Film: as usual, unpredictable.

NAYSAYERS will call it the summer of "Gigli" and "Hollywood Homicide." But it could just easily be the summer of"Finding Nemo" and "The Matrix Reloaded" and "Pirates of the Caribbean." The movie season was, in short, a mixed bag of successes and clunkers that by Labor Day had studio executives on the defensive as they nervously prepared for the congested fall and holiday lineup.

From early May through the Labor Day weekend, domestic grosses reached $3.8 billion, up 2 percent from a year earlier ... Factor in a 4 percent increase in ticket prices and the box office is below the summer of 2002, the first decline in three years ... Through Sept. 21, box office receipts are down 1.1 percent from 2002 and attendance is down 4.9 percent, according to movie tracker Exhibitor Relations.

The summer's biggest lesson: that the movie business is its usual unpredictable self ... For every surprise clunker, like the Fox retro-comedy "Down With Love," which barely generated $20 million, there was Paramount's "The Italian Job," which opened months ago to tepid reviews and by late last month was still on more than 400 screens with total domestic box office of $105 million.

The quarter's biggest case of head scratching involved the disappointing numbers from ,sequels, with the possible exception of "Matrix" and "Terminator 3" ... Any sequel proposal not already green-lighted for next year will likely receive a cool response among studio heads (until there is a blockbuster sequel that defies the pattern).

As attention turns to the last quarter, distributors must jockey their release dates so as not to get outmaneuvered by another studio's film that has more screens and a bigger marketing push ... Squeezed into just a few weeks, the competition will be fierce, with Warner Bros.' next "Matrix" installment on tap, along with "The Alamo," "Peter Pan" and the "Lord of the Rings" finale.