WELCOME TO THE SUMMER, boys and girls! Mamo’s summer box office contest kicks off once again, and we give you our picks for what the top ten films of the 2012 season will be.
To download this episode, use this URL: http://rowthree.com/audio/mamo/mamo247.mp3
CONTEST ENTRIES ARE NOW OFFICIALLY CLOSED. THANKS FOR ENTERING. We will tally the results in mid-September and announce the winner on the show; in the meantime, feel free to continue to use this thread to chat up the summer results. You can also watch the leader board for the contest right here (thanks to GE Hale!).
Rules:
THE SUMMER STARTS ON MAY 1 AND ENDS ON AUGUST 17, in terms of movies you can pick. Please work by domestic release dates only and with domestic grosses only. Scores will be tabulated after the Toronto International Film Festival is over.
Players will submit the following:
Top ten films, in order of total grosses. Also total gross $ amount and opening weekend gross $ amount. So as an example, submissions should look like this:
1. Dark Knight Rises, $402 million, $175 million
2. Avengers, $375 million, $150 million
Points awarded for:
A. 1-10 Points for film rankings. If you are bang on (your #1 pick comes in #1) you get 10. If you are 5 places away (your #8 film comes in #3) you get 5, etc.
B. 10 bonus points for every film who’s gross you have within 5 million of the actual gross.
C. 5 bonus points for every film who’s gross you have within 10 million of the actual gross.
D. 1 bonus point for every film who’s gross you have within 20 million of the actual gross.
E. 10 Bonus Points for every film who’s opening weekend gross is within $1 million of the actual opening weekend gross.
F. 5 Bonus Points for every film who’s opening weekend gross is within $5 million of the actual opening weekend gross.
G. 1 Bonus Point for every film who’s opening weekend gross is within $10 million of the actual opening weekend gross.
E. 10 point bonus for every film you have ranked correctly AND within 5 million of the actual gross AND within $1 million of the opening weekend gross.
F. For the purposes of calculating weekends – Films opening on a Wednesday are counted until the first Sunday they are released. Films opening on Memorial Day weekend are counted until the following Monday. Films opening the week of July 4 are counted from whenever they open in that week until the first Sunday of their release. Example – Spiderman opens on Tuesday, July 3. Your guess for weekend gross would actually be its 6 day total, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
Well done on the title of this podcast. I chuckled. Hard.
I was working with good source material.
HOLY SHIT I JUST GOT THAT. IT’S WORDPLAY.
I’m going to take a guess there that this new opening weekend rule will be what makes the winner. However, having an opening weekend that last 6 days seems a bit much. Perhaps it would have been simpler to just include the opening day gross. But rules are rules.
Yeah, I agree that Joker as a character and Heath Ledger’s performance really drove box office of The Dark Knight. I personally think Bane is a bit of an uninteresting character and when you combine that with the fact that it might be hard to hear what he is saying, I have my doubts about The Dark Knight Rises being #1 this year.
However, I think the biggest challenge with this contest is separating your own personal biases for movies and seeing what the general population thinks of a movie & its marketing. Like I see a lot of positive buzz with Total Recall from most people, despite some complaints on Row Three. I think it might do okay, but not sure yet if it will be on the top ten or not.
I’m likely going to keep with tradition and post my final picks on the last day.
The six day thing is to try and acknowledge the intent of having a big film like ASM open over a holiday. To the filmmakers and the public, that 6 day figure is the one that will matter. It’ll be the one in the news, etc. So that’s what we’re guessing at. Look, I picked $200 million for that, so I’m as disadvantaged as anybody.
I’m currently putting together my picks using the best scientific methods known to man!
(actually I’m just referencing IMDB and Box Office Mojo
)
You guys are nuts — Prometheus is not going to be massive box office hit.
Prometheus — rated R or rated PG13?
From what I hear, it will probably get a PG-13, though Ridley Scott assures us it will be “kinda R” (whatever that means)
Alien Franchise
1 Aliens $85,160,248
2 Alien Vs. Predator $80,282,231
3 Alien Fox $78,944,891
4 Alien 3 $55,473,545 2,227
5 Alien Resurrection $47,795,658
6 Aliens Vs. Predator – Requiem $41,797,066
The length of time between “legit” alien films is so long that these sorts of numbers aren’t always the best indicator. Look at AvP, as an example. It’s fucking terrible and not 1 person could possibly consider it canon, but because of ticket price inflation it’s the #2 grossing film in the franchise. I think we’re really basing our guess on an adjusted for inflation total that comes when you produce a no holds barred great Alien film. To date, there’s only been 2 of those, and if you adjust the take on Alien and Aliens to today’s dollars you get approximately:
Alien – 240 million
Aliens – 175 million
Again, you’re free to disagree with the assessment, but I assert that the true alien films have a lot of credibility and a lot of goodwill with fans that remains undiminished.
Which is why I have never understood the fascination with box office numbers. Why on earth is a movie’s success not based on number of tickets sold? Pure and simple. This eliminates all of the second guessing with 3D prices, inflation, re-issues, etc.
I’m sure there’s a good reason – and I think it’s sort of like sports, the industry always wants to be “breaking records” – it’s hype.
Am I wrong?
Marketing! Marketing! Cultural Perception! It’s the name of the game. And a fun game at that…
Adjusted for Ticket Price Inflation
1) Alien – $246,270,300
2) Aliens – $179,731,700
3) Alien 3 – $104,664,500
4) Alien Vs. Predator – $101,225,400
5) Alien Resurrection – $81,533,800
6) Aliens Vs. Predator – Requiem Fox $46,381,200
So I think the potential is there, especially as a big Ridley Scott sci-fi movie.
We say pretty clearly in the episode that you can’t model the potential success of Prometheus on the previous installments. There’s no correlation.
Promtheus is my most anticipated film, but I do not think it is going light the box office on fire, especially if it is R rated. In fact, I think Total Recall would do much better.
OK, I made my picks, listened to the show, made a couple small changes based on what was said and here’s what I came up with:
1. Dark Knight Rises – $800 million, $250 million
2. The Avengers – $500 million, $200 million
3. The Amazing Spider-Man – $400 million, $200 million
4. Brave – $280 million, $65 million
5. The Bourne Legacy – $250 million, $75 million
6. Prometheus – $200 million, $50 million
7. Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted – $170 million, $50 million
9. Men in Black III – $150 million, $60 million
9. Snow white and the Huntsman – $135 million, $50 million
10. Total Recall – $130 million, $40 million
$800 million would break the domestic record by $40 million and without a 3D surcharge. Hell, it would top the highest grossing 2D film by almost $200 million.
Something we also try to look at, which we didn’t mention in this year’s show but have mentioned in previous box office episodes, is the growth over time of the cumulative gross of the top ten box office, which tends to be incremental.
Last year’s top ten was good for about $2.29B. Sean’s top ten here would be a solid $3B summer, a growth year-over-year of over 25%.
You forgot about the IMAX surcharge Mr Gamble.
Back in 2008, it cost about the same they charge for 3D today. Nowadays (in Canada at least), they charge $18.99 for an IMAX ticket (though I cheat and ALWAYS redeem reward points for my IMAX tickets
).
Also, I am sure that they are also going to show the film on the premium “not quite IMAX” screens (i.e. UltraAVX for Cineplex, ETX for AMC), which will also costs a premium price.
With all these premium prices, I believe that THE DARK KNIGHT RISES will make A LOT more money, even if not many more people go to see it.
IMAX will bring it maybe $40 million. Ghost Protocol made $46 million worldwide on IMAX. 3D was ~25% of Avatar’s BO grosses. Their simply aren’t enough IMAX screens, nor do films typically have extended runs on them to make them a major factor.
Hunger Games did roughly $10 million on IMAX its first week, which is less than10% of its overall grosses. You’re vastly overestimating how much of an impact IMAX actually has.
I’m going to admit that I probably overshot my Dark Night Rises estimate and I decided that I’ll remove a couple hundred from that total before it’s too late.
