Another Strong Summer of Films at the Box Office : Movies: Final figures are due out today but estimates point to a season that comes close to last year’s record $2.2-billion haul.

Except for the shouting, the summer movie season is over.

Final figures are due out today but the estimated gross for the season, according to Exhibitor Relations, which began its summer-long count on May 12 with the debut of “Crimson Tide,” is $2.19 billion, making this summer’s box office a virtual deadlock with last year’s record $2.2-billion haul.

Universal, which saw its summer starting the weekend of May 19 when “Die Hard With a Vengeance” opened, is claiming a first-place victory with $391.5 million in revenues. That would put Warner Bros. and Disney very close behind with $387.1 million and $384.2 million, respectively. Numbers and rankings could vary depending on the date in May that each studio marks as the beginning of the summer movie season.

Whatever the official pecking order, Universal, Warner Bros. and Disney were the clear leaders for the season. (Fox and Paramount are well behind in fourth and fifth.) Universal, however, generated its revenues with fewer films, mainly “Apollo 13,” “Casper,” “Waterworld” and “Babe.”

For the Labor Day weekend, “Mortal Kombat” is turning out to be relatively long-lived, holding the No. 1 position for the third week in a row, longer than any film this summer except “Apollo 13,” which ruled for four weeks. As expected, the adventure dropped to an estimated $8.1 million on 2,630 screens and now has grossed about $55 million in three weeks.

But depending on Monday’s final totals, “Mortal” could be bested by the surprisingly strong “Dangerous Minds.” “Minds” had an estimated $7.9-million take on 1,594 screens over the Labor Day weekend. Total to date is $58 million.

Taking advantage of a slow weekend for new films, “The Prophecy,” from Miramax’s Dimension division, totaled $7.5 million to take third place on 1,663 screens. And though it’s only on 506 screens, Gramercy’s “The Usual Suspects” cracked the Top 10, winding up in eighth in its first weekend in wide release with an estimated $3.7 million. The per-screen average of more than $7,000 is the best of the Top 10, and brings the suspense film’s total to$5.7 million.

Fourth place went to “Desperado” starring Antonio Banderas, which did reasonably well with $6.4 million on 2,027 screens for $17.5 million in its first 11 days. Fox’s “A Walk in the Clouds,” the only romance in the market, is holding better than expected with a fifth-place estimate of $5.5 million on 1,755 screens and has grossed almost $39 million to date.

The talking pig, “Babe,” is hanging tough with $4.3 million on 1,789 screens and about $43 million, followed in seventh place by Julia Roberts in “Something to Talk About,” which grossed $4 million on 1,727 screens with $45.6 million thus far.

“Waterworld” is coming to the end of its run with a ninth-place $3.6 million over the four-day holiday on 1,832 screens and has grossed $81.4 million to date. And rounding out the Top 10 is “Apollo 13” with $3.2 million on 1,345 screens and $162.2 million to date, the second highest-grossing film of the summer.

Because the weekend mainly consisted of longer-running films, the box office for the final weekend of summer was expected to be down in the range of 10% to 15%, according to John Krier of Exhibitor Relations.

Looking ahead, Mitch Goldman, distribution head of New Line Cinema, sees only “Mortal” and “Dangerous” as having the moxie to withstand the early fall business lull, though the pattern could be different from Septembers past since there are several promising movies due over the next three weeks, including the drag comedy “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar” starring Patrick Swayze, Spike Lee’s “Clockers,” the NC-17 rated “Showgirls” and the thriller “Seven” with Brad Pitt.