Rising stars rank high with summer film fans: poll

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Films with rising stars like Bradley Cooper and Megan Fox dominated box offices this summer, and a new poll on Tuesday by online ticket seller Moviefone shows fans favored those flicks with fresh faces.

Thirty-five percent of respondents to a Moviefone poll named surprise hit comedy "The Hangover" the summer movie "most worth" the price of admission, while 33 percent called ancient biblical caper "Year One" the biggest waste of their money, despite the fact it starred top comedian Jack Black.

"The Hangover," a yarn about a guys' trip to Las Vegas gone haywire, starred an ensemble cast of largely unknown male actors, with Cooper as the biggest name. But it has made $420 million at worldwide box offices, thanks to positive reaction from both men and women.

Seventy-five percent of poll respondents named "The Hangover" the summer's funniest comedy.

"Star Trek," director J.J. Abrams' re-imagining of the Paramount Pictures franchise, earned second-place in the category of most worthwhile summer movies, with 18 percent of respondents choosing it. That film also starred a cast of previous unknowns, including Chris Pine and Zoe Saldana.

But fans showed their ambivalence about action movie "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," which has made $828 million at worldwide box offices and become the biggest movie of the year in the U.S. and Canada with nearly $400 million.

In the poll, only 16 percent of respondents said it was the movie most worth their money, while 17 percent said it was a bust. But a whopping 55 percent named "Transformers" star Megan Fox the "summer's sexiest babe," a sign of her rising appeal.

Top comedy star Will Ferrell joined Black at the losing end of the Moviefone poll, which received nearly 622,000 votes.

Ferrell's movie "Land of the Lost" was ranked second only to Black's "Year One" as the movie "least worth" the ticket price, even though producers spent an estimated $100 million on the film, a large sum for a comedy.

Moviefone is owned by Internet giant AOL. Full results of the poll can be found at www.moviefone.com

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)