Each week Jacob recaps the weekend box office and the winners and losers in the Midnight Warrior Fantasy Movie League.
WEEK 04 BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
As we enter the week-long intermission between two of the biggest holidays of the year, we all turn to the time-honored traditions of our forefathers: endlessly obsessing over Fantasy Movie League lineups. In Week 04, we saw what I would consider an upset, with Denzel Washington’s Fences just edging out La La Land for Best Performer, and going a whole 6 screens worth in the Perfect Cineplex. I would have picked La La Land (and I did) to outperform, but instead, we had a neck and neck race between the tow. Fences ended up at $184.1K/bux, with Damien Chazelle’s flick coming in oh-so-close at $181.2K/bux. Those are the small margins that make the difference in FML.
Filling in the last two screens were Sing and Passengers. I saw the latter, so I’ll try to do a quick review. As much as I wanted to like this, the marketing campaign for the film betrayed its core premise, but not nearly as much as the execution. The set design is really cool, but in a weekend where you can go one screen over and see La La Land (if it’s not sold out like our local 10:10 am Wednesday morning screening was), or two screens over and see Rogue One, or three screens over and see what’s left of Arrival, this film just never makes a space for itself. Did I say space? Space is the LAST thing I need more of! (Actual quote from Passengers or bad pun from your’s truly? You’ll have to see Passengers to know for sure, you unlucky reader.
The Perfect Cineplex for Week 4 on Fantasy Movie League
In the Midnight Warrior League, my evil plan as CinepLex Luthor has finally come to fruition! I have conquered the two Wonder Twins of our league with their identical cineplexes. Yes, School of Rock and O PC, Where Art Thou? were back near the top yet again, with matching cineplexes frighteningly similar to mine. They bet that Why Him? and Fantastic Beasts would be better than Moana and La La Land. Well, what you two goody-two-shoes didn’t realize was that La La Land is a behemoth in the making. Well, if there were any justice in box office numbers it would be. But more on that in a minute.
I did gain ground in our season-long struggle, but only to the tune of $2 million dollars. School of Rock still leads by $13 million over O PC, with me trailing another $14 million behind that. The sensible thing for those at the top is to make hedge plays that minimize risk in order to gain ground. Those in 5th or lower may want to consider riskier lineups at this point in order to make up ground. Those riskier lineups usually involve going all in on one movie and betting the farm that it does good, despite leaving money in the bank and in spite of
Join War Starts at Midnight to compete against the 18 other Cineplexes in this league!
WEEK 05 PREDICTIONS
I saw La La Land. It’s amazing. I am the type of person that believes in the good of humanity. I believe that great art wins out in the end. I don’t care what the numbers say, and I don’t care what the pricing says, and frankly I don’t care what FML nerd says about anchoring 7 screen with Passengers, or 5 screens of that star vehicle with 2 screens of either Manchester By The Sea or Lion. Really! I don’t.
Just go make your own decisions, you Spock-like number crunchers intent on sucking all the humanity out of film just to try and make every last dollar there is. Your cineplex can screen the corporate focus group Rogue One with the easy to digest Office Christmas Party on 4 screens with the cookie cutter but safe Manchester By The Sea and a couple screens of a low price leftover Arrival.
You do that Spock. Because today I am Bones. Today I think with my heart. Today I play 8 screens of La La Land.
Here’s to the fools who dream.
You can tweet to me @jakerg23 and tell me why I’m wrong, but I won’t listen and I won’t reply. Because it’s the season of love and miracles and you shouldn’t be tweeting at all you should be at a screening of La La Land. Why are you even reading this, don’t you know there’s magic screening at a theater near you? Go spend money on art.