Before I simultaneously kick off B.E.V.'s second year with my predictions for the films hitting theaters on the first Friday in June, let us to take a step backward for a moment, and consider where the month of June exactly fits into the jigsaw of the summer landscape. Obviously, May is meant for the biggest of the big ... last year, Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End banked nearly a billion dollars between them. And July saw the release of two more films that reached double- or triple-blockbuster status, Transformers and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix film, with $183 million for The Simpsons Movie thrown in there for good measure. Even August at least had The Bourne Ultimatum ($227 million).

June, on the other hand, seems to represent a sort of cooling-down period, a way for moviegoers to catch their collective breaths while enjoying fare that is still very good, but not quite on the level of the giants that it is sandwiched between. June 2007 saw a whopping six blockbusters in its own right: Knocked Up, Ocean's Thirteen, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Evan Almighty, Live Free or Die Hard and Ratatouille (which just barely broke $200 million after a six-month run, the only June release to do so).

Almost everything about the summer of 2008 seems to parallel the schedule of one year ago ... Iron Man, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull assaulting our pleasure centers in May, Hancock and The Dark Knight looming on the horizon in July and another Pixar outing coming in June's final week. So we will begin with what is virtually certainty to become the first blockbuster of June, Kung Fu Panda, the latest animated creation to be brought to us by DreamWorks.

This is, of course, the same studio that brought us such hits as the monstrously popular Shrek series, as well as Over the Hedge, Madagascar, Shark Tale and last fall's Bee Movie. (For the record, they've also had a few misses, such as the fairly disastrous Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, as well as Flushed Away, a film that deserved a far, far better fate than Shark Tale or Bee Movie got. Sigh.) But just when you thought that you couldn't possibly generate buzz with yet another movie centered on members of the animal kingdom, DreamWorks comes along to pound another nail in. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that people don't love to see animals walking, talking and acting like humans on the big screen ... we've been seeing it for well over half a century. But let's face it, the genre has become over-saturated, a fact that Pixar has already picked up on, given that they have turned their ship right the hell away from that whirlpool.

Now, despite my misgivings about DreamWorks's further dilution of the genre (which will continue this winter with the Madagascar sequel), my assessment for Panda is not all doom and gloom. DreamWorks's track record, while not nearly as impressive as that of their rivals at Pixar, is still formidable, and carries a fair amount of weight with the high-school-and-under age bracket. And given that the schedule for the two weeks following the release of Panda contains a number of titles with some fairly large question marks, this film seems to be expertly placed to pull in some very decent numbers. But more on that in a bit.

Putting aside the fact that the kids who make up the target demographic for this movie don't usually care who provides the characters' voices as long as the end product is enjoyable, DreamWorks has assembled a fairly impressive cast of A-listers for this one: Jack Black, Jackie Chan, Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Ian McShane, as well as Seth Rogen and Dan Fogler from the Apatow circle of talent. Not too shabby.

The story: when the far-off land known as the Valley of Peace is threatened by the arrival of an evil snow leopard named Tai Lung, a team of kung fu champions (made up of a tigress, a viper, a crane, a monkey and a, um, mantis) recruit a slacker panda bear named Po (Black) to help defend their territory. Obviously unskilled, he must submit to the teachings of a red panda named Shifu (Hoffman), the local master, who has his hands decidedly full.

I do plan on seeing this film, but I am going in with some reservations (probably the lingering aftertaste of the brittle, unfunny Bee Movie). I can only hope, no, PRAY going in, that, given the film's setting and premise, they keep the modern-day street slang and pop-culture references to a bare (no pun intended) minimum. I like what I've seen from the ads and trailers (which are almost sure to be followed by a marketing blitz complete with fast food tie-ins), and I hope that the folks at DreamWorks can follow Pixar's example, and by that I mean: create a film that will be just as good five or 10 years from now as it is today. Because let's face it: Though Shrek was a masterful piece of animation, its two sequels have sped up its aging process significantly, and the bloom may already be off the rose as far as our favorite ogre is concerned. Madagascar and Over the Hedge have stood up to repeat viewings, but most of the rest have been simply forgettable.

Which camp will Kung Fu Panda fall into? Well, only time will tell. For now, however, I have to believe that it will simply end up as another mid-range success typical for a June release. It should easily win its opening weekend (I'm guessing around $70 million), and has a decent shot at being No. 1 the following weekend as well. Fantasy Moguls predicts a total of 14 Top 5 points (it might even do more than that), eight PTA (sounds good), a User Rating of 7.5 (that might be highballing it), and $220 million in total take (can't give it that much, I think it will peter out closer to $180 million).

So is it worth it to have? The May-July Ultimate Movie Leagues leagues have Panda priced at $36, which is a pretty hefty sum, I'll grant you. (Box Office Moguls leagues have it at $31.) If I use Fantasy Moguls's projections as a yardstick, the June-August leagues will have it priced just slightly below The Dark Knight and significantly higher than both WALL-E and Hancock. And, try as I might, I cannot envision a lovable yet unproven DreamWorks panda out-slugging Pixar, Will Smith, or especially Batman. Just can't. But as I said, it's expertly placed at the beginning of June; Indiana Jones will be cooling off a little, which means that Top 5 points are there for the taking, at least until Get Smart hits theaters. Bottom line: it's a good pick, but by no means the best one.

