The Summer Movie Wager is a game, which is played during the summer period of a single year. The general goal of this game is to predict the highest grossing films of the summer in terms of domestic box office. With domestic box office we mean the gross returns a movie made in the USA and Canada.

In each year a specific time period will be specified, which will define the "summer" period of that year in regard to this game. Usually such time period will start in May and ends on the labor day weekend (in the USA). For the year 2025 this time period will be: 05/01/2025 - 09/01/2025.

This time period determines what movies are considered to be released in the summer of that year. A movie is only eligible to be part of this game in case its first domestic theatrical release is inside that time period. To keep the list of movies manageable, not every eligible movie might be available for selection on this site. If you want to pick an eligible movie, that is not available on this site, you can request it to be made available for selection.

The release dates of movies could be changed by the studios at any time. This could mean that a movie, that has been picked by a player, is now delayed beyhond the summer period. In that case such movie will make no box office during the summer and thus this will lead to zero points for such pick. It could also happen that a movie is unexpectedly released in the summer and will reach the Top 10. Players will not have picked such movie and thus cannot gain any points for it. But such movie will still be included in the Top 10 and thus considered in regard to determining the positions of other movies and thus indirectly effect the scoring.

The domestic gross returns (Box Office) of an eligible movie is only counted starting from its release date and ending on the last day (inclusive) of that time period. So even in case a movie makes additional box office after the specified time period, such box office does not count in regard to this game. After all such box office for each eligible movie is counted, a Top 10 of the highest grossing movies is created in a descending order from #1 to #10 with #1 being the highest grossing movie of the summer.

Before the time period starts, each player will create a list by picking 10 eligible movies and ordering them from #1 to #10. The composition and order of these picks should at best reflect the Top 10 of the highest grossing movies at the end of the time period. Additionally he will pick 3 more eligible movies as so called dark horses. The dark horses dont have an order. These dark horses should be movies the player thinks might also be part of the Top 10, as he of course cannot be sure that his first ten picks are the correct ones. For these 13 picks a player may only select each eligible movie at most once. Each player must create and submit his list before the start of the specified time period. Usually a deadline for such submissions will be specified.

After the end of the time period each list is given a score by comparing it to the correct Top 10. How such scoring is done will be explained in the next section. The player with the highest score wins the game. We dont use any tie breakers. If players are tied for a place they all share in the glory of that place together.

Each of your 13 picks (10 movies and 3 dark horses) gets a single score assigned to it by using the following rules:

• If your picked movie for #1 is correct, you score 13 points for it.
• If your picked movie for #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8 or #9 is correct, you score 10 points for it.
• If your picked movie for #10 is correct, you score 13 points for it.
• If your picked movie is only 1 spot away from its actual placement, you score 7 points for it.
• If your picked movie is only 2 spots away from its actual placement, you score 5 points for it.
• If your picked movie is placed inside the Top 10, you score 3 points for it.
• If your picked movie is not placed inside the Top 10, you score 0 points for it.
• For each of your picked dark horses placed inside the Top 10, you score 1 point.
• If two or more rules apply to a single pick, only that single rule will be applied which assigns the highest point value to that pick. For example: If your pick for #1 is correct, you don't get 16 points for it because it is #1 and because it placed inside the Top 10; instead you only get 13 points for it.

The point value assigned to your list is then the total sum of those individual score values for each pick. The goal is to maximize this (total) point value of your list. Players are placed in descending order based on this total point value.