Wrath

I still have big hopes for Everybody Wants Some!!

Cool. It'll give me something to look at and... not do anything with for a few weeks ;).

Excellent week, one of our best ever. We absolutely smoked two of them, and the third we were off by no more than everyone else. Barbershop 3 Prediction: 19.8M +/- 3.57M (1 standard deviation) Actual: 20.2M (off by 0.4M, so 0.12 stndev) Excellent predict, missing being the best predict by a hair to ShowBuzzDaily (19.8 vs 20.2 (act) vs 20.5). Best predict was department store basement with 20m. Criminal Prediction: 6.2M +/- 3.55M (1 standard deviation) Actual: 5.8M (off by 0.4M, so 0.11 stndev) Another most excellent predict, and this time we narrowly beat BO.com for the best overall predict (and everyone else was way too high. Also, turns out you can get BO.com's predicts via email, so that crisis was averted). Best predict was 5.7M by newcomer Ocho. Congrats! Jungle Book Prediction: 77.3M +/- 10.39M (1 standard deviation) Actual: 103.3M (off by 26.0M, so 2.5 stndev) On the one hand, ouch. On the other hand, the predicts were all pretty tightly bunched together and we were right in the middle so its not like anyone saw this coming. Best predict was by relentless optimist doo do da doo do, mahnamahna, do do do do, mahnamahna, do do da doo do, do da do do do do do at 94M. Every single time I read his name that ditty goes through my head. Every single time.

I agree. Finding Nemo clocked in at 99% on RT%, so part of the buzz around Finding Dory isn't just that its the sequel to a movie that did well. Its also that its the sequel to a movie that was GREAT. The current buzz isn't that there's excitement that maybe Finding Dory will make 500m domestic (because GA doesn't care about that), its that there's an expectation that it will *also* be a great movie. If reviews suggest that Finding Dory isn't a *great* movie, merely, perhaps, a very good one, that'll hurt it. It'll still do great, but not as great as if everyone says its spectacular. So in that sense, I'd argue there's little difference between an 85% and maybe a 92%. Both suggest its a very good movie, but probably not a truly great one, and either score would probably have a comparable result on box office. Which, as you say, would be a feeling of being slightly underwhelmed.

Jungle Book was fun! Better than I expected. Sadly, I kinda feel like this weekend will be even less fun than expected, and I'm not expecting much. On the bright side, who knows? Maybe it won't be awful. Please provide your 4/22-24 Opening Weekend predicts for, Elvis & Nixon Huntsman: Winter's War Deadline this week will be Thursday afternoon (US Eastern time), whenever I get to it.

Yes, absolutely. It'd be like if Marvel did the first Captain America movie and then jumped straight to Avengers without the other Phase 1 movies. I mean, other than Iron Man, none of the other phase 1 movies were that great, but collectively they made us care about the arcs of these various characters. DC opened with their "Avengers" without giving us the non-Superman origin stories. I get that its because they wanted to introduce us to the whole world, since they've got more, less well integrated, side-stories going on, but it still feels like they're leaving a lot of money (and narrative coherency) on the table with this approach.

I suspect the plot would have made a lot more sense, though sitting though it would have been rough.

Our predicts on Barbershop and Criminal are looking pretty good, and Jungle Book isn't bad at least relative to everyone else.

Of course, being one of his personalities, you know exactly what's going on: He's *crazy*.

Yep, I know. I was trying to squeeze it in last week, because after this weekend it'll be a while before I'm under 300% again. I mean, sure, I'd like to have had this go my way, but the stakes are pretty low so its not a big deal that it didn't. Edit - As a word of warning, deciding things this way is strongly encouraging me to go out and buy 20% of everything that moves :).

Alright, that's fine.

Wow... So, 100+M OW? That's nuts.

I thought it was all very entertaining, honestly.

Yeah, I dont think thats a surprise. I'm actually glad, because my fear was they were going to come out and say 190m or something.

Oh, sure! To clarify, I'm enthusiastic on this point, not angry or upset. If JJ says I'm wrong on the rules, or even that I'm right but its a pain the ass for him because of how the spreadsheet works, then I won't argue. I mean, even if I'm right my best case scenario is probably a 5m net gain. The stakes are pretty low, which I figured would be the best place to try a test case ;).

