Water Bottle

No one, not even baumer, has suggested it's against the rules.

He can't. He loves the movie Jaws but he's now terrified of sharks.

I think you care more about Baumer's point than Baumer himself if you are going to look through his 50k posts just to "win".

Baumer's under 60 and he was really hyped for the Finest Hours.

I think it'll do better than that but it sucks that it's coming out that weekend. In it's second weekend it's going to have to deal with not one, not two, but three comedies. That's brutal.

Yeah that was Excel, the self-proclaimed Box Office Expert who Knew Better than Everyone About the Box Office.

Yeah, well you did. At least I think it was you who was like "wow there's a lot of hype but it's opening in December and December movies don't break the OW record so this can't possible break it..." around the time JW came out.

Hey baumer remember when you doubted me when I said that SW would break the OW record in December?

Adjusted it does. Which means that Suicide Squad could sell less tickets than Guardians of the Galaxy and still make $330 million. Man of Steel couldn't hit $300 million because of a mixed reception. It had an amazing marketing campaign though (which is why it opened to over $100 million) but after OW, it's WOM that matters. If Suicide Squad has amazing WOM and an amazing marketing campaign, then yeah it could do $340 million especially if Batman vs. Superman has good WOM (which is unlikely considering Zack Snyder's record).

What the hell does this even mean? That LOTR's grosses were contributed a lot by people who hated the franchise? Or that Harry Potter had a fanbase that averaged $300 million per movie but that Lord of the Ring's fanbase was somehow smaller despite averaging more? I'm not saying Fantastic Beasts is going to do more or less than $250 million at this point. Spin-off films can be difficult to pull off and a lot depends on marketing. But to put an arbitrary ceiling on it is at this point premature.

Age of Ultron disappointed (although it was still a huge hit and a huge success and it's silly to think it was a disappointment). So did Mockingjay: Part II. Yes, there was overperformance in 2015. There was also underperformance. The same will be true in 2016.

The Hobbit movies had a mixed audience reception. If the movies had gotten universal praise like LOTR generally did, they would have done a lot better. But when the reaction is "meh" then you generally do see a drop-off.

I could also see all of those movies exceeding expectations. Chances are some of them will fall short and some of them won't. It's extremely unlikely every one of them falls short of expectations.

January 2015 had American Sniper. The closest we've had this year is the Revenant. But otherwise than that, this January is performing within recent years.

There are a lot of major franchises (major franchise being where a franchise that's total has reached $1 billion domestic) coming out this year: the MCU, Batman, Star Wars, Harry Potter, X-Men, Star Trek, and Pixar. 2016 should be fine.

Adjusting, still way up from 2012 and 2013 and very slightly down to 2014 (by 1%).

YTD 2016 is up from 2014 and 2013. It is down slightly from 2016. I kinda want to spend the effort writing a review in essay form but instead of releasing it as an essay, I read it out in a Youtube vid. But that's a lot of effort just to disagree with you.

I went to the Grove and there was a fake spaceship on the courtyard with a guy spraying something. A marketing stunt obviously but cool.

Wait you aren't naked already? Oh. Awkward.

The real reason Avatar moved wasn't because of Star Wars. It was to avoid competing with Christopher Nolan's next masterpiece. Dunkirk.