1996 Summer Box Office Blockbuster Contest Results

Here's the final results of the summer blockbuster contest announced about four months ago. To remind you, the point of the contest was to predict how well six big summer movies would do, and to choose the film not on that list that would do the best. The six films I chose and their final grosses were -

The film not on this list that performed best over the summer was "The Rock," which made $130,913,281, edging "The Nutty Professor" at $121,188,155.

And the winner is Andrew Haug, with 60 points. That's a rather lower total than won in previous years, due to somewhat more participants and lack of incredible perspicuity on the part of anyone. Mr. Haug was close on "Mission: Impossible," "Twister," "Eraser," and "Independence Day," but, like so many, overestimated the popularity of Mr. Carrey and Disney's drawings. Congratulations to Mr. Haug.

Only Mike D'Angelo correctly predicted that "The Rock" would clean up.

The only person to guess a gross exactly was Adam Villani, who correctly guessed that "Eraser" was good for exactly $100 million this summer. (With rounding coming to the rescue.)

Here are the complete results, in increasing point order:

  • Lawrence Lee 19
  • Madhu Krishnaswamy 22
  • James Rodriguez 24
  • Charles Francois 32
  • Joshua Kamm 35
  • Jason Stewart 36
  • Mike D'Angelo* 36
  • Steven Chung 40
  • Stefan Flosbach 41
  • Darren Lim 42
  • Chris Owen 46
  • Scott Marcus 47
  • Alex Fung 48
  • James Meek 50
  • Adam Villani 54
  • John Oswalt 56
  • Skander Halim 58
  • Andrew Haug 60

    An asterisk indicates correctly choosing "The Rock" as the sleeper film.

    I did less well this year in predicting what would be successful than last year. Last year, I selected six of the top seven films of the summer. This year, I got five of the top eight, and six of the top nine.

    There is a companion piece analyzing 1996's summer box office results.

    Thanks to all who entered.

    Back to the film contest page.

    reiher@cs.ucla.edu
    Last modified: Fri Sep 16 1994