The Summer About 'Mary'

WINNERS
Armageddon
Projection: $200 million
Disney overspent wildly (close to $200 million with marketing) but wound up with summer's top grosser, and it's already at $150 million — and soaring — overseas. We'll toss in another $50 million if they promise not to make a sequel.

Deep Impact
Projection: $141 million
Mimi Leder's comet-hits-earth flick, made for a relatively cheap $80 million, took in $320 million worldwide; the Paramount/DreamWorks coproduction is the biggest hit ever directed by a woman.

Saving Private Ryan
Projection: $190-200 million
The $65 million smash is the first Oscar contender for DreamWorks (which coproduced with Paramount) — but with Spielberg and Hanks taking huge cuts, it's not the quick fix the studio needs.

There's Something About Mary
Projection: $150-160 million
Made for just $24 million, the spunky comedy, the first word-of-mouth smash since Scream, made stars of Cameron Diaz and the Farrellys, and gave Fox this summer's most profitable film.

Armageddon
Paramount's Truman Show was even bigger than Jim Carrey's Maskand Ace films; Eddie Murphy scored with both Disney's Mulan and Fox's Dr. Dolittle; Miramax's $17 million Halloween: H20 proved that cheap thrills can yield solid profits.

LOSERS
The Avengers
Projection: $25 million
Summer's noisiest (and, at $65 million before marketing, costliest) bomb was another embarrassment for recently flop-plagued Warner. Who greenlighted this — and did they read the script first?

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
Projection: $11 million
They said Hunter S. Thompson's gonzo-journalism classic was unfilmable. They were right.

Bullworth
Projection: $27 million
Writer-director-producer-star Warren Beatty's attempt to woo the hip-hop crowd with a mix of rap and politics scared older moviegoers away and left younger ones indifferent.

Mafia!
Projection: $19-20 million
Wrongfully Accused
Projection: $10-12 million
In a summer when hits from Armageddon to Halloween: H20 seemed to be winking at themselves, out-and-out movie parodies were dead in the water — especially with targets as stale as The Godfather and The Fugitive.

Hall of Shame
MGM's Disturbing Behavior proved teens know a Scream rip-off when they (don't) see one; Universal's BASEketball showed that South Park's creators are many things, but not movie stars; Warner's $60 million Quest for Camelot illustrated that 'toons can be a money pit too.

Toss-Ups
Lethal Weapon 4
Projection: $135-140 million
Warner insists that robust overseas returns, a big TV sale, and a probable hot video will make LW4 a solid hit — but aren't there better ways to spend $170 million than to produce and market one last chapter of a tired franchise?

Godzilla
Projection: $136 million
Sony's $120 million B movie turned out to be the blockbuster that wasn't. At $140 million (and counting) abroad, it's no disgrace, but it's also no franchise — and Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich are still smarting from those reviews.

The X-Files
Projection: $84 million
Mulder and Scully's film debut performed like a sequel: big opening, fast drop. Nonfans stayed away, but there are enough X-Philes for another installment.

Out of Sight
Projection: $38 million
A loser for hit-starved Universal, but a winner for its well-reviewed cast and indie king Steven Soderbergh, who moved gracefully into the mainstream.

Down the Middle
The bottom line would be brighter for Disney's Six Days, Seven Nights and Sony's Mask of Zorro if they hadn't cost $70 million each; Fox's Hope Floats gently aided Sandra Bullock's post-Speed 2 rehab; The Parent Trap did well, but what did Disney spend that $55 million budget on?