Each week Jacob recaps the weekend box office and the winners and losers in the Midnight Warrior Fantasy Movie League.
WEEK 03 BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
Long time players will remember the time way, way back in Week 11 of the Fall League there was a “lazy man” Perfect Cineplex that featured 1 screen of Trolls, 6 screens of Hacksaw Ridge, and one screen of an empty cineplex. Hacksaw Ridge performed so well that the 6th screen of Hacksaw plus the $2 million Best Performer bonus minus the $2 million penalty for an empty screen was STILL better than two screens of anything else you could afford.
Well, it happened again folks. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Saturday) mixed with 6 screens of Disney’s Moana mixed with one screen of Rules Don’t Apply won Perfect Cineplex. Well, technically the last screen is blank, but judging by the theater where I that film you can use “blank screen” and “Rules Don’t Apply” as synonyms.
Week 03 Perfect Cineplex
Will Moana ever stop being relevant at the box office? I can’t tell if this movie is a juggernaut or if the price is always just a little too low on it. This is it’s third straight week in the Perfect Cineplex, and honesty it might sneak it’s way into this week’s as well.
If Moana does manage to find it’s way back to the promised land, you can be sure it will be in School of Rock‘s cineplex, as once again he’s right near the top of our list. This week, he does not get name-checked for the first place finish.This week’s main prize goes to the mysteriously named chaseandrewbeasley’s Cineplex. I have no clue who might set the lineups on this one, but right now I have equal odds that it is either run by Chase Beasley or Joey Dale.
As for the season-long race, School of Rock remains in first, followed closely by O PC, Where Art Thou?, then the most dastardly CinepLex Luthor. These are the top three finishers from last season in an epic rematch. If you’re looking for a shuffle up, or maybe just to gain some ground, this week is the insane week to try and make it happen.
WEEK 04 PREDICTIONS
First things first: this is a 4 day FML weekend. That mean’s this weekend runs for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. So you have to deal with the following factors:
- Extra day of box office
- Kids are out of school
- Christmas Eve
- Christmas Day
- Boxing Day (irrelevant)(or is it?)
- Movies releasing on Wednesday
Look on the bright side: you can wait until Friday morning to set your lineups! Yes, that’s when the usual lock time is, but at least you’ll have numbers on the disaster film Passengers by then! And no, the word disaster is not referring to its plot. Can it overcome a 33% Rotten rating? I’m thinking it can, since that link also says 98% want to see it, and with all the pressers JLaw and CPratt have been doing it’s hard not to start uploading shipper vids to Youtube set to everybody’s favorite Sara Bareilles song. But with stiff competition from another unnamed spaceship breathing heavily in your ear, and Arrival just floating out there, can Passengers really put up the numbers needed?
Well, it is new, and it’s most stiff competition is from Assassin’s Creed. Wait, maybe I used that disaster film joke too early. 16% is nothing to sneeze at even if it has that same 98% “want to see” rating. Also, it somehow has about 20 thousand more votes powering that 98% rating. Cheap enough to fill 8 screens with enough for (my pick for Best Performer) La La Land once or twice, you could even sneak a Moana in there for good measure.
I think it’s too early in the week to make a real call, but at press time I’m going with Passengers, La La Land, and Arrival. I don’t care how many times we try to fight the Death Star, I’m not biting on a $777 second week film, even if that is the luckiest price of all and is making me rethink my position.
So for now, I’m going with 3 movies about stars in the loosest sense of the word, while avoiding the one movie that actual has that word in the title.
Why should I avoid literally all three of these to play 7 Moana and Sing? Please let me know if I’m sleeping on these kids movies week after week. Follow me @jakerg23, and look out for my Friday morning hot take where I get scared of Passenger’s numbers and jump ship faster than those two do at the end of one of the most spoilerific previews of the year.