Updated List:
1. Dark Knight Rises – $600 million, $250 million
2. The Avengers – $500 million, $200 million
3. The Amazing Spider-Man – $400 million, $200 million
4. Brave – $280 million, $65 million
5. The Bourne Legacy – $250 million, $75 million
6. Prometheus – $200 million, $50 million
7. Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted – $170 million, $50 million
9. Men in Black III – $150 million, $60 million
9. Snow white and the Huntsman – $135 million, $50 million
10. Total Recall – $130 million, $40 million
I want to know what Price was drinking, Spider-Man over The Avengers? No one i know is pumped to see another Spider-Man film. I think they rebooted it way too early and their looking at X-Men First Class numbers. Plus the Avengers have had 5 films all advertising The Avengers is coming. That’s one hell of a promotion.
Yeah, I personally haven’t seen many people excited about Amazing Spider-Man. The positive reactions even seem to be phrased as “hey, that Spider-man movie might not suck”. Despite the reboot, the audience is always one film behind and the last film was pretty bad. Look at say the Incredible Hulk or even Batman Begins, both movies that had to work on gaining back the audience trust after a previous bad film.
Yeah, Batman Begins never occurred to me as a model for this, but it’s a really good call Matthew. That’s a movie that most people consider a completely successful reboot, and it was still only good for $200M and change at the domestic box office because it was following B&R. And by a longer bracket of time than the scant five years between Spider-Man 3 and Amazing Spider-Man, I might add.
Honestly, I stand by my prediction. I don’t think BB is a really good example, because I don’t think ASM is overcoming as much. Batman had, it could be argued, three unsuccessful sequels to overcome, including one which wasn’t just terrible but was also a widely acknowledged flop. Warner promoted Begins, but to some extent hedged their bets. Sony is going pretty much all out for Spider Man on the other hand, and because of the terribleness of SM3 the reboot is actually likely to be looked on more favourably by the audience. Plus, no competition on the biggest weekend of the year, July 4. Here’s how much Sony has riding on this – They are opening the Will Smith film on a different weekend. Will Smith OWNS July 4. For Sony to push MIB3 they must be pretty confident. I don’t think my number is too different from theirs.
Batman Begins is also the first time that a superhero story was treated with seriousness of intent – up until then I think it was unclear whether there was an audience for a really massive non-camp superhero film. Even the Original Spiderman trilogy is pretty tongue in cheek, an update on the Burton aesthetic. I think the audience is smarter about this stuff and if the movie is as good as it smells this reboot has no trouble catching on.
But hey, I could also be wrong. Or Avengers could just do so well that I could get the spiderman total right and still be wrong. That’s why we play the game.
I do agree that the Batman movie franchise at that point had been driven into the ground as much as a franchise could at that point. People didn’t like Spider-Man 3 but it was no Batman & Robin.
Also while Batman Begins was very real world, I never saw it as the beginning of serious superhero movies. Spider-Man trilogy had it’s goofy Sam Raimi moments but treated the subject matter seriously, as did the first 2 X-men movies. Also I never saw Warner Brothers hedging it’s bets, to me it seemed like they went all out and I don’t think they could have done anything differently, once again fighting against the image of Schumacher’s Batman.
Still, when I see people acting in surprise that this Spider-Man reboot might not suck, it seems at least to me that Spider-Man 3 is still in their mind despite being a clean reboot. San Diego Comic Con, is a lousy barometer, but it was no surprise to me to hear Hall H was half empty during Sony’s presentation of the new Spider-man & Ghost Rider last summer.
I think it will be a success, but will have an uphill battle and I don’t think it will be #2. That said, what the hell do I know, as I’ve avoided all trailers and sneaks of this movie as I want to see it clean and have very little sense of the movie except for 2nd hand.
Also despite winning this contest twice, I think I’m generally a lot more wrong than right in predicting how crowds will react to movies.
It probably should be noted that for all the talk about how lousy Spider-Man 3 was, it still made $336 million domestic and $890 million worldwide. I’m thinking it’s pretty unlikely that The Avengers will come near that worldwide total. The built in audience for Spider-Man is very large.
OTOH, I’m still uncertain why they chose to go for an origin story. At least Batman Begins had a different structure and touched on different situations than Burton’s Batman which threw the audience into the world and filled in a little backstory. Especially since one of the things that people generally agree on is that Raimi did the origin well.
The Spider-Man films began the fad of studios excitedly reporting when a box office record has been broken (or re-broken).
Since much of it these days is due to inflation or premium prices, I’ve stopped caring about those self-congratulations.
Yeah, but there have been a lot of movies that have been poorly thought of that did great. Sometimes based on great marketing and sometimes based on the strength of previous movies. People liked the first 2 so much that no matter how crappy the third one turned out, people still wanted to see it once.
I just looked it up on RottenTomatoes.com and the audience rating (not critics but users of the site) of Spider-Man 2 is 81%, while the Spider-man 3 is at 54%.
I personally, think Avengers will over take the $336 million that SM3 made and I have no idea about worldwide, as I’ve never had much bearing how movies play worldwide.
So, if there is one thing we can all agree upon in the third row it is this: We are all anticipating Ridley Scott’s return to the ALIEN universe – more than anything else this summer!
The real test for Prometheus is not whether I want to see it. It’s whether I would want to see it AGAIN.
I was going to correct you that there was something else that I was looking forward to me. Possible Whedon doing the Avengers… but then I thought about it for a bit and realized you’re right, there isn’t anything more this summer that I’m looking forward to than Ridley Scott returning not just to Alien, but to him doing a new big science fiction movie.
I’m still waiting for another There’s Something About Mary, which 14 years later is still (in my opinion) the summer sleeper hit to beat.
It opened mid-July in 1998, slowly started gaining attention, and finally topped the box office in its EIGHTH WEEK (which happened to be the week I saw it
)
Of course, these days films don’t top the box office with a weekly gross of only $12 million.
http://boxofficemojo.com/weekly/chart/?yr=1998&wk=36&p=.htm
I think the fanboys are overestimating Prometheus (which is my most anticipated summer blockbuster). To the “average” movie going public, I think it looks like some random Sci-Fi adventure film with no major stars. i absolutely love the cast but none of them can open a movie by themselves. Also I don’t think the link to the Alien films is strong enough for the “average” movie goer to connect the two. Which is why don’t think it will have a huge opening weekend. I think if it’s any good, word of mouth is where it could pick up some traction. That’s a big “If”.
I imagine the marketing will tie together Prometheus with both Alien & Bladerunner. That said, the possibility of it getting an R rating, I think could be the biggest thing that could hurt it’s box office potential.
1. The Dark Knight Rises, $540M, $180M
2. The Avengers, $290M, $120M
3. The Amazing Spider-Man, $245M, $75M
4. Brave, $240M, $70M
5. Prometheus, $190M, $75M
6. Men in Black 3, $170M, $80M
7. Dark Shadows, $165M, $60M
8. Ice Age: Continental Drift, $160M, $60M
9, The Campaign, $140M, $50M
10. G.I. Joe: Retaliation, $130M, $55M
1. The Avengers, $344M, $144M
2. Dark Shadows, $296M, $114M
3. Battleship, $274M, $99M
4. Snow White/Huntsmen, $244M, $87M
5. Madagascar 3, $222M, $74M.
6. Rock of Ages, $211M, $69M.
7. Abraham Lincoln/Vampire Hunter, $197M, $55M.
8. GI Joe 2, $184M, $50M.
9. Savages $155M, $44M.
10. Tyler Perry Marriage Counselor, $124M, $39M,
Okay, I’ll bite. No Batman? I’m kinda impressed, actually.
I don’t see The Dark Knight Rises doing The Dark Knight numbers, but in my opinion I don’t see anyway for it to at least not get into the top ten.
Yeah that’s awesome. The rest of us will fight it out over TDKR accuracy and this guy will sail right under us with a flawlessly executed also-ran list, grab all the bonus points, and win.
Love your voicemails, but what?????????
???
The Het leaves voicemails on the Film Junk podcast.
Here is my list, just for the record.
1. The Dark Knight Rises, $420M, $210M
2. The Amazing Spider-man, $365M, $200M
3. The Avengers, $320M, $115M
4. Brave, $231M, $65M
5. Prometheus, $230M, $80M
6. Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted, $220M, $50M
7. The Bourne Legacy, $210M, $60M
8. MIB 3, $160M, $60M
9. Ice Age: Continental Drift, $150M, $35M
10. What to expect When You’re Expecting, $145M, $40M
Don’t everybody thank me at once.
