Well, the Summer of '10 is officially over and it was pretty lackluster. I know many people thought that "Inception" was a classic but I'm not really sold on it being anything more than an interesting approach to a thriller. I haven't seen Toy Story 3 but Iron Man 2 was a major disappointment and I can't really remember any of the other blockbusters which basically tells you all you need to know about this summer. And since nobody actually took the Challenge, I'll declare myself the winner! Who cares if it is by default. So how were my picks compared to the actual receipts?

1. Toy Story 3: I got this one right although when I was about 100 million dollars off on the box office total which is currently over 410 million. I didn't think we'd see a 400 million film this year.
2. Iron Man 2: I had Iron Man at #2 and was only about 8 million dollars off of the 320 million dollar take. 3. Twilight - Eclipse: I underestimated this film by 20 million and had it coming in fifth. I apologize to all the Twi-hards for not believing in their movie.
4. Inception: The Box Office Challenge was inspired by Wordplayer's board's similar challenge and when I posted my predictions over there, some people scoffed at my Inception numbers but right now, it's almost dead on. I said 290 and it's at 289.7. I also pegged it at #4. Yay me!
5. Despicable Me: Boo Me! I had this film squeaking in at #10 and 120 million but it made almost exactly double that and landed in the top 5.
6. Shrek Forever After: I should have seen the fall in box office for the Shrek franchise coming but alas I didn't. I had this film tabbed for third place and 295 million and it took in about 60 million less than that and couldn't even crack the top 5.
7. The Karate Kid: Another nice choice by me, if I do say so myself. I had the film ranked at #7 with 155 million and it came in #7 with 176 million.
8. Grown Ups: Another one for the W column. I had Sandler and friends coming in at 8th with 145 million and it came in at the eight spot with 161 million.
9. The Last Airbender: Not quite the L that many people are making it seem (people love piling on M. Night), the Last Airbender still made over forty million less than I had expected and was turned on its head, going from 6 to 9. 10. The Other Guys: And let me tell you, NO film makes me happier to see on this list than "The Other Guys". Not because I picked it at #9 at 130 million while it squeaked in at #10 and 118 million but because it BARELY knocked "Salt" my least favorite movie of the summer and one of the most infuriating films I've ever seen out of the top 10 by a mere 30k. Yes, I am happy that I went a big 10 for 10 on the films this year (there's usually one that I whiff on) but I really didn't want to give "Salt" a top 10 spot.

My miss of the year was The A-Team and that only made 77 million dollars but Jonah Hex was probably the flop of the summer. Maybe it hasn't come out everywhere so it's an unfair comparison but A-Team flopped with 77 million on a 110 million dollar budget but it brought it almost 100 million from foreign box office so it wasn't a complete mess. Jonah Hex made 10.5 on a 47 million dollar budget and has made 300K overseas.