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So Chad has conceded and the 2013 Summer Movie Showdown is complete. I have reclaimed the title after last year's abberation. While my #5 pick just opened this past weekend, it's pretty much impossible for Chad to catch up. Once again I pulled it out with my love for animated movies and Iron Man (I think I've picked every Iron Man so far.) Next year we may shake things up and go to a three-way game. And we've been cooking up some interesting mid-summer challenges to keep things fresh.

Chad's list

Star Trek Into Darkness: $225 million
Man of Steel: $286 million
World War Z: $192 million
The Great Gatsby: $143 million
Hangover 3: $111 million

Alt -- The Lone Ranger: $85 million

Davin's list

Iron Man 3: $407 million
Monsters University: $255 million
Despicable Me 2: $306 million
Fast and Furious 6: $237 million
The Wolverine: $55 million

Alt -- Epic: $106 million

Final tally:

Chad: $957 million
Davin (using alternate): $1.3 billion

So the picks are in for the 2013 Summer Movie Showdown. This is a year of several firsts.

The biggest is that Chad is the reigning champion AND he succeeded in getting the first pick by guessing closer to the opening weekend gross for The Hobbit this past December. I'm kind of in uncharted territory here, but I enjoy being the underdog.

Here are the picks for this year...

Chad:

1. Star Trek: Into The Darkness -- Five years ago it would be unheard of to pick a Trek movie, since they rarely were box office megahits. But the JJ movies seem to have broken that mold. Possibly a stretch as #1 pick, but this year is a bit thin.
2. Man of Steel -- Is Superman going to be the new Hulk? Could be a big risk here, but also could be huge payoff.
3. World War Z -- Trailers are looking a bit iffy, but it's a tentpole picture and a solid #3 pick.
4. The Great Gatsby -- Whoa. This is a shocker. I don't see this pick working out, but maybe Aden knows something.
5. Hangover III -- Hangover 2 nearly cost me the SMS a few years ago. But I don't see this one being a game changer. The last movie was blah and it really only made the big bucks because of the first.
Alt. The Lone Ranger -- I don't know what to say about this movie. If it is anything but a flop I will be stunned. Not a terrible alternate. They've got a LOT of money into this and will do their best to advertise it to death.

Davin:

1. Iron Man 3 -- Man this pick scares me. I fear it's gonna be the post-Avengers letdown flick. But fingers crossed.
2. Monsters University - I always go with Pixar and they rarely disappoint. Lately its less of a sure thing, but the original did well and the recent rerelase hopefully got the young kids reacquainted with the characters.
3. Despicable Me 2 -- The original did $250m and this one is in roughly the same spot. The adult films this year seem pretty meh.
4. Fast and Furious 6 -- I dont know much about this, other than the last one did over $200 and appears to have revitalized the franchise.
5. The Wolverine -- I was just out of movies to pick. I hate late July superhero movies, but there just wasn't much left.
Alt. Epic -- The first cartoon of the summer movie season. Usually a good pick, but here the topic seemed a big lame. But just in case parents HAVE to take their kids to a movie before the biggest flicks (MU and DM2) come out.

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That's a long way to march under fire.

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Well it took five years but Chad finally has won the Summer Movie Showdown. His total gross ended up being about $42 million more than mine. Technically I probably will narrow that a bit before the end of the year, but I'm not gonna hold out. There is no way I can catch up.

The story of the SMS was clearly Avengers, which made ridiculous amounts of money. That and the performance for The Dark Knight Rises, which ended up being pretty significanly lower than The Dark Knight.

The rest of our lists were pretty meh. I had more consistent performance, with all of my flicks coming in close to 200. Chad had a biggie with The Amazing Spiderman but the rest of his list was pretty lackluster.

I did have a great Wildcard pick for once. Ted pulled in big bucks to help offset the nightmare that was Dark Shadows.

Here are the totals:

Chad:

Avengers -- $620 million

The Amazing Spiderman -- $259 million

Prometheus -- $126 million

Snow White and the Huntsman -- $155 million

Ice Age 4 -- $156 million

Total: 1.316 billion

Davin:

The Dark Night Rises -- $434 million

Brave -- $232 million

Men in Black III -- $178 million

Madagascar 3 -- $214 million

Ted (replacing Dark Shadows) -- $216 million

Total: $1.274 billion

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