And mine…
1. The Dark Knight Rises, $500M, $175M
2. The Avengers, $320M, $130M
3. The Amazing Spider-Man, $260M, $135M
4. Brave, $220M, $60M
5. Prometheus, $210M, $65M
6. Dark Shadows, $200M, $56M
7. Ice 4ge, $190M, $50M
8. Re-Bourne, $175M, $65M
9. Snow White and the Huntsman, $170M, $45M
10. Mada3scar, $160M, $65M
She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts.
Here goes nothing…
1. Dark Knight Rises, $550M, $180M
2. The Avengers, $300M, $120M
3. The Amazing Spider-Man, $300M, $110M
4. Battleship, $230M, $90M
5. Prometheus, $220M, $70M
6. Bourne Legacy, $210, $60M
7. Brave, $200M, $50M
8. Ice Age: Continental Drift, $190M, $45M
9. Dark Shadows, $180M, $50M
10. Men in Black 3, $160M, $50M
I’m sure a sleeper comedy will sneak in there too, but I can’t predict which one.
1. Dark Knight Rises, $480M, $190M
2. The Avengers, $306M, $110M
3. Brave , $290M, $120M
4. Snow White and the Huntsman, $220M, $90M
5. Battleship, $215M, $120M
6. Dark Shadows, $210M, $100M
7. MIB III, $190M, $90M
8. What to Expect when you are Expecting, $189M, $80M
9. GI JOE Retaliation, $175M, $75M
10. The Amazing Spider-man, $170M, $90M
my bets are Prometheus, Total Recall and Bourne Legacy all tank, and Snow White and Dark Shadows do better than expected.
See you at the bottom.
1. The Dark Knight Rises 540m, 185m
2. The Avengers, 380m, 130m
3. The Amazing Spider-Man 290 m, 110 million
4. Brave 260 million, 90 million
5. Battleship 240 million, 75 milion
6. Ice Age 200 million, 70 million
7. MIB III, 200 million, 80 million
8. Snow White and the Huntmans, 180 million, 60 million
9. Bourne Legacy 160 million, 60 million
10. Gi Joe 160 million, 70 million
I made the mistake of putting too much faith in Pixar last year…so why not do it again. :p
Dark Knight Rise – $450M, $190M
Avengers – $300M, 175M
Brave – $250, $70M
The Amazing Spider-Man – $230, $120M
Prometheus – $200, $60
MIB 3 – $175, $75M
Bourne Legacy – $150, $50
G.I Joe Retaliation – $140, $50M
Neigborhood Watch – $130, 45M
Snow White and the Huntsman – $125M,
I forgot to include the opening weekend gross for Snow White: 55M
At least I called one opening weekend right, doubt it will happen again though.
Nice one, CS
1. The Dark Knight Rises 450m, 170m
2. The Avengers, 380m, 160m
3. Battleship 280m, 70m
4. The Amazing Spider-Man, 270m, 95m
5. Brave 260m, 70m
6. Snow White and the Huntsman, 245m, 67m
7. MIB III, 220m, 80m
8. Dark Shadows, 210m, 60m
9. GI Joe: Retaliation, 200m, 75m
10. Madagascar 3, 175m, 60m
Here go my 2 cents…
1. The Dark Knight Rises 500m, 165m
2. The Avengers 300m, 130m
3. Brave 250m, 60m
4. The Amazing Spider-Man 220m, 90m
5. Prometheus 180m, 50m
6. Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted 170m, 60m
7. The Bourne Legacy 165m, 45m
8. Ice Age:Continental Drift 160m, 40m
9. Men in Black III 150m, 45m
10. Snow White and the Huntsman 149m, 60m
I’m surprised at how many of you think Dark Knight is gonna crush the Opening Weekend record of Harry Potter 7.2. (169m)
Dark Knight Rises taking the new record for opening weekend is one of the few things about this summer that I am 100% confident in.
I agree I think The Dark Knight Rises will make bank. But I don’t know if it will break the record, The Dark Knight had the Heath factor and a year of the best viral marketing ever.
Dark Knight Rises – 550m, 175m
The Avengers – 360m, 120m
Brave – 285m, 80m
Madagascar 3 – 255m, 80m
Amazing Spider-Man – 240m, 85m
Ice Age: Continental Drift – 205m, 75m
Snow White and the Huntsman – 185m, 75m
Dark Shadows – 180m, 65m
Total Recall – 170m, 45m
Prometheus 165m, 55m
We’re all off the hook writing reviews for BATTLESHIP. The greatest one has already been written:
http://bestforfilm.com/film-reviews/battleship/
I say again: BOMB.
Yeah, I’d rather watch THE DICTATOR that week.
it will make a billion bucks. just because it is bad. My strategy this time around is not unlike George Costanza’s … bet against my better judgment.
I’m liking the strategy.
I’m calling it right now, Andrew loves the movies and gives it an abnormally high star rating, only one week later to realize he has blown his wad and thus put the “real” rating at 2 stars on Letterbox.
Matt has yet to grasp the concept of a written review.
words…
Except there won’t be, because it’s highly doubtful I’ll be going to see the movie.
To good for Battleship but Fast & Furious 6 and you’ll be there with bells on. Got it.
Andrew James, the discerning fanboy.
Fuckin A!
Battleship is killing it overseas.
http://www.deadline.com/2012/04/battleship-goes-to-war-overseas-1-almost-every-country-where-it-opened/
Amazeballs. Well we’re off to a rollicking start already.
1. The Dark Knight Rises $440 million, $195 million
2. The Avengers $320 million, $110 million
3. The Amazing Spiderman $300 million, $95 million
4. Brave $240 million, $67 million
5. Snow White and the Huntsman $225 million, $45 million
6. Prometheus $165 million, $37 million
7. Men in Black III $160 million, $35 million
8. Madagascar 3 $158 million, $35 million
9. G.I. Joe Retaliation $145 million, $32 million
10. Ice Age: $122 million, $27 million
All numbers are in millions.
1. Dark Night Rises – 520 / 180
2. Avengers – 360 / 160
3. Spider Man – 250 / 125
4. Brave – 220 / 80
5. MIB – 210 / 70
6. Ice Age – 200 / 55
7. Dark Shadows – 185 / 50
8. Madagascar – 180 / 60
9. Snow White – 175 / 40
10. Prometheus – 155 / 60
Huzzah!
I would to say Suck It, Matthew Price.(Just Kidding)
http://m.hollywoodreporter.com/news/the-avengers-dark-knight-rises-box-office-312398
Spiderman my ass!
I hope that holds up I might be on the money.
It’s still real early, but is there chance that Avengers could top Iron Man’s 94% on the tomatometer? The press for Europe and some of the US are loving the shit out of it.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/marvels_the_avengers/
No way. Too much local snobbery.
Yeah, but Iron Man wasn’t high art either.
The one negative review has this quote:
“Apparently, bootleg copies of Transformers 3 made it to Asgard.” – Amy Nicholson, Boxoffice Magazine
Ouch! I can’t think of any possibly lowest blow.
As for whether Avengers can beat Iron Man’s 94%, even the Dark Knight only got 94%, which got me thinking that perhaps there is a ceiling for how well a superhero movie can do critically.
To be fair that same critic gave Anonymous, I Don’t Know How She Does It, Beastly, and Drive Angry all good reviews.
So her taste in movies is kind of shitty to say the least.
I don’t think much of her, but I marvel at her one line insult. Partly because I dislike the Transformers so much that if you are going to trash a movie, making comparisons to it is the best possible way to insult a movie in my eyes.
Adjust your AVENGERS expectations upwards: DARK KNIGHT RISES trailer 3 to premiere in front of the flick. Geeks across America to pass out, miss first ten minutes of AVENGERS, spend next 2 hours complaining loudly to their friends that they don’t understand why Thor is on Earth.
http://www.deadline.com/2012/04/dark-knight-rises-trailer-to-pair-with-marvels-avengers-release/
Fandango did a survey on what films people were looking forward to and here is the breakdown between men & women:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/avengers-snow-white-dark-knight-fandango-summer-movie-survey-312606
Men’s Picks for Most Anticipated Summer Movie:
1. “The Avengers” 31%
2. “The Dark Knight Rises” 23%
3. “The Bourne Legacy” 14%
4. “Men in Black 3” 8%
5. “Prometheus” 7%
Women’s Picks for Most Anticipated Summer Movie:
1. “Snow White and the Huntsman” 22%
2. “The Avengers” 16%
3. “Men in Black 3” 13%
4. “The Dark Knight Rises” 10%
5. “Dark Shadows” 8%
Avengers doing better than The Dark Knight Rises among men and on top of that, it’s the #2 pick for women. Once again, The Dark Knight had the appeal of Heath Ledger, while Rises has Tom Hardy under a muffling mask.
