Each week Jacob recaps the weekend box office and the winners and losers in the Midnight Warrior Fantasy Movie League.
WEEK 06 BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
Some weeks you have contests that go down to Sunday night’s last ticket sold before people really know who will end up with the Perfect Cineplex. Well, this was not one of those weeks. From the second that the Thursday preview numbers were released, it was a foregone conclusion that Hidden Figures would just run away with the Best Performer bonus. When the final numbers came out it ended up at a super-value of $89.4K/bux in a week where the next best performer, returning comedy Why Him? made only $73.4K/bux in second place.
So, after stacking your cineplex with 3x Hidden Figures, it was just a bet on what would be the best combination after this. At one point on Saturday, it looked like a Moana lineup could hold some water. Instead, Manchester by the Sea teamed up with Assassin’s Creed and Fantastic Beasts in a farewell tour to round out the Perfect Cineplex. Yes, all of these films aren’t even in FML this week, yet they were all a good enough value to the 575 players smart enough to play this lineup.
Also, for a lineup this simple, it’s amazing I lasted 2 whole paragraphs without making a Hidden Figures/rocket science joke. So give me some credit for that.
As for our league, it comes as no surprise that O PC, Where Art Thou? has again found a way to get a Perfect Cineplex. At some point, we will accept that there is a savant in our mix who is sitting in a diner somewhere counting toothpicks as they fall while spitting out $/bux predictions for low budget indie award flicks. I came in second by betting it all on Hidden Figures and Manchester by the Sea, but second place isn’t good enough in this league folks.
Join War Starts at Midnight to compete against the 19 other Cineplexes in this league!
As for the season, School of Rock is still leading our league with $602 million, with O PC at $601 million. So, after 6 full weeks, it’s still anybody’s game. Well, specifically it’s still School’s or O PC’s game to lose. We just have to hope they all start making some really bad decisions. Have you guys considered the 8x Underworld lineup for this week?
Also, we’d like to welcome the newest competitor, Liqdarod Reelgud Theaters. We are assuming Mr. Reelgud is a listener with an unfortunate given and family name, and is simply naming his cineplex after himself. But, his decision to play Assassin’s Creed on 6 screens makes me think he might be making a joke. Well, a joke out of Mr. Cates, who had his season total passed in one week by our newest competitor.
WEEK 07 PREDICTIONS
Well, welcome back to 4-day weekend hell. This one is much worse than before, because we have to try and weigh 6 new arrivals in some of the hardest genres for this time of year. I’m going to try and sum them all up in a quick bullet list in under a minute (which is twice as long as I usually take on this article). Put 60 seconds on the clock, please…
- Silence – Certainly the best on this list, don’t look for a lot of people to see a 3-hour religious flick, even if Kylo Ren is in it
- Patriots Day – The movie nobody asked for, especially not anybody from Boston
- Monster Trucks – Apparently this is a movie? But it’s a kid’s film and every kid has seen Moana 15 times by now so….
- The Bye Bye Man – Don’t even think about putting this one in your cineplex or you can kiss your season Bye Bye, Man
- Live By Night – Flop
- Sleepless – Unless this is a gritty reboot of Sleepless in Seattle, stay away.
You should have been able to read that in a minute, so I’m claiming victory. If it took you longer than that, you should learn how to read faster.
Anyway, I’m betting big on Monster Trucks since it’s a Nickelodeon film and I remember seeing Harriet the Spy when I was like 9. I don’t remember much about that movie, but I want to play this just in case any of the trucks in this film grow up to be as hot as Michelle Trachtenberg. On the off chance that she has a Google alert on her own name and she sees this: What happened? I am not a producer, but I promise I’ll dream-cast you in the next discussion on the podcast. I hope you like starring with Donald Glover.
Anyway, kids are off of school so they’ll see Monster Trucks and when that’s sold out they’ll go to Moana. If not, they’ll buy those Moana tickets just to sneak into the R-rated Silence. You know how those pre-teens love their Liam Neeson.
Are you mad because I waited for screen counts before making my prediction this week? Follow me and then angrily yell at me on Twitter. You can find me @jakerg23.