This summer was a very profitable one for box offices nationwide, with four movies grossing over $300M, and at least another nine grossing over $100M -- signaling in a big way the resurgence of the movie industry, which had been struggling for the last few years.

The four big $300M+ winners of the summer were Sony Corporation (ADR) (NYSE: SNE) 'sSpider-Man 3, which grossed $336M in the U.S., Viacom, Inc (NYSE: VIA)'s Paramount's Shrek the Third, which grossed $320M, Transformers, also from Paramount, which grossed $311M, and The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS)'s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which grossed $308M.

Three of the four were third installments of well established big-budget franchises, so their success is hardly shocking, but the Transformers success clearly marks the start of a new blockbuster franchise (the release date of the sequel has been announced -- June 26, 2009). The robot-action extravaganza, which was directed by Michael Bay, was definitely a surprise, as I remarked in my summer movie preview that Transformers "has flop written all over it... there cannot possibly be enough substance in a story about alien robots that transform into vehicles to make this a hit with the general public." I was wrong -- very wrong. The movie killed at the box office, grossing over $330M on a $150M budget, and prompting a re-release on IMAX, which opened last week.



Shrek the Third also had similar financial results, grossing $320M on a budget of $160M, prompting the announcement of not one, but two more sequels. Although Spider-Man 3 grossed the most of all the summer blockbusters, it's sequel status is in doubt: the director, Sam Raimi, and the stars, Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, are waffling about returning to the franchise. Then there is Pirates of the Caribbean. Although Johnny Depp has said he is willing to come back to reprise his role as Captain Jack Sparrow, there may not be the opportunity as IMDB's figures say that the movie grossed $308M, which sounds like a lot until you see that the estimated budget for the film was $300M.

With the big boys out of the way, lets look at the real surprise hit of the summer. It's not a movie, actually -- it's a guy by the name of Judd Apatow, who happened to be the director of both General Electric Company (NYSE: GE)'s Universal's Knocked Up and Sony's Superbad, which were made with a combined estimated budget of $53M, and both grossed over $100M at the box office.

But for every sleeper hit in the film industry (or hits, in Apatow's case), there is a colossal flop. This summer, that distinction goes to Universal's Evan Almighty, the biblical comedic extravaganza, which elicited neither laughs nor theatergoers -- it grossed just under $100M on a budget of $175M. Also underachieving expectations this summer were News Corporation (NYSE: NWS)'s 20th Century Fox's 28 Weeks Later, which grossed only $28.6M without 28 Days Later director Danny Boyle at the helm, and Time Warner Inc's (NYSE: TWX) New Line Cinemas' Rush Hour 3, which grossed $128M on a $140M budget after a six year layover from the more commercially successful Rush Hour 2, which grossed $226M.

Now all we can do is wait for what the studios have lined up for us next summer -- including Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls, the fourth Indy installment; Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth and second to last of the Potter book adaptations; Iron Man, Hulk and Punisher reloads; Pineapple Express, which is another Apatow comedy; and Wall-E, the latest from uber-digital studio Pixar. If that is not enough to anticipate, New Line Cinemas is releasing the Golden Compass this Christmas season, an adaptation of the first book of a fantasy trilogy, which New Line seems to be grooming as its next Lord of the Rings franchise.