Also Snow White and the Huntsman is looking to be a hit with women. Dark Shadows is tracking along women despite the fact that it’s advertising campaign just started. Now it’s only a top 5, but Amazing Spider-Man is no where to be seen on either list.
I have an inching feeling that Avengers will beat out the Dark Knight Rises, but not 100% if I will go with it when I finally commit to some sort of numbers for the contest. Especially considering that the Dark Knight has less competition in the middle of the summer.
Dark Knight Rises – 620\180
Avengers – 375\150
Amazing Spider-man – 300\100
Brave – 220\75
MIB 3 – 200\60
Ice Age 4 – 190\45
Snow White and the Huntsman – 175\60
Madagascar 3 – 160\35
Battleship – 155\50
Prometheus – 150\40
Last year’s winner, ladies and gents!
Total Gross at end of summer \ Opening Weekend
1. Avengers – 500\125
2. Dark Knight Rises – 480\125
3. Amazing Spider-man – 240\95
4. Brave – 225\75
5. MIB 3 – 215\55
6. Snow White and the Huntsman – 200\65
7. Madagascar 3 – 185\50
8. G.I. Joe 190\55
9. Prometheus – 165\60
10. Bourne 4 – 160\50
just for fun addendum:
Bombs-0-Matic:
Battleship – 140\55
Total Recall 115\40
Dark Horses:
Dark Shadows 150\35
What to Expect 70\25
I still like the idea of Battleship bombing in theory, but the overseas numbers have me spooked. I still doubt it’s a big hit, but might it crawl into the top ten?
I was right on the money for the Weekend Estimate for MIB:3, but I suck for not accounting for the extra day on the US MemorialDay weekend. #RTFM
http://boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/
I like your Snow White numbers too (starting to regret not putting it on my list).
With the GI Joe move, Prometheus’ R rating, and my MIB overestimation, May is kicking my ass.
1. Dark Knight Rises 575\240
2. Avengers 480/200
3. Amazing Spiderman 280/135
4. Snow White & The Huntsman 220/110
5. Madagascar 3 190/65
6. Prometheus 180/60
7. Brave 170/65
8. Neighborhood Watch 160/ 75
9. G.I Joe Retaliation 155/70
10. Rock of Ages 150/45
Damn, now I’m thinking I low balled Avengers big time.
You and me both, buddy.
Are there any rules against people revising their numbers before the due date? Otherwise, it’s true that people (like myself) who wait until the very end have the advantage.
That said, when it the last day to submit to the contest? I thought it was May 3rd 11:59 pm, but the content says the summer starts May 1st. Does that mean the contest closes April 30th 11:59 pm?
1. The Dark Knight Rises, $601M, $200M
2. The Avengers, $387M, $152M
3. The Amazing Spider-Man, $303M, $141M
4. Brave, $252M, $83M
5. Snow White & The Huntsman, $208m, $99m
6. Ice Age 4, $193M, $72M
7. Madagascar 3, $181M, $53M
8. Dark Shadows, $179M, $62M
9. Prometheus, $171M, $64M
10. Men in Black 3, $164M, $68m
1. The Dark Knight Rises, $430M, $180M
2. The Avengers, $360M, $150M
3. Brave, $220M, $65M
4. The Amazing Spider-Man, $210M, $85M
5. Ice Age 4, $195M, $73M
6. Madagascar 3, $190M, $68M
7. Prometheus, $185M, $65M
8. Snow White & The Huntsman, $175M, $70M
9. Ted, $160M, $65M
10. Men in Black 3, $155M, $65M
Suck it Nolan-ites!
http://www.deadline.com/2012/04/the-avengers-pre-sales-bigger-than-previous-marvel-films-combined/
1 – DARK KNIGHT RISES $522M, $146M
2 – AVENGERS $426M, $102M
3 – SPIDERMAN $368M, $187M
4 – MIB $314M, $120M
5 – BATTLESHIP $296M, $108M
6 – ROCK OF AGES $178M, $65M
7 – GI JOE $174M, $82M
8 – ICE AGE $155M, $87M
9 – THAT’S MY BOY $138M, $68M
10 – PIRANHA DDDDD $122M, $122M
1.Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter 180/400
2.Piranha 3DD 150/350
3.Take This Waltz 140/280
4.Step Up Revolution 130/270
5.Katy Perry: Part of Me120/250
6.God Bless America 110/230
7.Magic Mike 100/210
8.Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Witness Protection 90/200
9.The Dark Knight Rises 30/150
10.The Avengers 5.5/45
The only way the box office would end up like that is if this year truly was the coming of the apocalypse.
LEAVE BRITTANY ALONE
We will see come August 17, Sean. Because after that I will be standing on the chest of RowThree, victorious!
1) The Dark Knight Rises 170/465
2) The Avengers 150/380
3)
whoops, sorry all:
1) The Dark Knight 170/465
2) The Avengers 150/380
3) The Amazing Spider-Man 110/270
4) Brave 70/220
5) Ice Age Continental Drift 45/185
6) Snow White and the Huntsman 60/178
7) Madagascar 3 55/176
8 ) Prometheus 65/163
9) Bourne Legacy 64/163
10) Dark Shadows 42/141
ATTENTION EVERYONE: Stop Submitting your picks. Because I’m calling my shot right now! So in advance I want to thank all the little people that made this possible. And Matt and Matt for being great podcast host.
Almost forgot, I’ll take a Return of the Living Dead Blu-ray as my prize.
1. The Dark Knight Rises 170/450
2. The Avengers 155/385
3. Spider Man 125/300
4. Snow White 85/225
5. MIB3 70/220
6. GI Joe 66/220
7. Brave 65/210
8. Madagascar 60/200
9. Prometheus 50/185
10. Ice Age 40/150
We admire hubris here at Mamo
I say:
1 The Avengers – 485/160
2 The Dark Knight Rises – 440/145
3 The Amazing Spider-Man – 290/85
4 Brave – 230/52
5 Men in Black 3 – 225/68
6 Prometheus – 220/67
7 Ice Age: Continental Drift – 180/37
8 Snow White and the Huntsman – 166/50
9 Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted – 165/53
10 G.I. Joe: Retaliation – 160/52
The auto-tracking spreadsheet with the new rule changes is more-or-less up and running and I will post a link to it here shortly after the contest closes. Good luck all.
We’ll post a snapshot of the standings regularly on the rowthree app! Thanks again for setting this up, we really appreciate it.
Skimming over peoples numbers, it seems we are predicting a BIG summer. I remember feeling the same last year but in the end seriously over estimated my predictions.
From the lists I would think the sure fire blockbusters are The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises and MAYBE The Amazing Spider-Man: but the rest of the list is a toss up: Brave could be great as Pixar is able to be but Cars 2 left a bad taste.
Further down the list we could have some films which we think will go nowhere but could go the way of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Bourne and Total Recall I think are in that vein given they are remakes/reboots and conveniently fit into a late summer run with little coming out the fortnight after. Its a strange year where I would not be surprised is 70% of my picks are completely wrong. Anyone else as confident as I am
?
Total Gross / Opening Weekend
1. The Dark Knight Rises – 466 / 184
2. The Avengers – 398 / 170
3. The Amazing Spider-Man – 250 / 130
4. Men in Black 3 – 234 / 107
5. Brave – 207 / 62
6. Prometheus – 200 / 58
7. Ice Age: Continental Drift – 184 / 55
8. G.I. Joe: Retaliation – 176 / 62
9. Madagascar: Europe’s Most Wanted – 175 / 60
10. The Bourne Legacy – 150 / 52
Ice Age 3′s box office numbers are deceiving. Yes, its opening weekend is 41m but it made 25m 2 days before (wednesday & thursday) A lot of you guys are lowballing its ow with 30s & 40s because of this.
@Matt Brown – You used amazeballs? Ugh, vomitorium!
When I was going down this thread, reading people’s list, and finally got to Toro’s post, I was like “oh shit, here’s the champion” (was kinda like when Sub-Zero & Scorpion walk through that door in the first Mortal Kombat film, bad-ass!)
