Wrath

Independence Day was the worst thing Ive seenin a long time. I hate the Chipmunk movies with the fire of a thousand suns, but Id rather watch them all again than watch ID:2 again.

Plus, while FB is viewed as an HP movie, its only vaguely connected and has very different tone. It MIGHT be front-loaded if the opening weekend is dominated by HP fans but I personally think it'll pull in less hard-core HP fans and have decent legs.

Depends on the story being told. I have this weird, irrational feeling this series is going to be LotR-caliber in how its ultimately received. I think theres a story to tell thats quite profound but much more adult-oriented than HP was. As a result, I think it'll always be a little disappointing in BO because its not really aimed at kids.

I'd be sad about including it, except that *something* had to go 15th and it was as good a choice as anything. I kind of assume at the outset I'm going to get #15 wrong.

1. Will Fantastic Beasts open to more than $70m? *YES* 2. Will Fantastic Beasts open to more than $80m? 3000 *YES* 3. Will Fantastic Beasts open to more than $90m? *NO* 4. Will Billy Lynn make more than $10m? *NO* 5. Will Billy Lynn make more than $12.5m? 2000 *NO* 6. Will Edge of Seventeen open to more than $10M? *NO* 7. Will Bleed for this open to more than $5M? *NO* 8. Will Billy Lynn make more than Edge of Seventeen this weekend? 2000 *NO* 9. Will Arrival stay in the top 5? *YES* 10. Will Dr Strange stay above Trolls? *NO* 11. Will Almost Christmas drop less than 45%? *NO* 12. Will Hacksaw Ridge make more than $1.5M every day this weekend? *YES* 13. Will Nocturnal Animals have a PTA above $5000? 3000 *YES* 14. Will Manchester by the Sea have a PTA above $15,000? *YES* 15. Will Shut in Stay above Boo!? *NO* 16. Will Deepwater Horizon have a bigger percentage drop than Inferno? 2000 *NO* 17. Will A Man called Ove Increase this weekend? *YES* 18. Will Keeping Up with the Joneses Stay above Sully? 3000 *YES* 19. Will Ouija remain in the top 16 this weekend? *YES* 20. Are we about to be tricked into watching Eddie Redmayne hunt down Kelsey Grammar and Nicholas Hoult for 2 hours this weekend? *What do you mean, "tricked"? I thought that was the plan all along." Bonus: 14/20 2000 15/20 3000 16/20 5000 17/20 7000 18/20 10000 19/20 14000 20/20 20000 Part 2: Closest predictor wins 5000 points (Added bonus: If prediction is within 10% win 6000; 5% 7000; 2.5% 9000; 1% 12000) 1. Predict Fantastic Beasts' OW. 82.5M 2. Predict Billy Lynn's Halftime Walk Percentage Increase this weekend. 4700% 3. Predict Trolls Saturday total 8.9M Part 3: Predict the films that place in the following positions: 3. Strange 5. Edge of Seventeen 8. Bleed 11. Madea 14. Girl on Train 16. Ouija 3/6 2000 points 4/6 5000 points 5/6 8000 points 6/6 13000 points

1. What will Dr Strange's total be at the end of the game? 205M 2. What will Arrival's total be by the end of the game? 68M 3. What will Passengers' 3 day OW be? 29M 4. What will Underworld's Second weekend percentage drop be? 53% 5. What will be the difference in gross between Hacksaw and Allied by the end of the game (No need to state which is higher)? 4M 6. What will La La Land's multiplier be from it's (9th December limited) opening weekend? 20x 7. What will Moana's 12 day total be (The end of its second Sunday)? 105m 8. How many days will Fantastic Beasts make more than $1M? 24 9. What will Sing's Opening Day including Previews be? 15M 10. How much will Rogue One make in Thursday previews? 15M

Well, I think you'll have a lot of company with Arrival, at least. And I think Medea's almost a lock to make the top 15 at this point. Which is pretty fantastic for Exxdee.

Yeah. In a bit of a fluke, I answered the SotM on Monday. I meant to get to the questions on Wed or Thurs and then revisit my SoTM answer like I usually do, but I guess I got distracted by something.

Dammit! I already missed a weekly.

Q1. How many films in the top 15 Domestic do you think you have gotten correct this Winter? ie. how many of the 15 films you picked will be in the top 15 (doesn't have to be in the exact position you have it, just the top 15) *11* Q2. How many films in the top 7 Domestic Weeekends do you think you have gotten correct this Winter? *5* Q3. How many films in the top 10 Worldwide do you think you have gotten correct this Winter? *5* While re-reading my pre-season predictions to answer this question, I've just noticed that I apparently liked Inferno's chances internationally *so much* that I listed it twice, at 8th and 10th. Go me.

