Summer Movie Fantasy League Update

So, back in early June, Kris and I decided to have a little summer movie fantasy draft, based on what the guys over at Filmdrunk were doing. We each picked five movies we thought would have the highest gross based on their combined opening weekend at the box office (domestic). We also picked three films apiece that we thought would combine for the lowest Rotten Tomato score.

We’re halfway through the summer, and most of the movies on our lists have opened, so let’s look at how our summer league is going.

Four of my five summer box office picks have already opened. Transformers: Robots Robots Moon Robots did almost $100 million domestically it’s first “weekend” (it opened on a Wednesday, which helped). Cars 2 did almost $70 million despite almost everyone agreeing it sucked. Green Lantern also apparently sucked but still took in $53 million, and Bad Teacher did $31 million. Right now, I’m standing at $248 million and change, and I’ve still got Captain America to add to my winnings, though the more I see of the promo clips, the worse it looks.

Kris, meanwhile, picked Super 8, which did a surprisingly disappointing $35 million its opening weekend. Horrible Bosses did $28 million, pretty close to Bad Teacher’s take. Waiting in the wings, she has potential cash cow Cowboys & Aliens, and this weekend she’s also got the highly rated Winnie the Pooh opening, though it’s hard to see a quality non-computer generated cartoon really making a ton of bank these days.

Of course, the impending Harry Potter and the Billions and Billions of Dollars also opens this weekend and belongs to her. The final Potter is already breaking records, even before the domestic release. It’s going to be shown on more screens than any other movie, ever, and already has made the most advance ticket sales in history. I suspect it will also have a completely monstrous opening weekend that will easily out-do Transformers, but I’m not sure it’ll be enough for Kris to overtake my box office purse. For her to win, my Captain America will have to have a lackluster opening (which is entirely possible), and her Cowboys & Aliens will have to have a huge one (also entirely possible). We’ll see!

My three RT low-score movie picks are already out, and all scored under 50%, though a couple didn’t do as poorly as I’d hoped. Mr. Popper’s Penguins has a score of 47%, and Transformers came in at 36%. However, my ace in the hole, Zookeepers, came through: 14%. Boo-yah! That gives me a total of 97%.

Meanwhile, Kris picked the sappy Larry Crowne, which is rated at a respectably low 36%, and we’re waiting on Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Spy Kids 4 (both due in August) to see how bad they stink. Why neither of us picked The Smurfs, I can’t recall.

So. Will Harry Potter be the biggest money-maker of all time and blow the lid off the contest? Will a bunch of monkeys attacking America be less appealing than Kevin James falling down and splitting his pants? Only the end of August knows for sure.