BadAtGender

Yeah, a friend has since informed me of that. I honestly couldn't remember who it was then. Cooper is so much more recognizable in the role, now.

I went in with low expectations. Mostly I just needed to get out of the house and watch a movie. I was hoping for a couple hours of distracting entertainment and... I really did get that. Unlike a lot of recent MCU films, it managed to retain its light-hearted tone throughout. The stakes of it, despite Michael Douglas' gravitas, are pretty small-scale: all hints at bad things to come rather than any sort of realization of them. That helps the film remain somewhat grounded and doesn't give the sense that it's trying too hard. Additionally, while the typical hints about things to come are abound, the film itself doesn't suffer under the weight of the universe. It's a rare MCU film that doesn't seem like it's all set-up for the next film. That helps it retain the refreshing nature that's been missing from the franchise of late. (The last film to really do this in my opinion was IM3, which basically said "fuck it" and went all Shane Black.) Of course, it's not perfect. The villian is typically unconvincing, in that grand MCU fashion, and there's a few moments that are almost off-puttingly gruesome. Plus, other than a few cute perspective shots, the presentation of Ant-Man's powers isn't especially interesting or clever. The action works just fine, but it would have been nice to see a fight that had that inventive fun that Thor: The Dark World showcased in its climax. Still, it's probably better they erred on the side of caution rather than giving us a boring effects-fest a-la AoU or TWS. I still wonder why this is a story about Scott and not Hope. It works well enough, but even in the context of the movie it's not really satisfactorily answered. Supporting casting was pretty well done. I enjoyed Michael Pena a lot, and had an "Oh yeah!" moment when I recognized Avon Barksdale. It was a bit strange to see Judy Greer play almost exactly the same character as in Jurassic World. (I first and foremost think of her in the context of Archer, which makes any other character she plays seem a bit odd.) One thing that really seemed strange to me was that they'd give Haley Atwell the make-up to be an older Peggy, but didn't cast Dominic Cooper to do the same for Howard Stark. I honestly had no idea who John Slattery was supposed to be and thought I'd misheard Michael Douglas when he said "Stark!" at the beginning. Still, enjoyable enough. Not top tier MCU, but it's better than anything they've done in the past couple of years. Oh, one thing:

Suppose I'll watch the final showing of Ant-Man.

) Will Ant Man open to more than 70 million? NO 2) Will Ant Man open to more than 80 million? NO 3) Will Minions fall less than 45%? NO 4) Will IO finish ahead of JW? YES 5) Will Trainwreck open to more than 20 million? YES 6) Will Terminator drop more than 45%? YES 7) Will Spy drop less than 45%? YES 8) Will Self/Less be in the top 10? YES 9) Will Baahubali fall more than 55% YES 10) Will Ted have a Friday increase of more than 25%? YES 11) Will any film increase more than 58% on Saturday? NO 12) Will Minions have a Thursday increase? NO 10/12 3000 11/12 4000 12/12 6000 What finishes in spots 5 Jurassic World 7 Magic Mike XXL 8 The Gallows 9 Ted 2 2000 each 3000 bonus if all 4 are right Bonus 1: What will Ant Man make this weekend? 5000 67.439 Bonus 2: What will Minions make on Friday? 5000 14.218 Bonus 3: What will Trainwreck make on Friday? 5000 10.665

January. American Sniper beat Avatar's MLK 4-day record.

Really great first post. Those are some interesting questions to ask. I totally agree that it's bad we don't get per-screening averages anymore. It looks like BOM just stopped updating those in November, so we can only guess at how many showtimes openers get, and how much retention other movies have. Still, while I don't know anything for certain, there are a couple generalities that I think can apply. First, once a movie has been playing a while, it's probably not going to be concerned with saturation. A film like MMFR, even while it's kept its per theater average up, is probably only playing on one screen at a given theater, and maybe only for a limited (under 4) showtimes per day. Even in such a case, anyone who wants to see the film can probably get a seat without trouble. Second, prior to opening, theaters are going to be making assumptions about how much the films are going to gross in that theater. They'll make showtimes based on those assumptions, which could be poorly done and such. Later behavior for whether they keep a movie or not is probably going to be informed by that performance (but, again, poor decisions can abound.) During Frozen's run, I started looking at its performance compared to new openers, and knowing that films newly in release send a higher percentage of the take to the studios than films that have been going a while, figured that part of the reason Frozen stuck around was that it was more valuable to theaters, even for films that might have been grossing two to three times as much. So there's a huge incentive to let a film with very strong late legs to keep going. However, with that said, films with very strong late legs are very few and far between. Frozen and Avatar and Titanic might be theater godsends, but they're not common and can't be predicted. Besides that, a theater has to consider the math "Is this the weekend said strong running film drops off a cliff? Or is this the weekend hot new opener breaks out in a big way?" Thirdly, despite that accounting math, it's possible that the box office take doesn't matter for many theaters. It's possible that the per screening average doesn't really matter at all. This is because theaters tend to make most of their money off of concessions. And in that case, it doesn't matter if they're getting a higher percentage from one film over another. What they really want is more people, because more people means more popcorn. Something like MMFR has had good legs, especially in light of the competition, but it hasn't been ungodly, so it's pretty understandable (if a bit disappointing) for theaters to shed it. Especially when new openers are bringing in so many more snack-eating bodies.

