Pop Critics’ Top 10 Summer Movie Predictions Results

Way back in April Mike and I responded to an EW article that listed their predictions for the biggest movies of the summer with some predictions of our own. Now with Labor Day officially closing out the summer movie season we felt it was time to revisit our predictions and see how we fared.

To make it a little easier for you I’m going to repost our predictions along with EW’s predictions. Of course, you can always read the entire article complete with our reasons for ranking the movies the way we did.

EW’s Predictions

1. Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
2. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
3. Hancock
4. Wall-E
5. Iron Man
6. The Dark Knight
7. Kung Fu Panda
8. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
9. The Incredible Hulk
10. Tropic Thunder

Mike’s Predictions

1. Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
2. The Dark Knight
3. Iron Man
4. Hancock
5. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
6. Wall-E
7. The Incredible Hulk
8. Get Smart
9. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
10. Pineapple Express

Jason’s Predictions

1. Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
2. Hancock
3. Wall-E
4. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
5. Iron Man
6. The Dark Knight
7. Get Smart
8. Kung Fu Panda
9. The Incredible Hulk
10. Speed Racer

Sure, some of our choices seem downright silly now, but they made a lot of sense when we first wrote them. Looking back it’s easy to say that this was going to be the year of the superhero, but we had no way of knowing that some of the movies would be SO GOOD. I, for one, assumed that there might be TOO many superhero movies this summer. Who knew? And I’m not sure anyone would have bet against us back in April when we picked Indiana Jones to be the summer’s biggest draw. It should have been were it not for a pair of fantastic superhero flicks.

Alas, there’s no changing the facts. The summer is over and the history books are written. These are the top 20 films of the summer (with domestic grosses).

Top 20 Films of the Summer

1. The Dark Knight (504.8M)
2. Iron Man (317.8M)
3. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (315.8M)
4. Hancock (227.4M)
5. Wall-E (218.4M)
6. Kung Fu Panda (213.8M)
7. Sex and the City (152.5M)
8. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (141.6M)
9. The Incredible Hulk (134.5)
10. Wanted (134M)
11. Mamma Mia! (132.5M)
12. Get Smart (128.5M)
13. You Don’t Mess With the Zohan (99.9M)
14. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (98.7M)
15. Step Brothers (98.2M)
16. Journey to the Center of the Earth (95.2M)
17. Tropic Thunder (86.9M)
18. Pineapple Express (80.8M)
19. What Happens in Vegas (80.3M)
20. Hellboy II: The Golden Army (75.4M)

So who did better? Me or Mike?

Well, only 7 of Mike’s top 10 were in the actual top 10 for the summer while I had 8 of mine make the list. However, Mike did remarkably well in picking the placement of the first four movies. Sure, he picked Indy to be number one, but his top four movies were the correct movies if not in the correct order. My undoing was, of course, not having enough faith in Iron Man and The Dark Knight.

The three movies that Mike picked that didn’t make the top 10 placed 11th (Get Smart), 20th (Hellboy II: The Golden Army), and 18th (Pineapple Express). The two I picked that didn’t make the actual top 10 placed 11th (Get Smart) and…um…well…somewhere…um…not quite in the top 10 (Speed Racer). Yeah, I win the award for the stinker pick of the year. Hey, at least I placed it 10th.

There’s all kinds of ways we could try to figure out who actually did better. We could award a point system to the movies or go by the actual grosses compared to the top ten grosses or use some other complex system. But I don’t think that’s really necessary.

All in all, I’d have to call it a draw. I think the real moral here is that Mike and I should probably keep working together.