The Summer Box Office Derby

As summer movie season begins next week, it's worth commenting on the fact that this is the most blockbuster-heavy slate in memory. With Spiderman 3, Shrek 3, Pirates 3 and Harry Potter 5, you have four films that will easily combine for a billion dollars in domestic box office. The interesting question is, how will they all rank when it's all said and done?

The key with summer box office is that kids are the driving force. The more a movie appeals to grade schoolers (who make their parents drag them to repeated viewings) and high schoolers (who have nothing better to do than to go to the cinemas 3 nights per week), the more inflated the box office totals. This favors Shrek and Harry Potter, as well as Ratatouille, the rat-themed Pixar movie. I predict that the mystifying obsession with Pirates of the Carribean will continue, the Ocean's franchise will have a slight rebound from the disappointing sequel and people again love the Bourne franchise. Finally, I think the Spiderman franchise is on the wane, and that goes double for the Die Hard franchise, as I don't think anyone's excited about seeing Bruce Willis in Live Free or Die Hard.

Here's my guess at how the top ten summer movies will stand at Labor Day:

1. Shrek the Third- $350 million
2. Pirates of the Carribean 3- $325 million
3. Harry Potter 5- $275 million
4. Spiderman 3- $200 million
5. The Bourne Ultimatum- $180 million
6. Ratatouille- $175 million
7. Transformers- $150 million
8. Ocean's Thirteen- $140 million
9. Knocked Up- $120 million
10. The Simpsons Movie- $110 million

 
Best Week Ever? Not Exactly

About a week ago, several journalists and talking heads made the annual argument that this is the best week of the sports year. The theory goes that the combination of the Final Four, Opening Day and The Masters is a perfect storm of three sports in springtime bliss. But as we've seen again this year, the week actually more about pageantry than quality sports. The Final Four is usually the worst of the three NCAA tournament weekends, and the final is usually sloppy and one-sided. Opening Day is a symbolic commencement for hardcore baseball fans, but for most of us, it's just a reminder that we have 161 games to go before the playoffs, the only compelling part of the tedious season. And the Masters? Sure it's great when Tiger or Phil is in the hunt on Sunday, but who wants to sit through the first three days of a golf tournament?

The "best sports week of the year" should feature compelling competition that lives up to the hype. Here are three weeks of the sports calendar better than the one ending today:

1. The second week of October
There's no denying that football is king of the sports world. This week offers it up in spades, with the NFL season coming to form after four weeks, and college football beginning its conference season with tilts like Texas-Oklahoma and Florida-LSU. On top of that, the baseball playoffs get under way, with the week culminating in eight Division Series games packed into one weekend.

2. The third week of March
This week is the true apex for college basketball fans. Selection Sunday is now a national holiday, with everyone with an even rudimentary understanding of basketball becoming an expert bracketologist for the three days following. Then, the tournament itself begins, with 48 games in four days-- nuff said.

3. The first week of January
This is a truly underrated week-- everyone is so focused on bashing the BCS that people forget that the games produced are usually pretty good (Vince Young. Boise State. Notre Dame chokejobs. Need I say more?). Once college football is over, we have NFL Wild Card weekend and the start of conference games in college hoops. Not a bad start to the year.