Each week Jacob recaps the weekend box office and the winners and losers in the Midnight Warrior Fantasy Movie League.
WEEK 01 BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
Welcome to the weekly War Starts at Midnight Fantasy League Recap! Here, I aim to recap the previous week and give some hot tips on the upcoming week each and every Thursday. You can take my lineups to the bank… as long as nothing too crazy comes out in some Thursday night preview numbers.
First, let’s see what I said about The Shack in last week’s article: ” I know that even in 2,888 theaters it’s not going to make what it needs to overcome an $85 bux price tag when you La La Land at half the price still riding an Oscar wave.” Obviously I was way off base. This film cruised to $190.3K/bux, which is one of the highest totals in recent FML history. In fact, the last film to put up more was Alice Through The Looking Glass in Summer Week 4, which is before a lot of our league even started playing! Like Alice, The Shack is a movie that I probably won’t be seeing. But that didn’t stop me from dropping it in my lineup at 6x after I saw the $800k in preview numbers.
If you did realize that The Shack was the way to go, you had to find a good anchor. Most of FML seems to have went with Get Out, and if you listen to our new review today, you’ll find out why. It’s great, and it only dropped a tiny 15.4% in it’s second week. Still averaging over $9,000 per theater, this is the movie everybody is talking about. Holding up well against a competing R release in Logan, you can expect this film to stick around in FML for a while.
WSAM LEAGUE RECAP
Another feature of this article is to recap what happens in our War Starts at Midnight fantasy movie league. If you aren’t a member, you can join at any time! Whoever has the highest total at the end of the season wins a really rad championship mug, so sign up now!
This is a tough week to write a recap of our league because we had more Perfect Cineplexes this week than total participants last season. 26 players, including Определенно не русский Синеплекс (formerly O PC, Where Art Thou?), School of Rock, and (your’s truly) No Vacancy. Since the name changes I can’t be sure, but I think the 23 other PC screens are all newcomers. So, to all the new members of our league: welcome!
To all the current members of our league: may God have mercy on your soul. These newcomers are bringing their A game. They heard this rumor about us giving out championship mugs, and they’re gunning for it big time. My quick survey of the league showed 4 players (School of Rock not included) who finished in the top 100 last season, including AaroCO who is the number 1 overall winner from last season. So… good luck!
WEEK 02 PREDICTIONS
Quick, fetch me my roulette wheel. This is one of those weeks where I had to play around for a long time to even find a cineplex I believed in that didn’t leave me with more than $100 left in the bank. I have some favorites, but everything is so close that you have to just pick your Best Performer and stack the house, or just hedge the crap out of this week.
As always, let’s run down the new releases:
- Kong: Skull Island – I watched the trailer before Logan and Get Out, and I just couldn’t get into this one. I hear that it’s part of a giant monster cinematic universe, but is that even something anybody is asking for? Long range forecast is up from $35 million to $40, which can mean good things, but I don’t think the movie can meet expectations unless it’s at least as good as it’s amazing poster.
Wait, is that it? That’s the only new movie? We have to just sort through these scraps and find a winner? Logan could still win this week outright if Kong flops. Or, the total lack of kids movies could put The Lego Batman Movie in the driver’s seat for BP with a measly $86 pricetag. If it wins BP, look for my 2xGet Out/5xLego/1xBefore I Fall to sneak to a very close perfect cineplex. If Before I Fall doesn’t lose too many screens there’s an outside shot that 1xKong/7x Before I Fall can run away with the thing, but I have trouble trusting either of those movies.
And if you can’t find your own roulette wheel, maybe a dartboard or smart octopus can lead you to victory.
If you’ve got a hot take on this week’s cineplex, or just know a site that’s good at picking random cineplexes, tell me all about it on Twitter. Follow me @jakerg23.