Each week Jacob recaps the weekend box office and the winners and losers in the Midnight Warrior Fantasy Movie League.

WEEK 11 BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN

I can’t remember if I said it here, in the Midnight Warrior Fantasy Movie League Chat (comment below to get a sweet invite to that), or just in passing, but I had no faith in John Wick: Chapter 2. First, I didn’t watch the original film, and didn’t know anybody who had. Well, that last part is not true. I didn’t know anybody who told me they actually loved that film. That means I was going to ride the small plastic caped crusader or the whips and chains of outrageous fortune to the PC promised land.

Then, as always, Thursday’s numbers dropped. It was hard to pass up Wick‘s $2.2 million dollar preview numbers, equaling almost exactly what The Lego Batman Movie brought in. It didn’t beat 50 Shades Darker, but with its much easier price tag, it was hard to deny that Keanu would be the best bet out of the top films.

I was smart enough to switch over to JW, and I was smart enough to play 2x Split, but I was dumb enough to screen the best film of the past x years (where x is the number of years since Mad Max: Fury Road, No Country for Old Men, or A Goofy Movie, depending on your preferences), aka La La Land. Then, I added in a very poorly performing screen of Sing. Maybe I thought Lego Batman would do so well that it would get some spillover dollars…. or maybe I just really wanted to play La La Land and it blinded me to the future BP, Lion.

In any case, that’s where the chips landed last week, and hopefully, you ended as one of the 128 perfect cineplexes from last week.

Sleight of Hand picks for Week 11 on Fantasy Movie League

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Each week Jacob recaps the weekend box office and the winners and losers in the Midnight Warrior Fantasy Movie League.

WEEK 08 BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN

When will we ever have a normal week? Really, I think the main problem this world faces is Global Weirding, and now it’s spreading into FML.

The Perfect Cineplex this week is, if you can believe it, 2 screens of an M.  Night Shyamalan movie, 3 screens of a Nickelodeon-produced live action Transformers knockoff, one screen of a Jamie Foxx movie with 14% fresh on Rotten tomatoes, and two blank screens. What the heck is even going on? How am I supposed to make predictions when we live in this world?

Split did just insane monster numbers. I don’t mean The Village wolf costume monster numbers, I mean Cloverfield monster numbers (almost literally). Right above $40 million dollars in a single weekend. Monster Trucks was closer to $7 million, but that’s still a great value for the bux. Sleepless pulled in about $3.5 million, proving that sometimes reviews don’t matter at all.

Coming Up Roses Cineplex picks for Week 8 on Fantasy Movie League

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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.

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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

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Each week Jacob recaps the weekend box office and the winners and losers in the Midnight Warrior Fantasy Movie League.

WEEK 02 BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN

I hope all you newcomers are having a blast in our league! It’s an easy starter league with 18 contestants where 1/6 of the league gets a Perfect Cineplex in Week 02! Not only that, but School of Rock was VERY close to a Perfect Cineplex last week as well. So congratulations! And to the newcomers, holy hell have we made a steep learning curve for you this season!

So, with a wider expansion than expected, Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals came in heads and shoulders above the rest in what should have been a no-brainer for this week. I, however, stuck to my CinepLex Luthor role as villain and went with an alternate disastrous pick. Nevermind the fact that personally I had no faith in this film, and was predicting no widespread appeal. I guess I can’t be right about every single movie. Wait, I was also wrong about Fantastic Beasts which came in at a measly $51.8K per bux, which was well below what I expected. I heard some chatter that Beasts would have a shot at Best Performer this week, but I just don’t think it can happen.

Let’s see a double feature of this kid’s movie and also this psycho-thriller (qu’est-ce que c’est?)

This week was the second week in a row that Moana anchored the Perfect Cineplex. So far this has been going strong, but how will it handle the drop of another giant highly anticipated Disney blockbuster? (Hint: Not great.)

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