All questions are related to the top 12, are for the 3 day weekend and are worth 1000 points unless otherwise stated. 1. Will Arrival open to more than 15m? 2. Will Arrival open to more than 22m? 3000 3. Will Arrival open to more than 30m? 4. Will Almost Christmas open to more than 10m? 5. Will Almost Christmas open to more than 16m? 6. Will Shut In open in the top 8? 2000 7. Will the 3 wide new entries combine to make more than Doctor Strange's 2nd Weekend? 8. Will Doctor Strange's PTA stay above 10k? 2000 9. Will Doctor Strange pass 150m on Sunday? 10. Will Trolls finish in the Top 2 for the weekend? 2000 11. Will Trolls pass 80m on Saturday? 12. Will Hacksaw Ridge drop less than 40%? 13. Will Inferno stay above Jack Reacher 2? 2000 14. Will Girl on the Train increase by more than 40% on Saturday? 15. Will Moonlight enter the Top 10? 16. Will any film in the top 10 not drop a place this weekend(assume either stay in the same spot or move up)? 2000 17. Will Deepwater Horizon stay above Kevin Hart? 18. Will Oujia have a single day (over the weekend) above 1m? 2000 19. Will Miss Peregrine increase by more than 150% on Friday? 20. Who here is going to abuse Chasmmi about letting me loose on the game this week? Bonus: 14/20 2000 15/20 3000 16/20 5000 17/20 7000 18/20 10000 19/20 14000 20/20 20000 Part 2: Closest predictor wins 5000 points (Added bonus: If prediction is within 10% win 6000; 5% 7000; 2.5% 9000; 1% 12000) 1. Predict Arrival's OW. 2. Predict Billy Lynn's Halftime Walk PTA. 3. Predict Hacksaw Ridge's drop in $. Part 3: Predict the films that place in the following positions: 2. 5. 8. 10. 13. 16. 3/6 2000 points 4/6 5000 points 5/6 8000 points 6/6 13000 points

So... you're saying that animated kids movies, and, really, animated kids movies that specifically don't have any depth, aren't good at handling deep subjects? You're literally saying that movies which do something badly, do that thing badly. I'm not sure why this would be a surprise.

Which wasn't a category mentioned by James. If he'd said it was impossible for anyone *with a soul* to not love the movie, then maybe he had an argument. But he didn't, so Tele's lack of soul isn't really a problem. For the record, I didn't love it either (it had a GREAT trailer, and it was fine or even slightly good as a movie but I'll give it no more than that. Its about my 5th favorite animated movie of the year so far), and as far as I know I have a soul but I haven't checked lately. As for The Accountant, I actually kinda liked his portrayal of a high functioning autistic person. With the benefit of hindsight, I'd guess about 1/2 my friends in high school were on the autism spectrum (which was a while ago so that wasn't a thing in those days) and arguably the thing I was best at in high school was relating to autistic folks and acting as a social translator, as it were, with other folks. Not that my social skills are particularly impressive, but they were good enough and for whatever reason I really got how their brains worked. Its funny, but when I saw The Accountant (and The Social Network, for that matter) the strongest emotions I felt were nostalgia and missing high school friends I hadn't seen in a long time. To me, anyway, Affleck's performance wasn't perfect, but I thought it was good and the flaws were mostly story-driven. However, I found his backstory not particularly well integrated into the rest of the story tonally. I loved the first half, plus the early part of his backstory. Those really went together well. I thought the second half of the movie was a little hard to swallow, and I thought the rest of his back-story along with his motivations were ridiculous. I mean, they were basically trying to shoe-horn in a super-hero/Jason Bourne-grade backstory to explain his competence, and it simply didn't make sense. I thought the second half of the movie was fun and they had some really good jokes, it just didn't really hold together believably. As for the tongue-in-cheek part, I dunno, it was just a feeling I got from the humor as well as the very end. Without getting too spoilery, to anyone who has seen it, tell me the thought of the upcoming Justice League didn't cross your mind.

Uh, Accountant has already done ~70m domestic and is coming off a 6m weekend with great drops. Accountant may not double Wick WW but its at least 50/50 to double it domestically and that's considerably more important.

I dont think The Accountant (aka "Autistic Batman") has been discussed enough. Its an actually well done movie that spent a surprisingly large amount of time on world building. Its budget was lower than I expected and its going to be wildly profitable. Its getting the results that Wick wishes it had gotten. Id be surpris d if there wasnt a sequel. I suspect they wanted to make it a little more tongue-in-cheek but autism folks would have roasted them for it.

Argh, forgot to answer question 2 last week. I'll make up for it by rocking this week.

Well, the week before, but still.

Yeah. That Sing number looks low to me.

To be fair, Deadline isn't actually that bad at making projections. They're worse than BO.com or ShowBuzzDaily.com (who were surprisingly solid but apparently quit doing it about a month ago) but their track record is better than you'd think. To be fair, that's projections rather than extrapolating from results.

Wow. That would be some horrendous front-loading all-around.

