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 Perfect Storm, which made $178 million, more than any other summer film except Mission: Impossible 2. Yet again, I underestimate the appeal of very bad weather.
This year, 23 people entered the contest, down from 30 last year. Getting to be hardly worth the effort.
I screwed up earlier, using an incorrect gross for Gone in 60 Seconds in my calculations. It made a big difference on the results. With the accurate gross, Chris Coleman vaults from second place to first, with 62 points. James McLaughlin and Dennis Holly tie for second, with 57 points. Frank Seglin comes in third, with 55 points. My thanks to Skander Halim for catching the error.
Nine of the participants chose The Perfect Storm as the sleeper film, not repeating my mistake. Other popular sleeper choices were Chicken Run and The X-Men, both fine guesses that performed better than several of the films on my list.
Frank S correctly guessed that Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps would make $115 million, and got five bonus points for his accuracy. No one else hit a film's gross on the nose.
Here are the complete results, in increasing point order:
I did so-so on my choices this year. I got the number 1 film, and most of the films I chose did pretty well. However, Titan A.E. tanked big time, and, based on contestants' guesses, I was about the only one who was surprised about that. Leaving aside the zero summer gross for Titanic a couple of years back (it canceled its summer opening and opened at Christmas), you have to go back to the first year of the contest, when I inanely included the justly forgotten Super Mario Brothers, to find a film on my list that did worse. The other serious underperformer on the list, Me, Myself, and Irene, surprised and disappointed an awful lot of folks. How could the Farrely Brothers miss when they had Jim Carrey on board? Well, they didn't miss entirely, but $90 million US gross wasn't what anyone had in mind when this film started shooting. In retrospect, I don't know why The Perfect Storm didn't make my list.
One interesting note about my list and my own personal moviegoing habits. For the first time, I didn't myself go to half the films on my list. Most years, I see them all, and only once before have I missed as many as two of the films on the list. (Last year, in fact, when the charms of Big Daddy and The Haunting proved too elusive to lure me into the theater.) This year, I skipped Gone in 60 Seconds, Me, Myself, and Irene, and Titan A.E. I would have skipped Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps, as well, if I hadn't had pre-teen nephews visiting who wanted to see it. I may be getting too old for this contest.
I will try to post a companion piece describing my thoughts on the likely results of this summer's season at the box office in a day or two.
Thanks to all who entered.