ShinyDave

He's certainly one of the most important figures in animated film history. I think his importance is primarily commercial though - not even in terms of "his films aren't that good but they make megabucks" (there's definitely arguments either way on his films' quality!), but the fact he's managed to create hit after hit without a massive budget. DM, DM2, and Minions cost only slightly more combined than the average recent Pixar movie!

Revisions killed me, especially Bourne adjusting down... But a podium on only my third attempt! Highest new release score by a distance this week! Blimey (as us British might say). I am now really looking forward to the next tournament. When will that be?

I can't wait to see how low I'd have needed to go on Bourne to win... But wow, I actually guessed $133.7m for SS as basically a joke, and it turned out to be elite guesswork

UK run is being absolutely whammied by multiple factors - Brexit has not only ruined the exchange rate but also added economic uncertainty that will probably disproportionately hurt expenditure by families, who in turn got rinsed for cash by SLOP and The BFG (which actually has been legitimately big here). And then when Dory did come out, it did so into the midst of an unusually benign summer for the UK - so outdoor activities became a more compelling proposition. (And outside Scotland, the weather forecast is set fair for the reasonably forecastable future, too.) Dory may still have late legs, but it'll fall short of what I expected. TS3 made over $100m here!

I've heard of it, but mostly because I: a) am from the UK, where the film came out months ago; ii) happen to have a ton of opera-singing friends. Do I expect to gain an advantage in predicting the NA box office for this thing? No, no I do not.

Do you tend to finish in the upper 80s regardless, then? I suspect this will be a week with an unusual amount of scoring parity between new and holdover releases. All the obvious potential score-killers fell in the latter category - IA5 especially standing out in that regard.

Bourne might have cost me the win

Dollar numbers for the UK are deflated post-Brexit, don't forget. But it's still a ways below Deadpool in sterling, too. EDIT: But Deadpool had a midweek launch. The three-day for SS was slightly higher in sterling, though lower in US dollars.

Surprised it fell this hard on Saturday. Olympics effect? That would certainly make sense if it's fallen that hard everywhere, especially outside the Americas where the opening ceremony was not competition on Friday due to time zone differences (midnight start in the UK, 1am mainland Europe, morning in Asia).

Me and my husband would prefer the Scottish not-summer tbh... Do we have any Scotland-specific numbers for Dory? Could be a good weather control group as it were.

That marked her out as one to watch (and probably quite literally in the case of the attracted-to-women crowd, given the nature of said role) but it definitely didn't make her the sort of name that you can put above the line and expect to move the needle with. SS will push her more into that territory.

The openers will be more Friday-loaded by definition (especially because, again with my pet hate, they are actually two-day totals) so that methodology is going to underestimate the sophomore holds, yes?

I am loving that table. $146.1m seems way too high for SS. If it matches the Sat/Sun drops of BvS it gets $132.6m (which would give me, and the DA, over 99%). SS might hold up a bit better because its opening day took on the Olympic opening ceremony, although Sat/Sun have the actual events as tough non-theatrical competition. Interestingly, SS took 31.5% of its "Friday" take in previews (can we just call that a Thursday launch already? I know evening Thursday launches are the norm post-Aurora, but when PotC3 and Shrek 3 did the same strategy in 2007 it counted as a Thursday opening day and the latter lost its single-day animation record to what Dory did in not a single day ), whereas BvS was at 34%. That indicates a possible stronger hold on Sat/Sun.

Think Dory might be hurt more by the weather. I suspect that a lot of families are taking a "save this for a rainy day" approach with that one, whereas SS has that "see it now" factor which gives it a high floor in the face of the sunshine. Genuine question - when there's outright heatwave conditions (like we got on the 19th) do cinemas get hurt even more than in standard "lovely weather" like today's, or do they get a boost from people desperately seeking something to do in an air-conditioned space?

I did the hard bit (decent guess on Nine Lives, lowballing the living daylights out of IA5, going sub-50% drop for Nerve because of its Wednesday opener) and then cost myself a possible top-5 place because I didn't recognise that Bourne would get destroyed by SS?!? Can't believe it. Every week it seems I get two or three on the nose and then throw it all away on an easy one.

It could indeed. Probably the best comp was Smurfs 2's third weekend (similar scale of theater loss and toxic word of mouth), and it went -48.9%. Which would put Ice Age just over $5.5m, right near where the Derby Average puts it...

Both of these give me hope! I'm also banking on an Ice Age crash, by the looks of it. Animations usually hold up, but the WOM on this one is toxic, plus I noticed it had lost a shedload of locations (1,259 to be exact, almost double what STB lost) and I got burned by the theater loss for Tarzan last week so was determined not to duplicate that.

Was over $8m on Nine Lives at one point because it was tracking in that range and talking animal movies normally have a high floor, but when I realised just how little promotional push it had gotten, I bumped it down. Besides, families have been rinsed for cash by Dory and SLOP this summer, not to mention that Zootopia/Jungle Book combo in the spring. Went down to $6.4m and even that might be too high. I figured Moms could hold up reasonably well but didn't want to get too aggressive in case it burned me in a week where SS could suck the gravity out of the rest of the building; having seen that it held up better on weekdays than SLOP (an animated holdover!) that looks like a big mistake, but at least I'm above the Derby average there. Conversely, I went higher than most on Bourne because it's not in 3D so doesn't have the same degree of premium showtimes baked into its opener that would get lost to SS, but it will still lose some PLF showtimes and its obvious comp Rogue Nation had no added competition, so I think I went too high there in retrospect. (Although I still think it clears the sub-$25m derby average.) Going to get burned by Lights Out double features, I can feel it.

It'd be just under 80% of what BvS managed excluding China.

Yeah, I suspect Dory is going to be very weather-dependent for the next couple of weeks, people waiting for a wet day to see it. There aren't any forecast for the SE any time soon, though...

Wouldn't be surprising if there's some significant cuts/edits/"new content" for the Chinese release.

This sounds fair. I see $250-275m domestic (about half of it on opening weekend a lá BvS) and that's $100m-ish clear of XMA if not more. It's also about 80% of BvS. If you assume that SS does 80% of BvS internationally too, strip out China and you have just over $350m, a hair short of XMA's total internationally, and the WW total is about $75m clear.

The sheer opening weekend force will get this above Apocalypse and I doubt it will be close. The marketing effort in the UK, at least in terms of outdoor advertising, has been one of the biggest I've ever seen, for anything.

Congratulations, @TalismanRing - and @No Prisoners, too. Both finalists coming in the 90s, that's a sign they both proved their mettle. Looking forward to the fourth tournament, which will be my first. Hoping to be a decent sleeper after two top-20 performances to start my Derby career

Of course, BFI IMAX has the advantage of the IMAX ticket premium (with tickets coming in at over £20 each for a blockbuster during the weekend and evenings), but even at those prices 498 seats won't match up to what 1,679 can deliver. Or, for that matter, the ELS IMAX with over 700 tickets also being sold at over £20 each for a 3D screening. I guess the advantage of that 1,679-seater becomes more pronounced when you have a megahit like TFA or Spectre in play. This year has been more about depth so far, which would favour somewhere like VLS with nine screens topping the 100-seat mark.