With Labor Day come and gone, summer is officially over. So it is right to ask this imperative question – how many of you spent $100 million this summer? $150 million? If you are an executive of a movie studio or superior ruler of the universe, the answer is numerous times.

Labor day arrives with the closing of the big blockbuster movie, save a few scattered openings around the holiday season. This summer we watched Hollywood in all its glory bomb Pearl Harbor, create the land of Mecha, turn a digital playmate into a movie star, have an actress play a digital playmate, release some big bad mummies and grace us with John Travolta. All of which (and many more) came with a hefty price tag.

I remember the golden age of Hollywood when $100 million was a lot of money to produce a movie, unless your name was James Cameron. Today, the recipe for a summer blockbuster is simple – a bad script, a star, special effects, $100 million and some hype. I graced many theaters this summer and deposited $9 to view these well hyped movies.

I was surprised that movie after movie was usually worse than I perceived it before I viewed it. Some movies were unable to fool the critics. I just thought they were being picky. They weren’t. This season of summer blockbusters was largely a circus clown standing before the crowd throwing fecal matter in our faces.

This new trend of Hollywood has gone from marketing machine to hyping Gods. Nine movies were released and earned $40 million or more in their opening weekends. Before this summer, only 26 had ever opened to $40 million or more. Hollywood continues to push the marketing envelope of producing a movie.

Earning $40 million in an opening weekend has gone from success to failure for some of the most heavily hyped movies. For example, “Pearl Harbor” earned a $59 million weekend opening but was largely conceived as a failure because many analysts thought it would be the first movie to break the $100 million mark in an opening weekend.

How can $60 million be conceived as a failure? Hype. Hype can turn movies into golden gods overnight. Posters, television spots and the Internet all play a hand in elevating the hype of these summer movies. However, the hype with “Pearl Harbor” promised us the next “Titanic” with about 100 times the firepower. It could not live up to its hype.

Not all movies that are successful and turn a profit are produced for $100 million. I found that a few movies were very cheap and were still very successful. “Legally Blonde” cost $18 million and has pulled in a nice $86 million to date. “The Fast and the Furious” cost $38 million and has earned $141 million. With “Furious”, Hollywood hyped the movie up for months, toting it as “fast cars and fast women.” Hype was the number one reason “Furious” did $40 million on opening weekend.

Do not try and tell me that the reason everyone went to see it was the fast cars and gorgeous women. Remember the movie “Driven?” I think not, and neither does Hollywood. “Driven” was largely the same concept as “Furious” with the only difference being the hype.

Will this trend continue? As with all Hollywood trends, they continue until they overstate their welcome. In the meantime, the public is force fed movies that try to out do each other with colossal explosions. First it starts with blowing up buildings and by the time the closing credits roll, decimation on a planetary scale has occurred.

I want movies with substance. No more slow-motion roundhouses and flung fecal matter that are nothing more than overpriced B-movies.

Someday, when I make a movie, I’ll write a script with few words, insert some car chases (see Jerry Bruckheimer) and for the finale, blow up the moon. How’s that for hype? Unless of course someone beats me to the punch.

Jason Bruen is a senior in Engineering Operations from Lake Bluff, Illinois.