It’s been a strange summer at the global box office. At a time when studios tend to release movies with high concepts, huge budgets, and – all too often – the emphasis of effects over story, Iron Man 3 joined the billion dollar club, grossing 1.2 billion and becoming the fifth biggest film in history. Tony Stark’s entertaining adventures aside however, the silly season has been something of a damp squib.

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2012 gave us three billion dollar blockbusters in the shape of The Avengers ($1.5 billion), Skyfall ($1.2 billion) and The Dark Knight Rises ($1.1 billion). But 2013 hasn’t come close to producing such smash-hits, with superhero movies like Man of Steel and The Wolverine doing healthy business without reaching the dizzy heights of the aforementioned superhero flicks, and movie star vehicles for the likes of Tom Cruise and Will Smith failing to find the audience that their huge budgets demand.Travel back a few months however, and the story was very different. Christmas is a time when studios release more serious films with an eye on impressing Oscar voters in advance of the Academy Awards. That's because those little statues can add tens of millions to a film’s gross, as both The King’s Speech and Slumdog Millionaire have recently proved.A strange thing happened this past award season however – multiple Oscar contenders became sizable hits, with Life of Pi turning into a bona fide blockbuster by grossing a whopping $609m globally. Admittedly the film was based on a bestselling novel and featured amazing visual and 3D effects that cost a fortune (the budget was apparently around the $120m mark). The story of a boy stranded on a lifeboat with a tiger wasn’t the most commercial of concepts however, and it lacked a star to sell its strange narrative. But Ang Lee’s film connected with audiences in a way that many of this summer’s blockbusters have failed to, making a fortune in the process.Then you’ve got Les Miserables. Again the film is based on hugely popular source material in the shape of the stage-show of the same name. And it had its fair share of star power via Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway. But 158-minute musicals aren’t supposed to make in excess of $400m and yet Les Mis did just that, costing approximately $61m and grossing $442m at the box office.And Django Unchained wasn’t far behind, Quentin Tarantino’s $100m revisionist western clocked up box office receipts of $424m in spite of the controversial subject matter. Westerns simply don’t make that kind of money, as The Lone Ranger proved, hitting screens weeks ago, costing more than twice the budget of Django, but making only half as much at the box office.Science-fiction is another genre that has suffered this summer, Elysium doing only modest business, and Tom Cruise’s Oblivion and Will Smith’s After Earth costing a fortune ($120m and $130m respectively) and grossing a disappointing $286m and $244m. Could our cinematic tastes may be changing?Argo (budget $44m), Lincoln ($65m), Flight ($31m) and Silver Linings Playbook ($21m) all hit the $200m mark in January, which few would have predicted when their Oscar campaigns began, suggesting that audiences may well be tiring of sequels, reboots and poorly realised sci-fi in favour of more serious fare.Of course there were still sizeable mainstream hits this summer, with the Fast & Furious franchise continuing to grow, World War Z surprising everyone by turning into something of a hit in spite of its troubled production, and Pacific Rim eventually finding an audience, albeit in China But the success of those critical darlings can't be ignored. So what does this mean for the next 12 months? Will this year’s Oscar candidates pull similar financial feats? There are certainly several dramas with blockbuster potential.The Counselor looks to be a good bet. Directed by Ridley Scott from a script by Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men, The Road), it’s a dark and twisted crime thriller that stars Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem and Cameron Diaz and is already generating Oscar buzz.Following in the footsteps of Lincoln, there are a couple of biopics to look out for in the shape of Diana and Mandela, with Naomi Watts playing ‘The People’s Princess’ and Idris Elba the former South African President. Both are likely to be front-runners for acting nods.Martin Scorsese often combines critical acclaim with healthy box office, and if the trailer for his forthcoming Wolf of Wall Street is anything to go by, the film will be a winner on both fronts.It’s also a big year for Tom Hanks, the two-time Oscar winner playing Walt Disney in Saving Mr. Banks and starring in the eagerly anticipated pirate drama Captain Phillips. Both have the potential to pull in big box office.And an outsider that’s generating great word-of-mouth is 12 Years a Slave. Directed by Steve McQueen, the film is based on the true story of Solomon Northup, a free-man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. The cast includes Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender and Benedict Cumberbatch, while Chewitel Ejiofor plays the lead in a film that will doubtless be challenging, uncompromising, and something of a must-see.So even though a somewhat disappointing summer is over, that’s not it for 2013, with studios hoping that the aforementioned will swell their bank accounts in the coming months.But whatever happens in theatres, it’s certainly an interesting time for film, with arthouse efforts snapping at the ankles of the blockbuster, potentially making studio heads think twice before they green-light that empty summer sequel, and turning the cinema into a much more interesting place to visit.All figures taken from Box Office Mojo and correct on 16/8/2013.

Chris Tilly is the Entertainment Editor for IGN in the UK and can't wait for The Wolf of Wall Street, The Counselor and 12 Years a Slave. He can be found counting down the days till their release on both Twitter and MyIGN