lead to an explosion in the Chernobyl power plant, spreading radiation across Europe and killing thousands. And yet the show has turned the Exclusion Zone into a hot tourist attraction.
2	Central Park jogger case		2,641,123		From a continental tragedy to a localized one, as back in 1989 Trisha Meili (pictured) ran some laps in Central Park before being assaulted and raped to the point of being left in a coma for 12 days. The lives of the five men accused of the crime, all of whom had to spend time in prison without actually being guilty, were documented in a Netflix miniseries (#7).
3	Andy Ruiz Jr.		1,605,524		The new unified boxing heavyweight champion, having just defeated Anthony Joshua (#11) in an upset many compared to Mike Tyson's first loss.
4	Normandy landings		1,440,387		How long, on this longest day, 'Till we finally make it through? June 6 marked been 65 years since D-Day, which helped the Allies turn the tides over in World War II and has been eternized by two movies, The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan (the latter of whom is my favorite movie and could be counted among the victims of Harvey Weinstein).
5	Dark Phoenix (film)		1,437,421		In 2006, The Dark Phoenix Saga was partially adapted in the contentious but financially successful X-Men: The Last Stand. 13 years later, the X-Men films have another go at it, with Sophie Turner's Jean Grey getting cosmic-level powers through the Phoenix Force in the franchise's last salvo - aside from an already delayed movie that got pushed to next year - before the Mutants are engulfed into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Critics didn't like it (this here writer thought it was OK, no matter if it wasn't anywhere as good as Logan), and box office is slow, with Dark Phoenix being topped at the weekend ranking by The Secret Life of Pets 2 (though international numbers were better).
6	Chernobyl (miniseries)		1,293,067		The miniseries telling the story of the 1980s incidents topping this list, one for HBO by Craig Mazin (who knew the guy behind dumb comedies such as Superhero Movie had a more serious interest?) and a Netflix one by Ava DuVernay (a quick rebound following the mess that was A Wrinkle in Time).
7	When They See Us		1,277,071
8	Avengers: Endgame		1,273,295		It's been nearly two months since Marvel Studios took the world by storm with the epic conclusion to 11 years of superhero movies, making $1 billion in one weekend and two by the following week. And yet what seemed to be poised to finally take down Avatar as the highest-grossing movie ever might need to settle for second place, given blockbuster season is slowing down the money made by Endgame to the point the $50-60 million necessary seem like a tall order. Not that distributor Disney is complaining, specially as the previous Marvel movie also broke a billion, and the studio is bound to release many other potential candidates in emassing revenues with ten digits.
9	List of highest-grossing films		1,002,125
10	Keanu Reeves		947,092		Born in Lebanon, raised in Canada, with a name out of Hawaii... and in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, Keanu also goes international in his stylish slaughter of people.
11	Anthony Joshua		943,481		Took 23 fights for this British boxer to suffer his first defeat. And the responsible, seen at #3, was quite the dark horse.
12	Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019 film)		932,518		After a movie criticized for not having enough of Godzilla himself, there's a sequel considered downright excessive in its monstruous content - the giant lizard is joined by a three-headed dragon, a pteranodon and a massive moth, along with some other beasts who appear quickly - coupled with a fairly lacking plot. Yet it's making money, and maybe things get back on track once King Kong joins the fight?
13	Super ShowDown (2019)		838,040		In spite of all the controversy the WWE raised last year by deciding to stage an event in Saudi Arabia, wrestling made a return there, with The Undertaker winning the main event.
14	Bharat (film)		801,237		A Bollywood movie, so to no surprise there is a Khan, namely Salman, who produces and stars - alongside ex-girlfriend Katrina Kaif - in this remake of a South Korean production that in itself is also a Forrest Gump-type of story where a man goes through various historic events.
15	1989 Tiananmen Square protests		799,884		Once The Simpsons went to Beijing, there was a sign on the then-called Heavenly Peace Square reading "Nothing happened here in 1989", given the Chinese government does its best (specially online) to not acknowledge how in June 4 of said year they opened fire against students who had been protesting since April. The best known image of this event was a guy standing in front of a line of tanks, whose identity is still unknown.
16	Elton John		791,015		Like Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman is the biopic of an LGBT, show-offish rock star who played the piano and made it big in the 1970s. Only it's a much better movie, very unconventional in its approach that includes creative musical numbers that would be at home in Across the Universe (seems adequate), along with not holding back in showing how Sir Reginald Kenneth Dwight Elton Hercules John lived a sex, drugs and rock n'roll lifestyle. The high content ratings and competition with summer blockbusters mean it's not making as much money as the Freddie Mercury movie, but hopefully Rocketman can be a hit nonetheless.
17	Deaths in 2019		719,024		Better quote the man above (and it will be a very sad day when Sir Elton enters one of those lists): "Now you belong to heaven And the stars spell out your name"
18	2019 Cricket World Cup		717,814		The biggest sport in the world had a big game, and yet unlike last year it warranted no entries. Instead, the favorite game by our friends in India gets a spot with its quadrennial tournament.
19	Valery Legasov		690,659		The chemist who led the commission investigating the Chernobyl disaster (#1), who took his own life two years after the tragedy and is portrayed in the HBO show (#6) by Jared Harris.
20	Kawhi Leonard		663,237		In 2014, everyone wanted Kawhi's team to win the NBA finals, and he did so over LeBron James and the Miami Heat as the series MVP. Five years later, history is repeating itself, as Kawhi and the Toronto Raptors have widespread support to beat the Golden State Warriors (five straight finals for those guys, so boring!), and are getting pretty close to it.
21	List of Black Mirror episodes		662,437		Three more stories on how technology distorts mankind were released on Netflix. They can be summed up as "Turning Street Fighter into Street Fucking", "Uber kidnaps because social media kills" and "Hannah Montana doll saves Miley Cyrus".
22	Aladdin (2019 film)		658,974		Like Beauty and the Beast, Disney remade one of their 1990s cartoons in live action (with Will Smith going full Fresh Prince to make justice to Robin Williams as the Genie) and are making loads of cash ($615 million so far!) in spite of middling reviews. And there's still another this year, and the one that makes the least sense - The Lion King doesn't feature humans, so they're basically trading 2D animation for photorealistic one!
23	Tyson Fury		590,285		A third boxer - with that name, he couldn't be anything else! - who was heavyweight champion once, has a fight scheduled for the 15th, plans a rematch of his last bout, which ended in a draw... and might be drawing some British readers because his brother is on Love Island.
24	Admiral Ackbar		533,850		Reddit learned about how the director of Return of the Jedi said the mollusk-like alien best known for the phrase "IT'S A TRAP!" was a good lesson in that not all ugly things are bad.
25	Billie Eilish		529,765		We finish this off with a teen singer whose popularity can be attested by her song "Bad Guy" being #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, behind Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road". Whose guest singer Billy Ray Cyrus has nearly the same age as Eilish (17), X (20) and the #3 performer, Khalid (21), combined! Man, we're old.