Film Junk Poll: What Will Be the Biggest Surprise of the Summer?

Posted by on May 4th, 2012   Filed under: Polls

With the summer movie season kicking off this weekend, a lot of people have been discussing their most anticipated summer flicks and making some friendly box office predictions. Unfortunately, I think both of these would be pretty one-sided as poll topics, so I thought we’d try something a little bit different. Let’s disregard The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises for now, and instead focus on a few summer releases that haven’t received quite as much attention. Which of these “under the radar” movies has the highest likelihood of being a pleasant surprise and turning out better than expected? I’m not necessarily talking about box office here, but rather overall quality of the film. Cast your vote in this week’s poll and discuss further in the comments below!

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  • Kasper

    I think GI Joe 2 will make a lot more money than anyone actually expects it to after the atrocious first flick.

    I don’t get how it would be a surprise though if Brave made a lot of money. It’s Pixar after all.

    When it comes to quality a lot of the movies on this list I expect to be good. But the two that would really surprise me is The Dictator and GI Joe 2.

  • I’m not talking about money as much as the quality of the film. And yeah, maybe it wouldn’t be surprising if a Pixar movie turned out to be great, but I haven’t heard *anyone* talking about Brave.

  • Ryan

    I honestly had no clue about Dark Shadows until watching a TV spot a few days ago, It gave me a real Beetlejuice vibe and jumped right up on my must see list.

  • Ryan

    Btw Total Recall looks very bland…Some of the trailer scenes looked shot for shot stolen from the original. Looks like a bluray watch at best.

  • Anthony

    I went with Bourne Legacy. I think people are writing it off because of the lack of Jason Bourne.

  • swarez

    My pick is G.I. Joe. The insanely entertaining trailers make it look like a masterpiece compared to the first one. Plus The Rock and Bruce Willis can still pull them in.

  • Indianamcclain

    I’m really hoping that Dark Shadows is fun.

  • patrik

    I think the Snow White trailers look awesome. I’m worried that the synth music won’t be in the movie though.. Dark Shadows looks good too.

  • AVENGERS was a massive surprise to me. Not sure any of this stuff will top it.

  • Steve Kasan

    I just saw a recent trailer for Snow White & The Huntsman. That looks really solid. That might be the big surprise of this summer

  • Sly

    The Amazing Spider-Man will be…..amazing!

  • Indianamcclain

    Also, I’m really hoping that MIB 3 is good. It seems with the controversy surrounding the production a lot of people aren’t looking forward to it, but I think it’ll be good

  • Scott Harrigan

    The new GI Joe movie is going to be pretty good. At worst it should be a laughably stupid movie that is very enjoyable, but there is the potential for something more. The casting choices were pretty cool, especially The Rock, and the action looks good. At the very least, it will be better than the first one which was just boring as dirt.

    http://www.videodetective.com/movies/g-i-joe-retaliation/480730

  • The Bourne Legacy and Total Recall both have the advantage of a two week buffer between their release and the next big action film. Hopefully it means one of them will do Rise of the Planet of the Apes business. They are evenly matched: A reboot/sequel vs a Remake. My money is on Legacy purely because I underestimated the potential (box office and quality) of Ultimatum, so this may have good legs. Recall on the other hand is a remake no one asked for by a director that has yet to truly dazzle us.

  • These all look pretty terrible. I’m looking forward to Spider-man the most just because I love the character.

  • Napalm

    I think people aren’t giving a lot attention to how much potential The Amazing Spider-Man and Total Recall have. Both films to me look great! I was surprised by the lack of enthusiasm of the FJ crew on the Total Recall trailer tbh… it looks really good to me. As for Spider-Man, I was on board with it from the get go but I lost a bit of hope when that first trailer dropped. But this new trailer totally re instilled my excitement. I think its not getting much attention in the midst of heavyhitters like Avengers and TDKR and also most people are writing it off because its a re-boot.

  • Paul

    No SAVAGES? That’s my bet.

  • Joe

    “Recall on the other hand is a remake no one asked for by a director that has yet to truly dazzle us.”

    Always amazes me when some stupid twat on the internet says “no one asked for it.” Who the fuck are you talking about? Since when has anyone asked for any film? You get what the studio want to make. Movie audiences don’t ask for certain movies to be made dumbass. You’re really talking about yourself aren’t? The only problem with that is nobody gives a damn what you want or asked for. So do me a favor and shut the hell up.

    As for Wiseman, he dazzled me pretty damn well with Live Free Or Die Hard, and he obviously dazzled the critics. Don’t believe me, go check rottentomaotes.

  • Joe

    Back to Total Recall, Sony killed the box office potential of that film by releasing it in August, against Bourne Legacy and in the middle of the Olympics. The release date is horrid. Even if Recall beats Bourne, and it very well may, the two film will cancel each other out and diminish each other’s box office take compared to what they would have done if they had the date all to themselves.