WrathofHan and CoolEric's Controversial* Predictions of 2019 (*Controversial results may vary)

[baumer]

3 hours ago, TMP said:

Wow, sorry for having a bad prediction 6 months ago. I'm sure when the next big tentpole underperforms, I'll quote every single over-prediction for it too.

 

Well if you're bold enough to make predictions that are mostly disastrous, then you have to accept it when someone calls you on it. 

[filmlover]

Honestly, Detective Pikachu might be best swept under a rug for BOT's sake. I predicted a $75M opening in the days before it launched and even that ended up being way too high.

[DAJK]

13 minutes ago, filmlover said:

Honestly, Detective Pikachu might be best swept under a rug for BOT's sake. I predicted a $75M opening in the days before it launched and even that ended up being way too high.

If we can't criticize (in a respectful manner) our own failures, then how are we supposed to take pride in our successes?

[filmlover]

6 minutes ago, DAJK said:

If we can't criticize (in a respectful manner) our own failures, then how are we supposed to take pride in our successes?

I'm just saying, this movie is definitely gonna go down as of the bigger overpredictions. Perhaps even bigger than Mary Poppins Returns (at least one person thought it would impact Endgame without irony but then said person stans anything WB in the first place).

[Cooper Legion]

On 12/30/2018 at 7:02 AM, CoolEric258 said:

Dark Phoenix: Does anyone (outside of Arlborn) actually care about this? Does even Fox care about this? The FOX-Men movies are basically played out by this point. Its initial teaser was fine, but nothing all that earth-shattering. The FOX-Men are also expected to be dropped by the time this movie comes out in favor of the new MCU version. Then there’s so many other movies surrounding it with more buzz. Just seems like the interest is non-existent. Maybe summer weekdays will help it cross the century mark, but this will probably go sub-100M. 35/85 (2.43x)

 

On 12/30/2018 at 9:37 AM, WrathOfHan said:

Dark Phoenix: As I said earlier, yeah, this ain’t hitting 100M. Even though we are in total CBM domination right now, who the hell cares about the Singer X-Men movies anymore? This would have to be one of the greatest CBMs ever to reach a total near Apocalypse, and given this franchise’s track record, I will go ahead and say it isn’t going to be one of the greatest CBMs. It also doesn’t help that June is a pretty busy month with May holdovers still going strong. Plus, Far from Home is going to hurt its legs badly. Just put this series out of its misery already. 35/75 (2.14x)

These were actually controversial at the time and I’m sure most assumed Eric would win easily.    

 

Could come down to the wire.      

 

I’ll do another summary of medium-big movies after a couple weeks, maybe just before FFH.

[CloneWars]

On 1/6/2019 at 9:13 AM, Eric Laurence said:

Cats: This is the one movie that I feel could go either way. 200M or sub-100M wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest. Cats is to musicals like Ready Player One is to sci-fi. It’s popular, but I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who has actually liked it. And I’ve done musical theater for years, so I know this film’s target audience really well. It also has one of the weirdest casts ever conceived. But on the other hand, musicals are killing the box office lately, Taylor Swift has her fans, and there will probably be some curiosity in how the characters and their make-up will be pulled off. It won’t be a Greatest Showman, but a modest enough hit. 25/135 (5.4x)

That Cats prediction.

[Eric Prime]

1 minute ago, CloneWars said:

That Cats prediction.

How was I supposed to know that Tom Hooper was going to make the most horrific thing ever conceived?

[Eric Prime]

On 1/1/2019 at 6:39 PM, Eric Laurence said:

August 16

PLAYMOBIL: Anya, why? 7/20 (2.86x)

 

On 1/1/2019 at 9:51 PM, WrathOfHan said:

August 16

 

PLAYMOBIL: It feels like I’ve been hearing about this movie for ages. PLAYMOBIL isn’t even LEGO’s main competitor (like anyone can compete with them anymore), and Global Road is a flop studio. Do I need to say more? 10/30 (3x)

Lol we sucked at this one

[Cooper Legion]

On 1/6/2019 at 10:22 PM, FlashMaster659 said:

Endgame OW nearly 2x SW9 OW would be quite something

Edited December 27, 2019 by Arendelle Legion

[YM!]

On 1/6/2019 at 11:25 AM, YourMother the Edgelord said:

Pokémon. The worst you get is the occasionally Rule 34 fanart.

I was wrong. The fanbase sucked this year.

[JB33]

2 hours ago, Eric Laurence said:

 

Lol we sucked at this one

In fairness, that was a prediction based on an August release date when it could have easily squeezed almost that much out of audiences. December 6 though? The "No1curr" post-Thanksgiving weekend? STX rightfully put it there to die quickly.

[Cooper Legion]

Last time on Han vs Eric! The Ultimate* Showdown of Ultimate Destiny (of 2019):  

Spoiler

 

Skipped some small movies, because damn there are way too many.

Escape room— Han: 12/30, Eric 12/28, actuals: 18/57. WIN: Han

Upside — Han:10/40, Eric: 18/58, actuals: 20/108 WIN: Eric  

Glass — Han: 75/240, Eric 55/170, actuals: 40/111. WIN: Eric  

LM2 —  Han:55/170 ,Eric: 55/170, actuals: 34/105. WIN: I better not see any more 55/170s from y’all

Alita — Han:15/70 , Eric:35/110, actuals: 28/85.5. WIN: Han (first time actuals are between, which is nice to see)

HTTYD3 — Han:40/130 , Eric: 43/145, estimate: 55/163. WIN: Eric   

CM — Han:170/510, Eric: 130/355, estimate: 153/425. WIN: strictly speaking this is inconclusive still. Han needs 432.5+ to win, which does not look favored. Near tie either way.   