Ha ha, Brittany is the Dan/Jigglypuff/Yajirobe of this contest. Nice.
@Matthew Fabb – Looking forward to seeing your list.
I know this year is mine but I’m kinda rooting for Kurt.
Thanks, I’m still undecided on how things might play out on quite a number of things. I need to spend some time on BoxOfficeMojo looking up past performances and makes some final decisions. Also since I’m going to see a midnight screening of the Avengers, I likely won’t be posting my numbers at the very last minute like I’ve done many years before. I think I’ll be spending some time Wednesday night instead.
Oh yeah, honorary mention goes to Ted as this year’s sleeper comedy (will place somewhere between 11-13)
Correction: “A lot of you guys are lowballing [Ice Age 4's] ow with 30s & 40s because of this.”
Hello everyone, just a reminder that contest entries close in TWO days, at midnight on May 3. Anything submitted before then will be eligible.
The chatter runs all summer long, though, and we’ll announce the winner when the box office returns are relatively settled, in mid-September.
http://www.deadline.com/2012/05/avengers-now-260-5m-overseas-could-reach-585m-worldwide-through-sunday-with-u-s-canada-russia-china-openings/
Here’s my list, which after over shooting most movies last year, I’ve pulled the numbers down. Although it seems more on the bottom half than the top.
1) Dark Knight Rises – $450 / $210
2) Avengers – $415 / $165
3) Amazing Spider-man – $295 / $175
4) Brave – $270 / $75
5) Snow White and the Huntsman – $190 / $60
6) Promethus – $180 / $50
7) MIB 3 – $165 / $52
8) Madagascar 3 – $160 / $55
9) Bourne Legacy – $155 / $50
10) G.I. Joe 2 – $140 / $50
There’s a comedy that is going to sneak up in there (What to Expect when you are Expecting? Ted? That’s My Boy? Seeking a Friend for the End of the World?) but I’m not sure what and by how much, so I’m just abandoning what I would likely get wrong.
Also guessing opening weekends is hard especially with these variable dates. It’s hard to use Box Office Mojo as a resource for that as their opening weekend data is just the weekend. You have to dig around a bit more get more information of how movies performed on other days.
Anyways, I feel like I won’t be doing any better than I did last year, some where in the middle of the ranking or lower.
Despite posting a day early, keeping with tradition I’m still the last one to submit my list.
That said, as Matthew Price mentioned, it’s too bad that Ky didn’t get in on the content.
http://boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3433&p=.htm
(the BOM predictive numbers)
DarkKnight3 – 500
Avengers -420
Spiderman3 – 300
Brave – 260
MiB3 – 175
Bourne4 – 160
GIJoe2 – 155
Alien0 – 145
Rock of Ages – 140
Madagasgar3 – 134
Interesting decision to use SUPER 8 to forecast PROMETHEUS.
Can’t wait for the Avengers episode of MAMO!
Neither can we! Hoping to record it on Sunday.
Are there any other sites or magazines that publish box office predictions? Even if they don’t include weekend totals, it would be curious to list them in the spread sheet to see how they compare against the rest of us.
At first glance, they seem comparable, but I’m betting Prometheus breaks out by its ties to Alien/Ridley Scott, and just the fact that the trailer is way more compelling than Super 8′s.
Aw man, where is Ky? Can’t believe she might miss this.
Fuck, just saw the new Spider-Man trailer and thinking I guessed way too low. And goddamn does that costume look fantastic(probably the best in any superhero movie)
The Spider-Man trailer played in front of the Avengers midnight crowd and after cheering loudly for The Dark Knight Rises, the Amazing Spider-Man got one person giving it a slow clap. They seemed to be more into Brave or Frankenweenie than Amazing Spider-Man.
We had the same response at my midnight screening of Avengers. But probably the coolest response was to the new Prometheus trailer where it was a mixture of clapping, gasp, and hot shits.
That’s the geek midnight crowd though. Rabid to see Avengers, I can totally see them being snooty about another superhero movie(that isn’t DKR), especially a new Spidey flick with the stink of SM3 still lingering.
For those that want to follow the race in real time can find the auto-updater at this link:
http://bit.ly/SBO2012
This year, I did the initial seeding using the Row Three consensus of how things will finish this summer. That means that now, the highest scores are the ones closest to the Row Three average for all participants, but as the summer goes on, the real data will be used as it becomes available and this list will reflect the final score by the end of the contest in September. For the record, the Row Three collective thinks this the summer will shake out as follows:
1. The Dark Knight Rises – 473/177
2. The Avengers – 362/139
3. The Amazing Spider-Man – 263/121
4. Brave – 221/71
5. MIB 3 (in 3-D) – 171/70
6. Snow White and the Huntsman – 169/ 67
7. Prometheus – 166/59
8. Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted – 161/57
9. Ice Age: Continental Drift – 150/54
10. Battleship – 138/88
Thanks for putting that together! I’ve put a link to the auto-updater at the top of the page. Contest entries are now closed.
That is awesome. Thank you, GE Hale.
Awesome! I would have actually loved that Eligable Movies list back when I was choosing rather than poking around various websites trying to find out when exactly movies were being released.
I just compiled the info from Box Office Mojo’s upcoming release lists. Perhaps for next year, I will put out the spreadsheet-in-progress before the contest closes.
I hate to ask for more, when you’ve already done such an amazing job. However, do you think you could add a tab that lists the points without the collective weighting against it? I’m curious how everyone stands with only that.
However, I imagine not much will be made out of it right now since only Avengers is the only movie really scoring high and it’s likely going to be so high that it will be out of everyone’s range and just count for where people put it in their listings.
As someone usually labelled as a dissenter. I would like to point out that I’m 3rd closest (of 26) to being in the consensus.
I’ve updated the mobile app to include the basic running score and rank of all participants. Clear your mobile cache and it should appear at the bottom.
Updates sometimes take a little while to aggregate through the system, so it may be a few minutes for it to show up. I’ll update the list every 2-4 days.
If you are experiencing any problems with your mobile app, please let me know!
Awesome!
OH MY GOD! Just got back from The Avengers.
Y’know when we first saw the Superman Returns trailer and we were like “there has got to be more cool shit in this movie, they’re just hiding it” and then we saw it and there wasn’t.
And then The Avengers trailer came out and we were like “there has got to be more cool shit in this movie, they’ve gotta be hiding it” Turns out, THERE IS LOTS OF COOL SHIT!
Word of mouth is gonna be ginormous, and I kinda feel bad for Dark Shadows, even if it is counterprogramming.
Completely agree. The most fun I had in theater all year not including Cabin in the Woods. Joss Whedon is batting 1000 in my book. Which is surprising since I dont like his television work.
The Avengers is simultaneously a very entertaining spectacle, and an offensively artless, safe, panderfest. I liked it, I’m going to end up buying it, but it’s the McDonalds of comic book movies.
Captain America, X-Men, the Spider-Man films, even Thor, have a directorial stamp. This is corporate car-commercial level filmmaking, but it gets the job done. The structure is superb, it is dense with humor and character highs, but hot damn if this aint a Mitt Romney speech in movie form.
This film has too much heart and Whedon put so much of himself into this that calling it the McDonalds of comic book movies is maybe a tad hyperbolic.
Much like how Angel used Wolfram & Hart, I see it as Whedon using the big studios in order to give the fans something really fucking special. Dude is a champion.
I don’t think it’s at all hyperbolic.
Like Kevin Smith, his most financially successful project is now a property that doesn’t truly reflect his work.
Heart? Sure, but coasting off the heart you come in with carried over from movies that created these characters. It’s a fan film.
I can’t agree with you. If you’ve seen his tv work and read his comic books, I think it’s clear that there is a correlation to this film, and that this film is very much Joss Whedon.
And I don’t think it coasted at all. It’s not like Whedon could just walk on set, call action, and simply get a great Avengers movie. This was one tricky-ass job and I think he handled it pretty damn well. You can’t tell me that if Brett Ratner or McG were at the helm they’d produce something of this quality.
I’ve seen a fair share of Whedon. I’m not a fan of his. I saw very little of him here, largely because he could not cast his own people.
