Ah, summer. A season of overblown budgets and extravagant productions. For movie goers everywhere, this three and a half month stretch is what they have waited for all year. So as always, the prediction for this summer is: Hollywood makes oodles of money. Over these next few months, this column will be examining the phenomena of counter programming and how well it stacks up to the popcorn flick of the week.

This week: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian vs. Nothing

Since I haven’t seen this, this week’s column is going to be rather short. I was out of town on a set visit when they screened it for critics so…

Verdict: From what I’ve heard, Prince Caspian is better in every aspect over its predecessor. Still, if you didn’t like the first one, I probably wouldn’t bother. It’s most likely more of the same. I liked the first one so you can bet I’ll be checking it out this weekend. Christians and non-Christians seemed to come together in huge numbers for the original so you can bet that this’ll open huge and probably have long legs at the box office, though I will say that I think it’s not as hyped as the original. I don’t think it really matters though. The only wide-release counter programming this week is Iron Man and I think it’s had its fifteen minutes. Expect it to sit pretty at number two. Speed Racer is DOA and Vegas will hold at number three, doing good business for what it is.