US — Han:60/165, Eric:80/250, estimate:71/176. WIN: Han  

Dumbo — Han: 60/200, Eric:60/205, estimate: 46/112. WIN:Han  

Shazam — Han:80/260, Eric:80/240, estimate:53/145. WIN: Eric  

Spoiler

Endgame — Han:280/715, Eric:270/635, personal estimate:290/740. WIN: soon to be Han  

 

Leaving CM as uncalled, score of 4-4. A lot of big misses, what does this mean? Does it mean that Han and Eric are bad at prediction?    

 

NO! It means that a lot of movies come out each year, and prediction is really hard. Always good to keep in mind how large the true range of possibilities is for movies far away.      

 

And I’d like to thank WrathofHan and CoolEric for providing such comprehensive predictions+thoughts. They (and the comments in respond) are fun to look back on in retrospect, without judgement. 

 

CM narrowly resolved in Eric's favor, but Endgame was a clear success for Han, leaving our first installment tied up 5-5. How will things turn out for our intrepid forecasters when the dust settles? Find out... right now, on the thrilling conclusion of Han vs Eric! The Ultimate* Showdown of Ultimate Destiny (of 2019):

Spoiler

HAN is victorious, with a total of 20 to 17, 7 pure ties, 1 inconclusive (TROS). 

 

By the way guys, those 7 ties really bum me out. They are boring. Let's try to avoid those in the final numbers for future years, if we can  

 

Movie	Han total	Eric total	Actual total	Han error	Eric error	Winner
Pikachu	660	390	144	516	246	Eric
Wick3	165	105	171	6	66	Han
Aladdin	275	228	355.5	81	128	Han
KOTM	210	230	110.5	100	120	Han
Rocketman	80	120	96	16	24	Han
Dark Phoenix	75	85	66	9	19	Han
SLOP2	300	285	158	142	127	Eric
MIB:I	145	145	80	65	65	Tie
TS4	320	365	434	114	69	Eric
FvF	120	120	110*	10	10	Tie
FFH	350	335	390.5	41	56	Han
TLK	620	620	543	77	77	Tie
OUaTiH	270	120	141	129	21	Eric
H&S	240	195	174	66	21	Eric
Playmobil	30	20	1	29	19	Eric
It2	310	300	211.5	99	89	Eric
Downton	105		97	8	97	Han
The Kitchen	120	120	12	108	108	Tie
Abominable	85	155	60.5	25	95	Han
Gemini Man	160	75	48.5	112	27	Eric
Joker	360	270	334	26	64	Han
Addams	42	70	97	55	27	Eric
Goldfinch	75	75	5	70	70	Tie
ZL2	105	40	73	32	33	Han
Beautiful Day	150	150	57*	93	93	Tie
Artic Dogs	12.5	30	6	7	24	Han
Charlie's Angels	40	100	18	22	82	Han
Terminator	50	110	62	12	48	Han
Last Christmas	110	100	35	75	65	Eric
F II	540	475	495*	45	20	Eric
Knives Out	65	70	130*	65	60	Eric
Juman3	360	360	270*	90	90	Tie
Cats	105	125	30*	75	95	Han
SWIX	480	665	572.5???	93???	93???	???
LW	130	165	90*	40	75	Han
Sum	7264.5	6818	5678.5*	2,549	2,420

 

 

Now the sharp eyed among you may notice that while Han won more head-to-heads, Eric actually prevails in the average error category. What's up with that? It's actually painstakingly simple -- Han missed Pikachu by a cool 516M... whereas Eric only missed by 246M  

 

Don't do Poke-hype kids. 

 

Selected highlights and commentary: 

Spoiler

• Both forecasters were too high as a general rule, with Han some 1.6B above the actual sum and Eric roughly 1.15B. 
• The largest % misses are of course Playmobil, making 1M vs the predicted 20/30M, The Goldfinch at 5M vs 75/75M, and The Kitchen, which made 12M vs 120/120M.
• Han had a big edge in calling November flops, with much more pessimistic (and therefore closer) results on Arctic Dogs, Charlie's Angels, and Terminator.  
• This is actually a very close results, closer than you'd necessarily expect by chance even with perfectly balanced forecasters. Clearly more data is required...

 

 

*Disclaimers apply. 

Spoiler

1) Only a somewhat arbitrary subset of movies predicted were considered, for reasons of basic arbitrarial sanity. Mostly I tried to include everything with at least one prediction over 100M, actual over 100M, or epic misses that were too funny to pass up. Either participant is free to appeal if they truly feel like poring over dozens of mid-sized movies that are already consigned to the scrapheap of history 

2) Many of the later released movies are not done with their run yet. In many cases it's still possible to resolve a winner conclusively as all plausible finishes lead to the same outcome. The actual column in such cases contains a personal estimate, which is rough. The two most ambiguous cases are Frozen II, where Han would need some stupendous legs to 507.5M to eak out a win, and TROS, where the win boundary is 572.5M and it's anyone's ballgame (though I think Han is favored, which would grow his lead slightly).

3) Eric didn't even predict Downton Abbey, and lost it by forfeit. 

 

Edited December 27, 2019 by Arendelle Legion