Interesting. The job's still posted, but it seems to have been updated to remove any BOM/movie tracking connection.

Minions 12.32m IO 2.31m JW 2.01

Losing ground to Avengers over the weekend, but that's normalized by the weekdays. It looks like Avengers started getting vacation benefits on about day 39, and more fully on day 46. At that point, JW will probably lose ground overall, but it's probably going to finish 20-30m ahead in the end. Avatar's legs were just beastly. Just crushing those weekends. I wonder at what point it'll pass up JW's total. It beat Avengers on day 44. So were Titanic's, obviously. It's 29th-31st days were 7.4, 12.4, and 10.2m, respectively. Though it was still only in the low 200s at that point. There are legs, and then there are LEGS.

IO won last weekend. It'll probably win the forthcoming weekends, too. Both have had pretty strong legs so far. All the weekend drops have been under 50%. (I think for wide releases this summer with at least 4 weekends, only Spy and MMFR can say the same.)

What do you men back in '97? It's hard to make 600m NOW. It was hard to make 300m back in '97.

Yes. Yes. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/smallestdrops.htm?page=SMALLDROPWID&p=.htm

Well, it wasn't the second coming of Christ because it was better.

Well, it is their best, so far.

Rank the Blanks meltdowns.

Yes, it's easily possible for thematic and stylistic differences in the films to fit together. Hell, the comic book universes that exist already have that range. In fact, it's pretty much proven that when a specific tone is force across the line, the whole suffers. DC tried to make things consistent across the board for feel with the new 52, and outside of a few standout titles, it didn't really work. They've since abandoned that approach and are letting creators do what they will. And now we have Gotham Academy, which is pretty much the absolute best. Cohesive continuity is pretty much bullshit. It's fairly clear from interviews about the MCU films that the "grand plan" that everything fits together is mostly bunk. Sure, they have a loose outline, but they're already making up so many things for each film as they happen that they could easily allow for, say, DuVernay's heavily political Black Panther and not miss a beat going forward.

Well, not a lot of creative control.

Because 20% is still a significant percentage. If CATWS had 20% less business, it'd be looking at sub 210m gross. Good, but nothing amazing. If MMFR had an extra 20% business, it'd be looking at 180m, right now, which would be seen as pretty stupendous. I mean, I'm glad it's the R-rated film we got, because even if it's borderline, that little bit added to the greatness, but we can't discount the difference it would have made.

1) Will the Woman in Gold drop less than 18%? YES 2) Will Entourage cross 32 million when actuals come out? YES 3) Will Spy drop less than 25%? YES 4) Will Avengers have a Saturday increase of more than 40%? YES 5) Will JW finish second? YES 6) Will IO finish second? NO 7) Will Minions have an OD of more than 35 million? YES 8) Will Self/Less make the top 5? NO 9) Will any film increase more than 48% on Saturday? YES 10) Will more than 2 films increase on this Saturday from last Saturday? YES 11) Will Gallows make more than Self/Less? YES 12) Will JW have a better Saturday gross than IO? YES 13) Will Minions make more than 100 million opening weekend? YES 14) Will any film in the top 10 drop less than 15%? YES 12/14 4000 13/14 5000 14/15 8000 What films finish in spots: 2 Jurassic World 3 Inside Out 4 Terminator: Genisys 5 The Gallows 8 Self/Less Bonus 1: What does Minions, Gallows and Self Less combine to gross this weekend? 5000 118.439 Bonus 2: What does Avengers, Spy and Ted combine to gross this weekend? 5000 12.345

It's not even a 2D must.

Yes, because clearly critical consensus for some films has caused others to get tripped up in the box office this summer.

... still in 31st? Jesus, I cannot make up ground at all.

Daily jumps (last week) IO 30% (27%) JW 15% (15%) TG 17% MM 40% T2 15% (4%)

Until there's a fucking announcement, I kinda doubt it.