Each week Jacob mines the Fantasy Movie League chatter for all the data that matters. Join our FML league to compete with other Midnight Warrirors for the coveted FML Champion coffee mug.
TULIP FEVER: THE KIND THAT CAN’T BE MEASURE BY DEGREES
We’re testing out a change of format here at War Starts at Midnight. We’ll still be doing weekly FML articles, but instead of reviewing the last week and giving a rundown of our Midnight Warrior league, we’re going to focus on predicting what’s happening in the upcoming week. I’ll still give previews of each and every new release, but I’m also going to give a summary of all the data I look at when making my choices this year.
Finally, I’m going to make an FML account to play my preview lineup, just so you can hold me accountable for when I decide to screen some awful bottom of the barrel movie 8 times. Like this week, when I inevitably pick Birth of the Dragon. Yeah, it might happen. Especially on a 4 day Labor Day FML weekend. What a way to open up the sure-to-be-confusing mess that will be Fall 2017.
OPENING THIS WEEK
- Hazlo Como Hombre ($93) – This Spanish language gay comedy has received pretty bad reviews this week, and I wasn’t sure that this would be a hit. Now that theater counts have come out, it’s pretty clear that this one can’t compete. Landing in fewer than 400 theaters means it’s going to be very hard to put up the numbers, even if they are targeted to the most demographically appropriate theaters in the country. This is a hard pass.
- Tulip Fever ($63) – Add a bunch of Academy Award winners and nominees, and drop it into 765 theaters for only $63 dollars, and there’s a really good chance you’re looking at a Best Picture winner for Week 01. BoxOfficeReport is predicting $2.5 million, which puts it short of the bonus bar, so it’s already an uphill fight. Mix that with the fact that there is no strong anchor this week, and you’re in a tough spot. I hate to pass on this one, but I’ll have to. That being said, I bet I do end up seeing this film at some point.
DATA DUMP
| RT Score | RT Audience | Bonus Bar | Phil’s Fandango Check | TC | ||
| The Hitman’s Bodyguard | $252 | 40% | 73% | 11.3 | 191 | 3370 |
| Annabelle: Creation | $154 | 68% | 74% | 6.9 | 117 | 3358 |
| Wind River | $126 | 86% | 93% | 5.7 | 127 | 2602 |
| Leap! | $134 | 36% | 67% | 6 | 132 | 2705 |
| Logan Lucky | $115 | 93% | 77% | 5.2 | 129 | 2975 |
| Spider-Man: Homecoming | $79 | 92% | 90% | 3.6 | 146 | 2036 |
| Dunkirk | $10 | 93% | 93% | 4.8 | 124 | 2752 |
| Birth of the Dragon | $47 | 19% | 69% | 2.1 | 73 | 1633 |
| Wonder Woman | $44 | 92% | 90% | 2 | 91 | 1808 |
| Despicable Me 3 | $51 | 61% | 58% | 2.3 | 98 | 2128 |
| Girls Trip | $64 | 89% | 86% | 2.9 | 138 | 1605 |
| The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature | $66 | 11% | 48% | 3 | 105 | 2651 |
| The Emoji Movie | $73 | 7% | 42% | 3.3 | 136 | 2108 |
| Tulip Fever | $63 | (none) | 88% | 2.8 | 252 | 765 |
| Hazlo Como Hombre | $93 | 43% | 89% | 4.2 | 551 | 382 |
So where does this all leave us? In a really tough spot. Looking at everything above, there is one film jumping out at me. Wind River should be able to take the solid word of mouth and critical reviews, and a relatively low price and crush the Bonus Bar number. Leap! looks attractive at $134, but when you realize that for some unknown reason Cars 3 is back in 2,445 theaters this week, you start to think that this weak lineup of kids movies was ripe for Disney to try to pull in the slack. That makes me stay away from every kid’s movie this week.
The other benefit Wind River has is the ability to be your 7x anchor. Play whatever you want on your last screen, as there are a few options. That being said, here’s what I’m playing.
Think I’m super wrong? Want to tell me all about it? Just hit me up on Twitter @jakerg23.