Heh. Just realized I posted the best weekly score for week 2 despite getting one of the very worst scores on the actual questions. The lesson? The Winter Game... finds a way.

Yeah, seriously. I feel like the top 5 are pretty much set in stone, and the next ~8 aren't quite that certain but a really high % of people are going to consistently guess mostly the same ones. But the last couple spots are going to all be like (5/24), (6/24), (3/24) and such when they get posted. Edit - Wow. I'm glad I dumped Inferno and all, but Week 1 and 2 might have been my best back-to-back Weekly performances, ever.

Hmm. The gimme was worth 20k, right? Looks like I'd have gotten 61k if I hadn't edited my answers, which is quite a bit. I don't remember exactly all that I changed, but I know that removing Inferno was part of it. I'm pretty sure I replaced it with Hacksaw Ridge so I suspect I'm still going to come out ahead.

1. Will Dr Strange open to more than $75M? *YES* 2. Will Dr Strange open to more than $85M? 2000 3. Will Dr Strange open to more than $95M? *NO* 4. Will Trolls open to more than $30M? *YES* 5. Will Trolls open to more than $37.5M? 3000 *YES* 6. Will Trolls open to more than $45M? *NO* 7. Will Hacksaw Ridge open to more than $10M? *YES* 8. Will HAcksaw Ridge open to more than $15M? 2000 *YES* 9. Will Hacksaw Ridge open to more than $20M? *NO* 10. Will Dr. Strange's Pure Weekend (Sat and Sun only) gross be more than the combined 3 day weekend gross of Trolls and Hacksaw? 3000 *NO* 11. Will the three main new entries combine to more than $125M? 3000 *NO* 12. Will Madea stay above Inferno? *YES* 13. Will the Accountant cross $70M domestic by the end of the weekend? *NO* 14. Will Dr Strange be the highest grossing total Domestic gross in the top 16? 2000 *NO* 15. Will Ouija have a Saturday gross above $1M? *YES* 16. Will Girl on the Train stay above Miss Peregrine? $3000 *NO* 17. Will Storks cross $70M domestic ON Friday? *NO* 18. Will Jack Reacher remain in the top 6? *YES* 19. Will The Joneses have a Saturday increase above 40%? *YES* 20. Will at least 2 films fail to increase 100% on Friday? 2000 *YES* 21. Will Moonlight enter the top 12? *YES* 22. Will Trolls' PTA be closer to Dr Strange or Hacksaw Ridge's PTA? 3000 *Hacksaw* 23. Will Loving have a PTA above $6,500? *YES* 24. Will Ai Di Mushka Hai have a higher Sunday PTA than Madea? *YES* 25. Will The Handmaiden stay above Suicide Squad? *YES* 26. Will Mag 7 stay above Middle School? *NO* 27. Will any film drop over 1000 screens and remain in the top 10? 2000 *YES* 28. Will Dr. Strange's Actual Weekend total go up from the final BOM.com Estimates? 3000 *NO* 29. Will Deepwater Horizon cross $60M domestic by Saturday? *YES* 30. Now that I have put the idea in your head, will you be able to hear anything other than Hugh Laurie's Dr House when you go see Dr. Strange now? *Yeah, I'll be fine on this one, though Hugh Laurie's a great actor. He's got a pretty decent book out called "The Gun Seller" which I recommend.* Bonus: 18/30 2000 19/30 3000 20/30 4000 21/30 5000 22/30 7000 23/30 9000 24/30 12000 25/30 15000 26/30 18000 27/30 21000 28/30 25000 29/30 30000 30/30 40000 Part 2: Closest predictor wins 5000 points (Added Bonus: If prediction is within 10% win 6000, 5% 7000, 2.5% 9000, 1% 12000) 1. Predict Dr. Strange's OW. 83M 2. Predict Trolls' Saturday Gross 18M 3. Predict Hacksaw Ridge's Sunday Gross. 5M 4. Predict the top 3 films' combined 3 day gross. 135M 5. Predict Inferno's Weekend percentage drop 59% Part 3: Predict the films that place in the following positions: 3. Hacksaw 6. Reacher 8. Ouija 2 10. Moonlight 13. Storks 17. Ai Di 3/6 2000 points 4/6 5000 points 5/6 8000 points 6/6 13000 points

1. Where will Dr. Strange's OW rank all time for films taking place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? 10 2. Where will Dr. Strange's Domestic total rank all time for films taking place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? 9 3. Where will Dr. Strange's Worldwide total rank all time for films taking place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? 9 4. Where will Dr. Strange's 3 Day Multiplier rank all time for films taking place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? 7 5. How many weeks will Dr Strange's 3 day weekend totals finish in the top 12? 7 6. How many weeks will Dr Strange have a Weekend above $1M? 9 7. How many days will Dr Strange spend at number 1 in the US box office? 12 8. How many different days will Rogue One gross more than Dr Strange's Opening Sunday total? 7