Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/June 28 to July 4, 2015

Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (June 28 to July 4, 2015)

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Summary: It's the July 4 weekend and on this list that means only one thing: Wimbledon. Yeah the American Independence Day shows up too, but it can't hold a candle to the staggeringly British annual sporting event. This year however, Wimbledon had to share space with two other events, the Copa America and the FIFA Women's World Cup, both of which reached their finals this week. One thing that usually does not make an appearance is the July 4 holiday movie weekend, which stormed into this list with five slots.

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As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of June 28 to July 4, 2015, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes
1	Terminator Genisys		1,043,888		This film marks the fourth attempt in 12 years to restart the dormant Terminator franchise without the aid of its creator, James Cameron. To date, if Metacritic and IMDb are anything to go by, the only remotely successful of these resuscitations was the hugely underrated TV series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. One wonders if audiences are wishing they'd watched that when they had the chance, because the numbers for this film's opening weekend are in and they're bad. Really bad. As in, "made as much in its first five days as Terminator Salvation made in its first weekend" bad. Salvation, mind you, was the black sheep of the series until now. All this is rather perplexing, since the two things that usually drive movies up this list are box office and controversy, and so far the only controversy over this film is from the few scattered critics who don't consider it utterly terrible. Perhaps it was the presence of Emilia Clarke (after Lena Headey the second Game of Thrones star to take on the role of Sarah Connor ). Or perhaps, if this ageing Terminator fan could be wistful for a moment, the critics are wrong when they say the Millennial generation has no love for this franchise. Perhaps they rushed to their tablets incensed at the terrible reviews; determined to learn who and what was responsible for vandalising the legacy of this landmark work of science fiction. Or perhaps it means nothing at all. Who am I to guess?
2	Independence Day (United States)		904,001		The American celebration of its Declaration of Independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain on July 4, 1776 (although technically American independence was declared on July 2, by which time the American Revolutionary War had already been going for more than a year, and not actually attained until February 3, 1783) is arguably the biggest summer festival in the English-speaking world, with the possible exception of Christmas in Australia. Numbers are up 50 percent on last year, but still not near 2013. Perhaps a slight surge of patriotism ahead of next year's election?
3	Flags of the Confederate States of America		900,354		It took the horrific act of the Charleston church shooting on June 17 to refocus the attention of South Carolina politicians and public at large to the fact that South Carolina was still flying the battle flag of the Confederate States of America near their state capitol. This flag causes a lot of controversy in the United States, though its general modern use as a symbol of racist oppression of blacks is undeniable. Will the flag of ISIS/ISIL be similarly used in the Middle East one hundred years hence? In any event, on June 22, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and other politicians called for the flag to be taken down, so it appears that the flag will be officially lowered soon.
4	Jurassic World		869,045		In this era of duelling gargantuas, when Hollywood risks $200 million budgets on a whim and triple-digit opening weekends are a seasonal event, the financial achievements of the first Jurassic Park can seem somewhat pallid. And yet, it was for a time the most successful film ever made, and more importantly, formed the prototype for the modern blockbuster; massive, frontloaded opening weekend, brushfire earnings and supercharged ancillaries. And now, after Furious 7 and Avengers: Age of Ultron made substantial dents in the US GDP, Jurassic World has arrived to show that its aging franchise is perfectly capable of holding its own in today's hostile environment. Its $208 million opening weekend was the biggest of all time, though at just $1 million above the previous record set by Marvel's The Avengers back in 2012, it wasn't exactly a killing blow. Still, it managed to claim the highest second weekend gross of all time as well, showing that it may well be on the way to repeating the performance of its ancestor. Today, the Jurassic franchise is just one monster among many, but it has shown that it still has the right to reign.
5	2015 Copa América		869,045		This week saw the final of South America's quadrennial international soccer competition, in which Chile beat Argentina in a penalty shoot out.
6	Dustin Brown (tennis)		780,378		This German tennis player shocked pretty much everyone when he beat 14-times champion Rafael Nadal at the 2015 Wimbledon Championships, only to be knocked out in straight sets by Viktor Troicki.
