Speaking of surprisingly not-so-bad, the Ghost Rider trailer is out:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/ghostrider/

And yes, we completely forgot about Cars, which will probably do very well. I’d put it ahead of DVC on Ed’s list (for final numbers–DVC will drop fairly quickly, while Cars will have legs).

I’ll throw my hat into the ring and say Superman wins the Summer, but the Pirate movie is hard to argue against. Depp and Bloom will pull all the tweenie/teenie girls loaded with disposable income all Summer long.

My feeling is X3 is going to disappoint when compared to Superman, but we’ll see.

Oh, let’s not forget Cars is also due out. Don’t all Pixar flicks rake in the cash?

I think the studios’ insistence on jump-starting the summer movie season by inching that line ever closer to the Spring Equinox is doing itself a disservice. You’ve got a traffic jam of large event pics crammed into one month and summer won’t begin for 29 days or so. By late June/early July – Poseidon, MI:3, DVC and X3 will be available OnDemand leaving a wide berth for Supes and Pirates of the Carribean to sail away with the booty. Plus – here’s a shocking revelation – late June/early July finds people out of school, on vacation and seeking to beat the heat. In early May, I’m too worked up about my petunias to care if Silas is an insult to the psycho albino monks of the world.

My Top 5 (box office winners in domestic gross):
1. Pirates of the Carribean 2 $312 million
2. Superman Returns $245 million
3. The Da Vinci Code $210 million
4. X3: The Last Stand $180 million
5. The Omen $160 million

#5 is a dark horse candidate. Horror films typically make a killing and it largely has June by itself. I’ve read some advance reviews that say it will play well to those who haven’t seen the original – which is the target demo of 16 to 28. Plus it opens on my birthday – 6/6/06 – menaing for one year only I am Beelzebub’s Boy.

Next year I go back to being just 2/3rds the devil.

I have a hunch X3 will suffer from blockbuster hangover from DVC. I predict the summer winner will be POTC2, with Superman Returns running a close second.