Each week Jacob recaps the weekend box office and the winners and losers in the Midnight Warrior Fantasy Movie League.
WEEK 02 BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
Remember how I said I needed a dartboard to make my Week 02 picks? Apparently I need a better way to make my picks. Only 23 players had their dartboards calibrated correctly enough to land on the perfect cineplex. Let’s break down my misconceptions.
First, Kong: Skull Island wasn’t the mini-flip I projected. Instead, it put up a mighty $61 million at the box office, way more than Logan‘s $38 million. I even said that I thought the latter would beat Kong head to head. So by no means was this my most accurate week.
I called The Lego Batman Movie having a good week since it’s the only children’s movie in town. That remains true this week… to an extent. With the arrival of a certain woman-loves-bull-monster movie, we may see Lego lose some ground to the Disney film, as long as the gay Le Fou controversy doesn’t keep some families from catching Batman and the Toy Wonder in theaters.
Finally, I thought La La Land would finally find its day in the sun with a BP bonus… but it loses yet again to the resilient Hidden Figures. This movie has incredible legs, so either audiences love the story, or they love looking at Janelle Monae, and honestly it could be both. I know locally that LSU is doing a Hidden Figures night, and I’m guessing that they’re not the only ones. This one may even find it’s 4th Best Performer bonus in Week 03.
WAR STARTS AT MIDNIGHT LEAGUE RECAP
This week had a lot of movement, with the consensus pick of 3x Get Out/2x Lego/3x La La Land only earning $82 million and making a massive cluster of ties at 14th. Our top cineplex was chaseandrewbeasley’s Cineplex, riding the Kong train to a cool $92 million. For a general rule of thumb, if you played the great ape, you ended up ahead of the Get Out crew.
The only users who had a Week 01 PC to outperform the 14th place clustercuss was Miyagi-Do Theaters and Uldaddy’s Home, who now narrowly lead for the season with $256 and $254 million, respectively. The massive tie for 3rd place is at $253 million. This season more than any other is still anybody’s game. Also, all those 3rd placers in our league are tied for 89th overall on the season, so on the whole, we’re not too shabby. Congrats team!
WEEK 03 PREDICTIONS
Another tough week, and our first split film of the season in Beauty and the Beast. This 400 pound gorilla in the room (sorry Kong) is going to be a box office juggernaut, with projected earnings at $148 million, even with a Rotten Tomates score in the 60s. But, before we get into projections, let’s go over each new release.
- Beauty and the Beast – This remake of Disney’s The Little Mermaid starring a singing Emma Stone is set to steal money from the pockets of every girl born in the late 80s, and their husbands, and their kids. The idea to make Flounder (voiced by Thomas Middleditch) into a pansexual imp was an interesting decision, but ultimately won’t affect the profits of this Disney franchise. Look for gross in the upper $150 million range. EDITOR NOTE: Jacob, you’re giving away that you’re a time traveler again. Either learn to tell these two films apart, or start using your time machine to make better predictions.
- The Belko Experiment – I had to seek out the trailer for this one, and from what I can tell it’s a horror movie featuring Dr. Cox and Bighead. This could take some money away from Get Out, but from the trailer it still looks like these are serving different audiences. Get Out holds strong, and Belko falls flat.
So where does that leave us? I want to get the instant classic and future AFI Top 100 Horror Film entry Get Out on every screen I can. That leaves me with 1x Beauty and the Beast SUN / 5x Get Out / 2x Hidden Figures. I wanted to get Friday’s Beauty in there, but it meant lots of sacrificing of my BP pick.
Think my picks are full of anthropomorphized bull? Tell me all about it on twitter @jakerg23.