Look at this! Updated when its supposed to be updated and everything! And great turnout in predictions, too. Either 3 or 4 brand new folks who'd never predicted in this before, which is great (admittedly, some of them were in the Weekend Predict thread and have no idea their predicts are here, but I don't see their ignorance about the details as a minus). In case anyone's curious, 129 different people have made predictions in the various weeks. Or maybe it was WrathofHan and his 127 other screen names, plus me. Which would be a crafty strategy. Relative to the other predictors, we were a little low both on Barbershop and Criminal, and pretty much right in the middle on Jungle Book. We are *seriously* all over the place on Criminal, while the other predictors are *seriously* all over the place on Barbershop. I'm curious to see how those end up. So, as usual, I totaled the predicts (22 for Barber Shop and Jungle Book, 16 for Criminal) and here are the results: Barbershop 3 Mean: 19.8M Median: 22.25M StnDev: 53.57M Ratio (StnDev/Mean): 18.04% High: 28M Low: 14M BO.com 19M Deadline 29MM MovieWeb 23.1M ShowBuzzDaily 20.5M Variety 25M Criminal Mean: 6.2M Median: 5.35M StnDev: 3.55M Ratio (StnDev/Mean): 57.39% High: 18M Low: 3.1M BO.com 6.5M Deadline 9M MovieWeb 9.3M ShowBuzzDaily 7.5M Variety 8M Jungle Book Mean: 77.3M Median: 77.85M StnDev: 10.39M Ratio (StnDev/Mean): 13.44% High: 94M Low: 50M BO.com 81M Deadline 71M MovieWeb 74.6M ShowBuzzDaily 78M Variety 70M

Sure it would. If I ditch a movie, its no longer active. I paid my initial investment, I got whatever money I may have gotten, and then its inactive at least up to whatever %. And the rules don't say that I can go get it back if I change my mind later. I'm just doing the mental math and deciding that The Darkness is likely to net more money than 50% of Deadpool is likely to make for the rest of the run. When a movie drops under 600 theaters you don't have to give your income back. In that way its really no different than a theater releasing a movie that stops doing well enough to justify the opportunity cost of the used screens, like, say The Masked Saint, and pulling it. The cost is sunk, you've got whatever money you've made, and that's the end of the story. Or, 50% of the story, in this case. Edit - That's what the rules say, anyway, though if JJ says I'm wrong then that's how it is. I'm surprised this has never come up before. With the way the rules were written previously, managing your investment % must have been a pretty big deal. Potentially using this to get out of % would have been attractive. Edit2 - Also, back to the "no purpose" thing. Its still costing me money to invest in other stuff. I'd guess DP has maybe ~5M to go on its total run. DP will probably be under 600 theaters in a couple weeks. The Active 300% rule is basically making me pay (in the sense of lost income) 2.5M to get out of 50% of a movie a couple weeks early. That's certainly a penalty, and its only that low because of my specific combination of investments and because I'm not much over the cap. Starting tomorrow, I'll be at 500+% and getting below 300% would be WAY, WAY more expensive in terms of lost revenue. Which would make sense since I'd be way over the cap. Plus, lucasbenica is already well over 500% because of how he timed his investments, and I will be tomorrow as well. This really isn't all that different.

Barbershop 21.7M Criminal 8.5M Jungle Book 78.3M

Heh. Someone's pretty pessimistic! I'm going to give him/her the benefit of the doubt and assume they meant "m".

I thought it was just that you can't *sell* movies that have already been released. Lets check. Edit - Ok, I just checked the rules. Once a movie is released, you definitely can't sell it. However, that's in a different section from what happens if you cancel an investment. In the section about canceling investments, it doesn't say anything about not being able to cancel investments after a movie opens. It just says that if there's less than a week to go before it opens (which presumably would include after the movie opens) you get nothing back and thus "should" keep your investment. Not that you *have* to.

Two moves: #1 - I'm dumping 50% of Deadpool, bringing me to 295% #2 - I'm buying 100% of The Darkness

I'm happy pretending that one just never existed. I probably paid an ~829k tip to a bellboy somewhere one time and then forgot about it.

Also, in case anyone is curious, here's a link to the dropbox with the current spreadsheet. I failed to add it to my sig, but I'll put it in the first post of next week's thread. https://www.dropbox.com/s/dc5zjt68cqgk6x6/Movie%20Data%21.xlsx?dl=0 Edit - Oops. Fixed now.

She's an unreliable indicator, but my 9 year old is already excited for the BFG.

I think last August would disagree with you. War Room was #2 for the month.