The Summer Box Office Challenge: And the Winners Are…

By  · Published on July 28th, 2014

They said it couldn’t be done. They called me mad at the university. They doubted my math skills and insisted on hiring an accounting team from Pricewaterhouse Coopers. They debated whether or not there should be a hyphen between “box” and “office.” But here we are, fourteen weeks later, and our inaugural Summer Box Office Challenge has come to a successful end.

The last weekend of releases saw some heavyweight newcomers, and after the dust settled an action film led by Scarlett Johansson severely beat down one headlined by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Did I mention she did it on a 60% lower budget too? Luc Besson’s Lucy brought in just under $44 million for the weekend – a great number for Besson and his highest opening since The Fifth Element in ’97 – and the hope is that Hollywood takes the right notes from these results. Last week’s bonus question asking which film would end up in fifth place got an answer in the form of Planes: Fire & Rescue.

So after tallying up all the points not twice but once, we have our three winners! Keep reading to see who’ll be getting a Bu-ray bundle of new releases, and to those of you who played along but didn’t win, know that we’re grateful for your participation. This feature wouldn’t have been nearly as fun as it was if you folks weren’t engaged and interested in playing along. So thanks!

Our top three players are:

  1. Chris B – 35 points
  2. Spencer Connell – 34 points
  3. Thomas McCallum – 28 points

The three of you will be getting emails from me asking for your mailing address so we can go ahead and ship out your prizes.

For the record, and for those of you curious where you stood at the very end, here are the remaining ten players who stayed (mostly) active through to the end.

Gary Salem 26 Barthov 26 Husain 25 Jamie Boyde 25 AKFilmfan 24 Xtlhogciao 21 Ash 21 Smokey Ling 16 Rpaine 15 Alex Guilmartin 12

Thanks again for playing everyone!

Rob Hunter has been writing for Film School Rejects since before you were born, which is weird seeing as he's so damn young. He's our Chief Film Critic and Associate Editor and lists 'Broadcast News' as his favorite film of all time. Feel free to say hi if you see him on Twitter @FakeRobHunter.