I am an X-men 3 fan. Ratner gets shit on for being corporate, and he is. But he to some degree continued Singer’s visual style, and the X-men 3 plot had significantly more risks than Avengers does. X-Men 3 does not play it safe, and it pisses off comic nerds because of it. “Nooo, you cant kill these people!” Avengers makes X-Men 3 look like an indie film, it panders that hard.
But pandering is what Whedon does best, and he’s not even Chris Columbus when to comes to unique visual style.
But again, I liked Avengers. It’s fun. It’s corporate. It’s safe. It’s a panderfest. Calling it the be-all end-all of comic films is absolute lunacy. It’s not even top 10.
And with two strokes – “I am not a fan of Whedon” and “I am a fan of X3″ – you have removed yourself completely from any discussion of this film. Go enjoy your ratshit!
I’ve “removed myself from discussion” That’s lame, Matt. Thats…. objectively lame
X-Men 3 and the Avengers… both were co-written by Zak Penn, and both show it. Also wrote the Incredible Hulk screenplay, which I enjoy more than most people. Maybe I’m a Zak Penn fan?
But yes, Ratner’s X-3 has more visual style than the Avengers. He wins that fight by default.
Any “you’ve removed yourself from discussion line”… why, that sounds an awful lot like Sam Jackson siccing fans on AO Scott’s middling but positive NY Times review before it had even hit theaters,
and a lot like Loki attacking the one dude who refuses to kneel.
Be Loki.
Hmm… maybe I’m not a Zak Penn fan exactly. Reading a lot of his stuff was muscled out of each of these projects.
“X-Men 3 and the Avengers… both were co-written by Zak Penn, and both show it.”
Both show it? Apparently when Whedon started on Avengers, Whedon completely dropped Penn’s script and started from scratch. The only reason that he got a credit was because of the WGA screenwriting credit system. From what it sounded like from interviews, Whedon didn’t even read Penn’s script and just as a director he said he wanted to completely understand the reasoning why any small thing was happening and for that he had to write the script himself.
Perhaps the similarities you see in X-men 3 & Avengers is Penn’s script borrowing from Whedon’s Astonishing X-men comic. Unfortunately, despite using story ideas and I think if I remember correctly a few lines, it was a horrible adaption. Also unfortunately the WGA screenwriting credit system don’t include any of the comic book writers getting credit. Not just for Whedon, but I would have liked to seen Jack Kirby in the beginning credits of Avengers, rather than buried in the wall of end credits.
See to me X-men 3 was the worst of the X-men movies (even Wolverine) and likely would have been better if FOX had let Matthew Vaughn take his time and fixed the script. I’m okay with comic movies being different from the source material, especially X-men that has been redone so many times. Many part of the Dark Phoenix saga comes off as a bit of cheesy 80′s, that it needed to be trimmed down and fixed up, but it doesn’t work. So much of what Singer built up in the 2 other movies was completely wasted. However, I blame FOX for pushing it ahead rather than Ratner who was just a hired gun, a clog in the machine.
That said, I’m not sure I would put Avengers as the top superhero movie (comics are too wide of a medium to lump them all together, that’s like saying movie XYZ is the best movie based on a book). Certainly in the top 10, but it’s too fresh for me to get perspective.
Still, I’m with TUM TUM TYRANUS that this was a movie that easily could have been completely messed up (once again X3 I see a prime example of this) with so many characters, it’s hard to find a good balance. Whedon realized that at the core this had to be a found family, dysfunctional family. Rather than them working as a team right away and going from one battle or another. This has been seen in a lot of Whedon’s work and it seems to me that his career was all leading up to this project.
Whedon had a difficult task but he pulled it off. That task was dividing up the screentime between these characters while also having to have an actual storyline.
The Avengers movie works because it really did put together an Iron Man, Cap, Thor and Hulk movie together without having to let them carry it alone, and because it finally pulls a trigger they never bothered to with the other movies, which are all very limited in scope because they were saving it for this. In his movie Thor is just saving a dimpy little town. in Hulk and Iron Man’s movies they are just battling a clone of themselves. Cap’s is better than all of these because it has the most personality visually (distanced from the modern era) that allowed it to have actual stakes. In order to make this Avengers movie they had to strip all the style and personality that was carrying the weight in these limited-scope single Avenger films.
But come on, the dysfunctional family stuff? Solved by how… quipping? They were never a family. They were dysfunctional, Sam Jackson lies to them, and then they work together, which at that point becomes like the Capcom video games where the Marvel heroes team up and toss each other around.
So yes, Whedon gets a pass mixed with applause. He knows how to divvy up time with an ensemble and have people play off each other. And he can write levity, and he knows how to pander and give the fanboys the fantasy booking they want. But have you seen the animated Ultimate Avengers films? They… both actually (they made 2) have the exact same structure and do these things too, and also have the alien horde attacking the city. The live action one just happens to be funnier, longer, and pops much more because the animation was barely above TV quality.
Whedon had a template, and he was lucky to have the baggage of established star characters who had their own full films to be fleshed out. He gets credit for adapting the Banner character to suit this ensemble. He gets credit for slotting Black Widow and Hawkeye in similar ways that the Ultimate Avengers movie did for Ant Man/Giant Man , Black Panther, and whoever that Avenger is who’s like… a hummingbird or something. The Black Widow scenes though have some annoying Whedonisms though. He just can’t help himself when he gets a woman in a catsuit. Stock Whedon, eye roll.
Anyways, still, I see this, and then I see comic movies made by Singer, Vaughan, Snyder, Leterrier, Branagh, Raimi, Burton, Lee, Nolan, etc.. Not so much Favreau obviously… These are filmmakers that for all their own faults brought something to the table visually, ownership, vision. If anything Whedon had to strip away vision to make this film. It looks like it was a job requirement to make this as blandly mainstream as possible. And that’s… really sad.
But you know, Whedon has the most apologetic fans in the world, so I’ll sit back and watch people trip over themselves to credit him for stuff that was handed to him on a platter.
Stray observations and nitpicks. Not spoilers really but I’ll throw up a tag:
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
Tony Stark is annoying in the first chunk of this movie, severely overwritten.
Those aliens are worse than Storm Troopers.
A flying aircraft carrier is (at least appropriately shown to be) the stupidest idea ever.
The 2nd post credits scene owes David Gordon Green a massive check.
While I like Norton in Leterrier’s Hulk, and Ruffalo in this one… they would not fit in each other’s movies. Ruffalo is written like a supporting player here, with a personality that would not carry a film. And Norton’s Hulk has a weight that would be off putting in the Avengers film.
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
I will agree with you that the design of the aliens troops came off as boring to me. I think it could have been a lot better. Or they could have done something classic Marvel and gone with the Skrulls.
Ruffalo’s Banner is a bit different than Norton, but I think the fact that he tried to kill himself could explain it away. That said his transition from Hulk wanting to smash Black Widow & Thor, to just taking orders & working with the team happened too quickly. I would have liked to seen Loki taken control of Hulk as was done in I think one of the animated Avenger movies or tv shows.
I don’t know David Gordon Green, but the 2nd post-credits scene came across to me as classic Whedon. Also apparently they had just filmed it after the premiere in Hollywood a few weeks ago, which is why it’s in the North American release but not internationally.
While I’d pick on the alien design, I meant that they are as ineffective as Storm Troopers. They were not even as effective as Power Ranger Putty fighters.
Re DGG
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
At the end of Pineapple Express, after the big fight has happened, the crew, bloodied, dirty, scarred, all go for breakfast and talk about how awesome their adventure was, recapping the movie. It’s hilarious and at the time was very fresh. in Avengers it still works but I’d seen it already.
Im just hoping The Avengers takes down the Dark Knight in total gross. Just because it might be one of the most overrated movies of all times besides Heath’s performance and cinematography that movie is very mediocre. And is plague with issues.
Summer is officially here! And the reason you can tell is that my box office picks have started dropping like flies. Looking like $160M for the weekend for AVENGERS, way higher than I’d expected:
http://www.deadline.com/2012/05/avengers-now-260-5m-overseas-could-reach-585m-worldwide-through-sunday-with-u-s-canada-russia-china-openings/
We’ll discuss the film at length in tomorrow’s episode, but (spoiler!) I thought it was terrific. My review: http://www.thesubstream.com/html-review-the-avengers.html
Update:
Looks like it going to break the record for a 175 million opening weekend.
http://www.deadline.com/2012/05/avengers-now-260-5m-overseas-could-reach-585m-worldwide-through-sunday-with-u-s-canada-russia-china-openings/
You know, in spite of my grumblings, I’m actually glad to see it do well. The Avengers is a crystal clear alternative to the Dark Knight Rises in look, feel, purpose. I obviously have a preference but its good that the two big comic book movies this summer are so clearly distinct.
