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Back in April,made specific box office predictions for 20 Summer 2014 releases. At that time, it looked like it was going to be a tough Summer to predict; that theory turned out to be more true than we had imagined.Half of our picks were wildly off, which is a significant increase over past years. These inaccuracies can be chalked up to a few poor assumptions made ahead of the season.First, the predictions were made based on the assumption that July had to be the highest-grossing month of the Summer. This was based on the fact that July has been the highest-grossing month of the year in each of the last 25 years. Remarkably, July wound up being the worst month of the Summer, and as a result July releases likeandwere all noticeably overestimated.The second assumption was that there had to be a certain number of "original" (i.e. non-sequel) hits. Even with two heavyweight sequels (and), 13 non-sequels earned over $90 million at the domestic box office in 2013. With a weaker batch of franchise titles, we assumed Summer 2014 would deliver at least as many non-sequel hits. Instead, only eight passed the $90 million threshold.The worst mistake, though, was assuming that star power would help prop up movies that weren't inherently appealing otherwise. This proved to be problematic when it came to A Million Ways to Die in the West (Seth MacFarlane), Dwayne Johnson ) and Adam Sandler ), among others.For each title, we will list the domestic forecast, the actual gross (in most cases an estimate) and the percentage difference [(Actual-Forecast)/Forecast]. Each prediction will be assigned a grade on the following arbitrary scale: A (less than 10% difference), B (10-19.9%), C (20-29.9%), D (30-39.9%) and F (over 40%).International results are less predictable, and are also still coming in over the next few months, so they will not be included below.Forecast: $325 millionActual: $176 million (est.)Difference: -46%In hindsight, it was a poor choice to bet thatwould expand in the same way thatdid a year before. Still, the fact thatis going to wind up $40 million below its beloved predecessor is stunning, especially given the lack of animated competition this Summer.Forecast: $290 millionActual: $234 million (est.)Difference: - 19%It was correct to assume that bringing back the originalcast would helpeasily exceed the last three movies in the franchise. Still, it fell well short ofin ticket sales; $234 million seems to be about as high as thefranchise is going to go at the domestic box office.Forecast: $285 millionActual: $246 million (est.)Difference: -14%The lastmovie earned $352.4 million at the domestic box office; the $285 million prediction here was based on the drops for the fourth installments in theandfranchises. That wound up being a generous forecast, asfell a massive 31 percent from its predecessor.Forecast: $240 millionActual: $208 million (est.)Difference: -13%With goodwill from the first movie and a story that took the franchise in an interesting new direction, we accurately predicted thatwould be one of the few sequels to out-gross its predecessor this Summer. Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to the lofty $240 million forecast.Forecast: $230 millionActual: $200.7 millionDifference: -12.7%After's massive opening weekend, this $230 million forecast actually looked like it would be a bit low. Unfortunately, the movie was crushed by mixed word-of-mouth, and wound up with the lowest total ever for a movie that opened above $90 million.Forecast: $225 millionActual: $202.9 millionDifference: -9.8%moved the franchise back to the first weekend of May, and brought back the iconic Green Goblin villain. As anticipated, that wasn't enough to stop the bleeding, and this became the lowest-grossingmovie (by a large margin) at the domestic box office.Forecast: $180 millionActual: $320 million (est.)Difference: 78%With obscure characters and an August release date, we expected this to perform similarly toand. Boy, were we wrong.Forecast: $150 millionActual: $241 million (est.)Difference: 61%This $150 million prediction was based on the notion that the so-so reputation ofandwould negatively affect, putting it in close to(which opened on the same weekend and also focused on a well-known fairy tale villain in its marketing campaign). Instead, it obliterated our prediction thanks to strong attendance from family moviegoers.Box Office Mojo