7	Ruby Rose		551,379		The Australian model and actress has been in the media thanks to her role in the new series of Orange is the New Black and her public challenging of traditional gender roles. She came out as a lesbian at the age of 12 and identifies as genderfluid. Her androgynous appearance has led many straight women to declare an attraction to her, which has angered some gay activists, who argue that homosexuality is not a choice.
8	Deaths in 2015		531,666		The viewing figures for this article have been remarkably constant; fluctuating week to week between 450 and 550,000, apparently heedless of who actually died.
9	2015 FIFA Women's World Cup		492,610		The final of this increasingly popular competition was held this week, and saw America clinch its third title (something their male equivalent has never managed even once) in a stomping 5-2 victory over holders Japan. Meanwhile, the English side clinched third place by beating arch-rivals Germany, something the home crowd may consider better than actually winning.
10	Heather Watson		484,341		It's a rare athlete, let alone tennis player, who enters this list on a loss, but the British no 1's gruelling 3-set defeat to Serena Williams may well have been a career-defining moment. She held firm against the world no 1, pushing her against the wall, until finally caving in a 7-5 slugfest.
11	True Detective (TV series)		479,653		The second season of this American crime drama television series debuted on June 21. The whole new cast includes Colin Farrell (pictured at left).
12	Orange Is the New Black		463,130		The third season of the women-in-prison TV series premièred in its entirety on Netflix on 11 June.
13	Manta ray		437,849		As discussed in a Reddit thread this week, Indonesia learned that a dead manta ray was worth $500, but a live manta ray was worth $1,000,000 over its life in tourism. It is now the largest manta sanctuary in the world.
14	Donald Trump		434,208		It appears Jon Stewart isn't the only person happy that the bombastic real estate developer and media personality is making his fourth push for the US Presidency, as he is currently top in the Republican polls. His media empire isn't doing so well, as his ill-judged remarks about Mexican immigrants being a bunch of rapists and drug traffickers have led to the collapse of several joint ventures in the country, including one with the world's second-richest man, Carlos Slim.
15	Inside Out (2015 film)		423,018		In its third weekend, the latest flick from Pixar beat Jurassic World and topped the US box office for the first time. That's quite a feat, and shows that this film has gained considerable cultural momentum, not unlike a certain other Disney film from two years ago. By their vertiginous standards, Pixar have been in a slump in the last few years, but with these numbers and a 98% Rotten Tomatoes rating, it seems that they've finally got their mojo back.
16	Lyme disease		410,654		This debilitating, tick-born illness got into the news this week after singer Avril Lavigne went public about her experience contracting it, and her frustration at how often it is misdiagnosed.
17	Batman: Arkham Knight		394,645		This action-adventure video game was released on June 23, and has received critical acclaim, though a buggy PC port led to it being suspended from Steam, to much consumer rage.
18	Facebook		382,616		A perennially popular article.
19	Emilia Clarke		377,150		a.k.a Daenerys Targaryen, she got her big movie break this week playing another fabled warrior queen, Sarah Connor. It is odd to think that some day, in some future episode of Game of Thrones, we may yet see two Sarah Connors face each other down in a fiery final battle.
20	Glen Campbell		375,525		I'll Be Me, the documentary of the country singer's life, aired on CNN this week.
21	FIFA Women's World Cup		346,478		Possibly people searching for historical information, but more likely people searching for the more specific article above.
22	Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant		340,925		On June 23, ISIL showed their Muslim zeal by suggesting that their fellow Muslims might kick off Ramadan with a few terrorist attacks. Three days later, their fellows obliged, instigating a series of apparently un-coordinated attacks from France to Kuwait to Somalia, killing at least 150 people. One attack on a beach in Tunisia resulted in the highest number of British casualties since 7/7.
23	Mr. Robot (TV series)		332,186		This cyberpunk thriller TV series starring Christian Slater (pictured), premièred on June 24 on the USA Network.
24	List of Bollywood films of 2015		325,854		Not as frequent a guest on this list as it once was, but will almost certainly make an appearance at the year-end list.
25	Ted 2		324,506		Another movie makes it on this list despite relatively meagre box office. I may need to reconsider my hypotheses about what gets movies on here.

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 also exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (~2% or less) or almost all mobile views (~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.

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