The Avengers isn’t really about anything at all. Captain America is, Thor is, Hulk is, Iron Man is, but together The Avengers is about smash em up popcorn fun and it gets the job done.
The Dark Knight is the cinematic, heady, allegorical zeitgeist movie that people will dissect for modern political overtones, and hopefully a continuation/elevation of what it has already built.
I prefer the latter, I think a lot of people will. Many will appreciate both equally, maybe even most. That’s all fine by me.
I don’t have a preference I like both types of super hero movies equally just for different reasons. One of my favorite comic book movies is Batman Begins but after multiple viewings The Dark Knight just doesn’t do it for me. And looks like from the trailers Rises will win me back.
On a side note, I’m afraid that the marketing for the Dark Knight Rises might be too depressing and dark. Especially nowadays with the economy in the tank that might turn people way who just want to escape. Which is why Avengers might be doing so good.
I think you’re spot on about the economy/Avengers tie-in, but I still think people will see the Dark Knight. There’s just too much reputation and investment there. And as depressing as it might look, people might also look at Batman as their avatar.
Since DKR seems to have adopted some of the 99% vs 1% vibe, I will be interested to see if there will be argument that Batman is a hero of the 1% since hell, he’s Bruce Wayne.. or if the movie will mess around to knock Bruce down into more of a common man who has to rebuild himself and overcome his own destruction.
I have no idea. I mean, some things in the trailer with Bane suggest that kind of breakdown, but he also has a Batjet now. That’s more impressive than Mitt Romney’s car elevator.
One of the reasons that I’m happy that Avengers is successful is because there seemed to be some Hollywood thinking that superhero movies needed to be dark & gritty like Chris Nolan’s Batman series to be really big & successful. Definitely playing them up with more realistically is great, but that isn’t the only way to do things.
The new Spider-Man definitely seems to be a bit darker and there was talk of how Superman had to be more dark if WB wanted it to be a success. I love a dark Batman, but with Superman that to me is the wrong approach.
I think there is room for both without having everything going to one extreme or the other.
The comic industry in the 90′s went too dark & gritty as the result of Watchmen, Batman Year One & the Dark Knight Returns. It resulted in a lot of bad comics and I rather not see that happen in with the superhero movies.
I’d say the bad comics were more a result of handing over titles to artists rather than writer’s. Especially since most of those artists couldn’t write worth a damn.
Damn, I had Avengers as $175 in my original set of numbers but then after revising my numbers knocked it down figuring it was my own expectations of the movie and that itwould be just under Harry Potter.
I guessed way too low. I was basing mine on Iron Man numbers and the performance of the Cap/Thor films.
More on Goon’s side here with The Avengers — I think people are forgetting the first half hour to forty-five minutes of the film, which, at least to me, was very slow; and there were serious moments of lag in the middle. That said, I really liked the humor and final battle, but, again to me, it was good, but not great.
I liked Avengers as well (4/5), but lets not go overboard with the praise. It’s a good to very good superhero comic book movie, nothing more, in my opinion.
The big baddie and the assembly of the team, and the dysfunction of the team was done the only way it could have been done. The way its been done in comic book team-ups for decades. The back stories and motivations for all of the characters are decades old as well. Given this background, any competent storyteller could write a treatment for an Avengers movie in a few days.
So it falls upon the writer/director to create good dialogue, some poignant character moments, and have some great set pieces. I don’t think that this is really accomplished until the third act.
And the third act is textbook, but it is so good at doing its job that it works, even though you know that it’s being manipulative.
Put another way, I don’t think Andrew or Kurt – two non-fanboys – are going to be overly impressed with this movie if they go see it.
Isn’t that the Marvel/Disney formula: “Do the obvious, that’s what the CBM-faithful want.” Check the boxes to the inevitable, then tease that the next one will be better, over, and over again?
I’m not in a rush to see it. A couple weeks when the hubbub settles down, maybe.
To be fair, you’re basically outlining the general rules of screenwriting — it’s only the degrees of subtlety and surprise that make the difference.
I’ve heard from one friend who only saw Iron Man 1 and another who only saw Thor and both absolutely loved Avengers. So I think it can work with people who aren’t huge fans of what Marvel has been doing but still would enjoy that kind of movie.
Personally, I think the characters standing around and arguing is done well enough that I like those scenes as any of the action sequences.
I liked it, too , and I’m not a huge Marvel movie fan. I guess I should have said that it won’t appeal to two people that actively don’t like superhero movies.
I say this because The Avengers has a lot of superhero tropes mixed with a lot of “gathering a band of misfits” tropes. That’s why I thought the first two acts weren’t that interesting at all.
The third act works on its own. I could have been shown the third act by itself, and I would still have given the movie the same 4 out of 5.
I wish the third act of Transformers 3 was released on its own (because… um, it’s actually pretty good)
The first cut of the movie was apparently over 3 hours long, Whedon felt it dragged too long and began cutting. There were a lot of what he felt were great little moments but they weren’t moving the story forward so out they went. So there should be plenty of extra material available for the DVD. Perhaps even a longer 3rd act.
@Goon – The reason people were pissed at the character deaths in X3 is not the mere fact they killed them off, it’s because the way they got killed off was poorly executed. Comic fans don’t mind if you veer away from the source material, you just have to do it well (e.g. Christopher Nolan)
Exactly, the way James Marsden’s cyclops died in X-3 was confusing and empty and artless in its ‘execution.’ Haphazard and lazy, hence offensive.
I don’t know. See, I had those deaths spoiled for me in advance of the movie, so I was watching for the execution, and it came off as pure monster heel booking, worked for me. Even more so with Professor X and the look he gave as it was happening, i thought that was great.
Regarding X3, I’ll just say this. The plot revolves around the cure, which has a zillion overtones and effects each character uniquely. They all have opinions on it, and it drives the action and makes certain consequences sting. From Rogue taking herself out of the equation to Magneto abandoning Mystique, etc. I dug it.
With the Avengers, I mean they’re coming together to fight this alien horde, and Loki’s motivation is…. freedom is dumb? And the good guys motivation is… aliens invading earth is bad. And the character infighting is pretty basic personality clash and little to do with disagreement over tactics or even much to do with the questionable role of SHIELD. The stakes in Avengers are huge but the motivations are so blah. And I think that matters.
Interesting!
I think everyone assume you’ll hate The Avengers Kurt, but I really have no idea. For all i know you’re going to walk out with some theory it was all Nick Fury’s dream or something.
When I think about these comic heroes, I take into consideration the ideas around why they were created. In the case of the Avengers series, the comics were created as a placeholder team-up comic while they worked out the X-Men concept. The Avengers exist as an All-Star game, and to create an overlapping continuity between some of the main comics. All roads lead to Rome.
The Avengers movies, including this one, all reflect that, and that is an achievement. But I guess I was hoping when they got to this movie, within it there would be more reason for this team to exist, for there to be some theme accomplished by having them all there together, and I don’t think there is.
I love Goon. Every website needs a troll.
Once again I lay out a detailed argument, and you just call names.
Try harder.
Goon isn’t trolling.
Goon isn’t a troll, but he gets what he signs up for. He came here with a purpose. This is the result.
Do you even know the definition of troll?
I think I loved The Avengers because it did stick to ‘the formula’ and pulled it off. I’m not usually a fan of superhero films because I don’t know of any others that have gone out and delivered the goods like this. Solid entertainment without any pretences is what I want from a blockbuster. If a popcorn film offers something more then that’s a bonus, yes, but if it doesn’t I can still be perfectly happy with the result. The original Star Wars films worked in the same way (or at least do now – on release there were other selling points). They didn’t rely on anything ‘deep’ to be considered special, they just knew how to work those raw ingredients and formula into something that works like gangbusters.
Yes The Avengers does nothing new and on a stylistic level is pretty bland, but it’s still finely crafted, especially in terms of writing, which is more than you can say for a lot of other modern blockbusters.
As for comparisons with the latest Batman films, give me The Avengers any day of the week. There may be some interesting themes and undertones in Nolan’s films, but they’re devoid of heart and soul and feel over-long and slow.
