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The summer movie season always ends with a whimper.

The blockbusters of May, June and July always give way to the August releases, a grab-bag of movies that were considered unworthy for big summer play — either because they weren't big enough, or not particularly good, or too hard to market.

So what kind of summer was it at the box office? Depends on what kind of movies you like.

Here are some of the winners and losers of the summer:

Winner: Superheroes • The biggest live-action movie of the summer, in box-office terms, was "Captain America: Civil War," earning $407.9 million in North America and $1.15 billion worldwide. Turns out everybody likes a mash-up where Captain America and Iron Man are beating the crap out of each other, with help from Ant-Man, Spider-Man and plenty of others. The other Marvel-linked title, "X-Men: Apocalypse," fared adequately, taking in $155 million domestically and $542 million worldwide.

Winner: Supervillains • DC Comics didn't have a direct competition to Marvel's monster hit, but their bad guy compilation "Suicide Squad" surprised everybody by dominating August and raking in $285 million in North America and $639 million globally.

Winner: Pixar • The only movie that beat "Captain America," domestically, was "Finding Dory," which topped the U.S. charts with a $479.7 million haul. (Globally, it's about $70 million shy of cracking the billion-dollar barrier.) That's the most a Pixar movie has ever made, breaking the record held by "Toy Story 3."

Loser: Lovers of good animation • Critics try and try to steer parents toward quality animated movies. So why in the world did the insipid, derivative "The Secret Life of Pets" snag $354 million at the U.S. box office, while the sublime and beautiful "Kubo and the Two Strings" — easily the best animated movie so far this year — has made a mere $26 million since its opening three weeks ago? Sometimes I wonder if anybody's listening. (Well, they did listen to us when we warned them about "The Angry Birds Movie." So that's some consolation.)

Winner: Horror movies • It doesn't take a lot of money to scare audiences, so a movie like "The Conjuring 2" taking in $102 million domestically is a pretty good return on investment. Same for "The Shallows" ($54.7 million U.S.) and "Don't Breathe" (which took the top spot last weekend with a $26.4 million opening).

Winner: Raunchy movies • F-bombs, like horror movies, are cheap and profitable. The R-rated comedies "Bad Moms," "Sausage Party" and "Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates" all made more than they cost to make.

Loser: Franchises • Some familiar titles underperformed this summer, including "Star Trek Beyond," "Jason Bourne," "Independence Day: Resurgence," "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows," "Alice Through the Looking Glass," "Now You See Me 2" and "Ice Age: Collision Course."

Loser: People who skipped "Ghostbusters" • Sorry, haters, you missed the funniest movie of the summer. The one consolation is that it wasn't the sexist crybabies who ultimately killed the idea of a sequel — it was the Chinese market, where the movie never opened because of rules there against some supernatural themes. (It's complicated.)

Loser/winner: Movies that did open in China • "Warcraft" was a bust stateside, taking in a meager $47 million — which would be considered a bust for a movie with a reported budget of $160 million. But the thing sold well internationally, particularly in China, so there may still be a sequel. "Independence Day: Resurgence" had a similar fate, making nearly three-fourths of its $383 million global haul overseas.

Loser: Movie stars • What did Johnny Depp ("Alice Through the Looking Glass"), George Clooney and Julia Roberts ("Money Monster"), Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling ("The Nice Guys") and Matthew McConaughey ("Free State of Jones") have in common? They didn't draw nearly enough fans to their movies this summer.

Winner: "Weiner" • The summer's best political soap opera not running in real time on CNN, the documentary "Weiner" — an in-the-moment look at disgraced ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner (aka "Carlos Danger") and his notorious sexting scandal — had everything you could ask for: compelling characters, a thrilling narrative, low comedy, high drama, even a chase scene. And, with the news this week that Weiner's wife, Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, was finally leaving the louse, viewers finally got the perfect ending.

Sean P. Means writes The Cricket in daily blog form at http://www.sltrib.com/blogs/moviecricket. Follow him on Twitter @moviecricket. Email him at spmeans@sltrib.com.