One of the most basic Hollywood tenets: "Comedy is hard." Given how the particular tastes of a person, or a culture, or an age change and evolve with the times, building an entire career on one's comedic ability is often perilously tough. For proof, you need look no further than the recent plight of Will Ferrell. This is a guy who had taken his over-the-top, loud, obnoxious persona on a fairly impressive hitting streak. No one (at least, not approximately one-half of the people who play Fantasy Moguls) could have predicted the total failure of Semi-Pro, which performed the filmic equivalent of going down on three straight pitches out of the strike zone.

Adam Sandler, when you think about it, is a lot like Ferrell: approximately the same age, with a tendency to play similarly loud, boisterous characters, and who also got his start as a regular on Saturday Night Live. The difference is that while Sandler has certainly had his share of disappointments (most of which were when he tried to break from the norm and try something more dramatic, but more on that later), films where he has been the headlining star have done very, consistently well.

There are many out there that seem to think that You Don't Mess With the Zohan will end up being Sandler's Semi-Pro, but I find that hard to believe. In the last decade, 10 of the 15 films where Sandler has been one of the two top-billed actors have broken the $100 million barrier. Three of the five that didn't can probably be discounted because they weren't "comedies," those being Reign Over Me, Spanglish and Punch-Drunk Love (which is a crying shame, because two of those films featured some of the best "acting" that Sandler has ever done), and one was the animated misfire Eight Crazy Nights. The only true comedic bomb he's suffered in that time period was 2000's Little Nicky (a shudder-inducing worldwide take of $58 million — $39 million domestic — versus reported production costs of $85 million). That, folks, is a pretty hot streak. And when you consider that Zohan is re-teaming Sandler with Dennis Dugan (who directed him in both Big Daddy and Happy Gilmore), and that the screenplay was co-written by Sandler and current comedic wunderkind Judd Apatow, I don't believe that this is the one that will bring it all crashing down.

As premises go, it is rather unique: An Israeli Mossad agent named, of course, Zohan, after years of service to his country's military, begins to weary of the seemingly interminable fighting in his home country. Being one of the "greatest counter-terrorist agents in the world," however, one does not simply resign, apparently. Therefore, he orchestrates a scenario in which he fakes his own death, changes his identity, and moves to New York City in the hopes of becoming (wait for it ... wait for it ...) a hairstylist. Yeah, I know. But just as he begins to make that bizarrely inspiring transition, his past inevitably catches up to him after he suffers the misfortune of being recognized.

I'm not what you would call a Sandler enthusiast, although I have enjoyed a fair amount of his work. But the only thing I find more surprising than the fact that I think the trailer for Zohan is laugh-out-loud-funny is the fact that I seem to be in the overwhelming minority in thinking so. I have to believe, at any rate, that unless Sandler has magically lost his considerable touch in the last year, his ardent throng of hard-core fans will turn out to support him (and, of course, his five-foot shadow, Rob Schneider, who is, naturally, co-starring).

For whatever reason, Fantasy Moguls has taken the minimalist approach when pricing this film. They predict a paltry six Top 5 points, only two PTA, a User Rating of 5.2 and only $60 million in total revenues. I don't know, folks. If you had a horse that had won, placed or showed in 10 out of 15 races, you'd think it'd be more heavily favored, wouldn't you? I would honestly be surprised if this film opened with less than $30 million, which may just push it past Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (in its third weekend) and into the No. 2 spot. It could wind up with as many as eight Top 5 points, and unless the reviews are just horrible, look for a Rating in the 6.5 range. As for its final output, I'll ignore the pessimism and predict $100 million in grosses.

But even if the bottom falls out slightly and it only does, say, $70 million, it's still a good pick. Why? Well, it's priced at only $9 in the May-July Ultimate leagues ($8 in Box Office), which makes it, for me, one of the biggest bargains of the season. I mean, it's SANDLER. In a SUMMER COMEDY. WRITTEN BY APATOW. Yeah, I know, four months ago I said the words "Ferrell" and "sports comedy" with the same vigor, but until Sandler actually does fail, I'm not going to be the one that predicts he will.

I am pleased to announce that we are more than 80 percent of the way to our goal of 100 entrants for the Box Office and Ultimate 2nd-Half Half-Year Super League tournaments. I have been informed that the June-August leagues will be up sometime next week, which leads me to believe that the season will kick off on the weekend of June 6, so if you haven't registered yet, please send me an e-mail at the address below. (Please include your username, along with which tournament you wish to participate in: Ultimate, Box Office, or both.) I would love to get the number of players over 100 this time out, so get in! Bring your friends!

Well, that will do it for me for another week. Remember those "question marks" I mentioned earlier? Well, I will deal with two of the biggest ones next week, when I talk about The Incredible Hulk, the all-new, re-vamped, "Ang-who?"-version of the classic Marvel comic book , starring Edward Norton as the human half of the big green beastie; as well as The Happening, M. Night Shyamalan's latest attempt to recapture his Signs/The Sixth Sense magic, with the help of Mark Wahlberg.

TTFN!

If there's no objection from Shrykespeare, then we can probably just hand Semi-Pro the "first-half of 2008 Super Leagues LVP" trophy right now. Other nominations sent to shrykespeare42@gmail.com will receive due consideration.