The Analyst's Prediction

What's called "the smart money" tells us what will succeed during the summer season.

Doug Creutz of Cowen and Co. picked his “Dirty Dozen” list of movies that he figures will account for about 70 percent or more of this summer’s total domestic box office. ... Creutz estimates Iron Man 3 will top out at $350 million domestically. His pick for the second biggest film of the summer is Monsters University, which he figures will earn $275 million.

Next on his list is a tie at $250 million between Star Trek Into Darkness and Despicable Me 2.

The rest of his Dirty Dozen: The Hangover Part III ($225 million); Man of Steel ($220 million); Fast & Furious 6 ($220 million); The Wolverine ($190 million); Turbo ($171 million); a tie between The Great Gatsby and Pacific Rim, ($150 million); and Grown Ups 2 ($125 million).

The titles he thinks are most at risk of not performing as well as he has predicted: The Wolverine, Pacific Rim and Turbo.

Titles having only a “reasonable chance” of cracking the Top 12 this summer are Epic, The Heat and The Internship; and This is the End and Smurfs 2. ...

Kindly note that there are four animated titles (one of them a hybrid) which are candidates for The Magic Twelve.

Me, I would estimate that of the animated contingent, Epic has the highest likelihood of under-performing. The trailers are gorgeous, but movies from William Joyce books have a tendency to do less well at theatre turnstiles.

For the rest of the cartoon features, I think most will gross in the $400 million to $600 million range at the world box office.

Smurfs 2 is the sequel to the first blockbuster feature starring the tiny blue people. My assumption is the followup will repeat the box office hat trick, landing between $550-$650 million when all the folding money is counted.

And I've already made my glorious predictions about the other animated releases here.

Global Box Office

Monsters University -- $527 million

Turbo -- $445 million

Epic -- $345 million

Despicable Me 2 -- $501 million

I made the guesses directly above two weeks ago, but of course I could have my head far up my large intestine. It wouldn't surprise me if each of these titles did $50 million to $150 million more than I think they will.