The 2017 Summer Movie Wager

I'm participating again in the Summer Movie Wager, a contest to see who can pick the closest predictions for the summer season of Domestic Box Office winners, which occurs between May 1st and August 30th. This is just for fun for me this year. Not for money or for winnings. 

Ok. So without further adieu, here's my 2017 Summer Movie Wager predictions from top to bottom!

1. Despicable Me 3

2. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2

3. Transformers: The Last Knight

4. Cars 3

5. PotC: Dead Men Tell No Tales

6. Spider-Man: Homecoming

7. Wonder Woman

8. War for the Planet of the Apes

9. The Mummy

10. Valerian and tCoaTP

Dark Horses:

Dunkirk

The Dark Tower

Baywatch

Here’s how they score the wager:

• Getting number 1 or number 10 dead-on gets you 13 points (each).

The rest of the scoring goes like this:

• 10 points for numbers 2-9 dead-on
• 7 points if your pick was only one spot away from where it ended up
• 5 points if it was two spots away
• 3 points if your pick is anywhere in the Top 10
• 1 point for each dark horse that makes it into the Top 10

The scoring is tabulated so that you get the SINGLE HIGHEST point value for each pick- that is, if you get number ten right, you don’t get 13+3, you only get 13.

Last year, I got 46 points.

I got…

Two perfect 10 point scores in Suicide Squad & Ghostbusters=20 points. As well as 7 points each for Captain America: Civil War, The Secret Life of Pets & X-Men: Apocalypse (1 place away)=21 points. And lastly, 5 additional points for Finding Dory (2 places away)=5 points.

20+21+5=46 points. 

This is better than the year before, which was a deplorable 33 points, but not as good as my first year participating in 2014, which was 66 points! 

Hopefully I’ll do much better this year, even though it's hard to gauge how much the public will like the Superhero blockbusters this year, or the greying Pirates or Transformers franchises. Only time will tell..

Wanna participate? So what films are on YOUR list?


Update (as of July 18th):
Current List of Biggest Summer 2017 Movies by Domestic Box Office
1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 - $386mil
2. Wonder Woman - $381mil
3. Spider-Man Homecoming - $212mil
4. Despicable Me 3 - $191mil
5. Pirates of the Caribbean 5 - $170mil
6. Cars 3 - $140mil
7. Transformers 7 - $125mil
8. The Mummy - $79mil
9. Baby Driver - $74mil
10. Alien Covenant - $73mil

I expect Spider-Man: Homecoming, & Despicable Me 3 to continue to push upward, but not to overtake Wonder Woman or Guardians, and for War for the Planet of the Apes to get into this list very soon. I also expect Dunkirk & Valerian to come onto this list as soon as they are released, and to continue to push The Mummy, Baby Driver & Alien Covenant off of this list. While I don't expect them to make a lot of money, though, since they will keep each other down with a similar viewing demographic. 

I can't know exactly how well these two new films that haven't been released yet will do, but I suspect that at least War for the Planet of the Apes should go much higher with great legs due to the good word of mouth (I'm expecting around $110mil). And I think a lot of the films that are currently under about the $70 mil mark will get pushed out entirely. And I expect Dunkirk & Valerian to get about $100 mil each. This leaves me with a new projection...

1. Wonder Woman - 3
2. Guardians of The Galaxy Vol 2 - 10
3. Spider-Man: Homecoming - 3
4. Despicable Me 3 - 3
5. Pirates of the Caribbean 5 - 10
6. Cars 3 - 5
7. Transformers: The Last Knight - 3
8. War for the Planet of the Apes - 10
9. Dunkirk - 1
10. Valerian and the CoaTP - 13

This means I would get about 61 points if I got Guardians, War, Valerian & Pirates dead on. Thats actually pretty great but it really depends on these four being exact.

I suppose we will see at the beginning of September, wont we? ;)