Here are the final results of the 2002 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:
Note: This year, two of the films on this list, Men in Black II and Spiderman, were pulled from release just before Labor Day to re-release them as a double feature. As a result, the grosses from these films had to be obtained from an earlier Variety listing.
The eligible film not on this list that performed best over the summer was Signs, which made $207 million, putting it just behind Austin Powers for third place in the summer. It will soon pass that film, since it's grossing more in recent weeks. The runner up on the sleeper film was Lilo and Stitch, at $143 million.
This year, 31 people entered the contest, exactly the same number as last year.
And the winner is Adam Kohen, with 60 points. Mr. Kohen pulled it off without naming the sleeper or hitting a film on the nose, but rather by consistent good guessing. He got no fewer than five points for any of the films, and 15 and 14 points on his two best guesses. Kevin Laforest comes in second, with 56 points, benefitting from bonus points both for guessing the sleeper film correctly and hitting the gross of one film on the nose. Adam Villani slipped from his second place finish of last year to third, despite improving his score from 43 points last year to 49 this year.
Three participants chose Signs as the sleeper film: Dennis Holly, Kevin Eustice, and Kevin Laforest. The most popular sleeper choice was XXX, which was chosen by 7 people. Not a bad choice, as it grossed $132 million, which put it around third among the eligible films.
Mr. Laforest and Ken Rudolph both successfully predicted a $190 million gross for Men in Black II. No one else hit a film on the nose.
Here are the complete results, in increasing point order:
Thanks to all who entered.
My choices were about as good as I've ever made, but not perfect. I didn't predict that M. Night Shyamalan would outgross Steven Spielberg, Barry Sonnenfeld, and a dumbass poorly animated dog, but otherwise I chose the top five films of summer for the contest. Even the dumbass poorly animated dog was actually a good choice. My worst choice, Minority Report, was still in something like 8th place for the summer. Given last year's poor performance for AI, maybe it's time to boot Mr. Spielberg from the selection list. Stretching the opening date for the contest proved sensible, as summer's top two movies were included that way.
The biggest box office story of the summer turns out to be irrelevant to this contest, for two reasons. My Big Fat Greek Wedding has created quite a stir by its summer performance, and it's still consistently making money every weekend. It made $11 million this week, for a total of $111 million to date. It was released too early to qualify for this contest, which says something extraordinary about its success: much larger, splashier films which made more money have opened, closed, and been almost forgotten while this movie continues to rake it in. It's impossible to say, at this point, just how much this film will make in the end. Still, the second reason it's not relevant for this contest is that I didn't pick it as one of my choices (and who would have?) and it didn't make enough to qualify as a sleeper film. However, given its cost and performance, it's probably the most profitable film of the summer, at least percentage-wise.