1997 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 "Men In Black," which made $235.51 million, edging out "Jurassic Park: The Lost World" as the most successful film of the summer. "Men In Black" is still performing in the weekly top ten, and "The Lost World" is not, so "Men In Black" is certain to prove the most successful film of the year.

And the winner is Tyler Blohm , with 68 points. Mr. Blohm expected "Titanic" to open, which cost him some points, but was the closest on both "Batman & Robin" and "Speed 2." Mr. Blohm edged out Jeff McCauley, only winning by three points. Catherine Siebert deserves special mention, as she had the highest point total without considering the sleeper film. She and I share a mistake. Congratulations to Mr. Blohm.

Most of the participants had a more realistic view of the potential of "Men In Black" than I did. Out of 28 contestants, 17 chose "Men In Black" as the sleeper film.

Several people correctly predicted that "Titanic" would not open, predicting a zero gross. Other than those predictions, the only one right on the nose was Jeff McCauley's prediction that "Con Air" would make $100 million. (With rounding coming to the rescue.)

Here are the complete results, in increasing point order:

  • Michael Jennings 2
  • John Pestka* 10
  • David Amitin* 17
  • Stefan Flosbach* 17
  • Steve Chung 20
  • Joshua Kamm* 25
  • Michael Pretty 26
  • Jason Stewart* 27
  • Skander Halim* 27
  • Andrew Haug* 32
  • Madhu Krishnaswamy 32
  • Adam Villani* 33
  • Shahab Hasan 34
  • Jason Seaver 36
  • John Cooper* 37
  • Charles Odell 38
  • James Whitney* 43
  • Tom Miller* 45
  • James Meek* 49
  • Mike D'Angelo* 49
  • Alex Fung* 52
  • John Oswalt* 58
  • Catherine Siebert 64
  • Jeff McCauley* 65
  • Tyler Blohm* 68

    An asterisk indicates correctly choosing "Men In Black" as the sleeper film.

    This was a poor year of choices for me. I didn't include the summer's biggest film, I included a film that didn't open (I knew I was taking a chance there), I included the summer's biggest bomb, and I missed two other films that did better than five out of six of my choices ("Air Force One" and "Face/Off"). Whoops.

    There is a companion piece analyzing 1997's summer box office results.

    Thanks to all who entered.

    Back to the film contest page.

    reiher@cs.ucla.edu