The Avengers say fuck the record, opening weekend will be closer to 185 – 200 million.
http://www.deadline.com/2012/05/avengers-now-260-5m-overseas-could-reach-585m-worldwide-through-sunday-with-u-s-canada-russia-china-openings/
It’s finally here! The show we’ve been waiting to do for five years! Mamo Assemble!:
http://www.rowthree.com/2012/05/06/mamo-253-whedon-avenged/
NICE!
@Goon – That’s fair if you feel that way, it’s your opinion. But I don’t think it’s fair that because others didn’t feel those deaths were done right, you automatically call them fanboys that would’ve bitched regardless of execution.
Matthew Fabb – “…there seemed to be some Hollywood thinking that superhero movies needed to be dark & gritty like Chris Nolan’s Batman series to be really big & successful. ”
This opinion is a popular one among cinephiles but I never really bought into it. Since 2008, I can’t really think of a superhero film that emulates TDK and tries to be “dark”. Watchmen is the closest example but I’d argue it’s the film Zack Snyder would’ve made regardless of Nolan. To me, if anything, the movie that has had the biggest influence on the superhero genre is Iron Man.
Let me try to bring some detail to the ‘fanboy’ derision.
There’s a very loud segment of the Internet that has tried to claim that the concensus around X-Men 3, Spiderman 3, the Matrix sequels, Indy 4, and the Star Wars prequels, and more, as universally derided films.
on IMDB, X3 is a 6.8, Spidey 3 is a 6.3, Reloaded is a 7.1, Crystal Skull is a 6.4, Episode 3 is a 7.7, and so on. Some of those scores, I mean, yeah, nothing to go nuts about, but I can get annoyed by how everything gets sorted into “best thing ever” or “worst thing ever” by a set of people that come across, as well, Comic Book Guy-esque, “Worst Episode Ever” stereotypes.
There are a lot of people who like these movies the Internet has decided are bad, or who enjoy them while acknowledging the severe flaws, and people who enjoy the praised ones like X2 and the Avengers, etc, and will point out flaws.. Sometimes when you defend the former at all you get pointed out like a dumbass, and when you attack the latter at all you get singled out as a heretic. I wish there was more room to discuss these movies where people could be passionate without automatically writing people off.
True, that no movie has followed that formula, but it takes a long time to get big superhero movies moving and off the ground.
I guess Marvel Studios was going ahead with it’s movies without any concern with Chris Nolan movies, but once again pointing to Superman, there were rumors that WB was considering making it more angrier and darker. I don’t know what influence Christopher Nolan had on the the new Superman, but it seemed that was one of the reasons to get Nolan involved.
With the failure of Green Lantern there has been a lot of finger pointing, but once again some of it I heard that perhaps it needed to be a bit darker. Also as I mentioned the new Spider-Man seems to be a bit more darker and filled with angst.
Was anybody else curious/surprised about Avengers’ 16:9 ratio? I’m thinking it was used because of wide-screen televisions and black bars. This thought had hit me a few months ago – the thought that more movies would use 16:9 because of tvs.
Why else would an “epic” story not use 2.35? Honest question, not rhetorical.
I was surprised. If I recall correctly from old commentary tracks, though, I think Whedon has a fondness for the format.
It was shot in 3D.
Actually no, Whedon is on the record saying that after shooting the post-credits scene for Thor in 3-D, he elected to go post-conversion for the rest of The Avengers as he found the 3-D equipment too cumbersome.
Well then, I stand corrected.
Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey stated that he composed the frame with an 1.85:1 aspect ratio to cope with the varying heights of the main characters, explaining that “shooting 1.85:1 is kind of unusual for an epic film like this, but we needed the height in the screen to be able to frame in all the characters like Hulk, Captain America and Black Widow, who is much smaller. We had to give them all precedence and width within the frame. Also, Joss [Whedon] knew the final battle sequence was going to be this extravaganza in Manhattan, so the height and vertical scale of the buildings was going to be really important.”
Thanks for the info on the aspect ratio Matt. That makes perfect sense.
It’s official 200 million opening weekend.
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=daily&id=avengers11.htm
Now that marvel has a license to print money can we please get a Black Panther movie.
Yes, and get Chewitol Ejiofor to play.
Good job to Sean Patrick Kelly and Tal Aulbrook picking $200m for The Avengers opening weekend.
That would be pretty good casting, and after seeing set pics of Michael Bay’s Pain and Gain I think Athony Mackie should get a shot. Dude bulked up.
I would watch any superhero movie with Chiwetel Ejiofor in the lead. Somebody make this happen! That is all.
First we need the movie where Brian Cox, Brian Dennehy, Brian Keith (played by Wilford Brimley), and Rip Torn sit around and get drunk.
http://www.topshelfcomix.com/catalog/superfckers-1/446
He might be too old now but Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje could also be a badass Black Panther.
$200M Opening Weekend. Holy Fuck! I was way off with $125M
I was right on the money.
Just want to say I love this contest and this time of year. I used to play Fantasy Moguls(RIP) but just the interaction alone makes this contest a lot more fun. Thanks MAMO and Row Three!
I’m going to take seeding so high as a bad sign for my final placement.
This may totally play into peoples numbers.
Prometheus gets its R
http://collider.com/prometheus-rating-rated-r/164532/
Was afraid of this happening. I thought for sure Fox would opt for a PG13 theatrical release. Oh well, at least we get to see Ridley’s uncompromised version of the film on the big screen.
Yeah, my guess on Prometheus was based off a PG-13 rating. As it sounded a lot like FOX was going to cut it to reach a PG-13. Even Ridley Scott was saying that would happen in interviews and that the full version would be available for DVD.
But yeah, in the end I rather see the uncut version of the movie in the theatre than do better in this contest (which I still have a feeling I’m going to lose anyways).
With 207m actuals, looks like The Avengers OW bonus points are pretty much a wash. Sean Patrick Kelly and Tal Aulbrook now only get 1 bonus point instead of 10.
Comic book site Newsarama does some number crunching of how Avengers will do long term:
http://www.newsarama.com/film/the-avengers-box-office-total-could-be-staggering.html
Quick version:
If Avengers has legs as weak as Incredible Hulk or Iron Man 2 (in opening weekend versus total) Avengers will make $504 million domestically.
If Avengers has legs as strong somewhere between Iron Man 1 and the Dark Knight Returns, Avengers will make $680 million.
I imagine it will be somewhere between the two, but it looks like this movie will certainly clear $500 million and has a clear shot at Avengers. Personally, I think this will be the #1 movie of the summer and while Dark Knight Rises will make a boat load amount of money, it won’t make this much.
Weekend forecasts starting to come in:
http://www.deadline.com/2012/05/dark-shadows-opens-with-550k-midnights/
Two completely off-base picks in as many weeks! I’m off to a rollicking start, as usual.
Looks like I was right that Dark Shadows wasn’t going to chart. I’ve actually liked the last few Tim Burton movies and have thought that Planet of the Apes was his last major misstep. However, Dark Shadows looked absolutely horrible from the trailers. Fans of the original Dark Shadow didn’t seem to be interested, other Burton fans that I know didn’t seem very interested. So chip that away and what are you left with? Some Burton fans who don’t think it’s that bad? Johnny Depp fans?
I’m going to guess that Avengers is going to pass $100 million this weekend. I think it’s still got a lot of steam left in it this weekend. I think part of it will be a younger audience on Saturday and Sunday. As I’ve heard from a lot of parents who were unsure if this PG-13 movie was going to be okay for their under 13 year old kid, but feel it’s all right after hearing from friends who have seen it.
Avengers is going to break the second weekend record too. With at least 100 million.
http://www.deadline.com/2012/05/dark-shadows-opens-with-550k-midnights/
Yeah, it’s been updated but last night they were saying it was going to be a bigger drop in the $95 million range. Now that it’s taking screens from Dark Shadows (ouch, that has to hurt) it seems that it will be over $100 million.
Looks like Battleship isn’t going to be that big either based on initial tracking.
Dark Shadows picked the wrong weekend to come out. It could’ve easily opened in the low 40s if it came out last month.
9 other people put it on their lists, so don’t feel too bad. Although Kurt’s guess of 35ow is closer than yours, so do feel a teeny bit bad. ; )
Scary, but Avengers is creeping up on almost everyone’s BO guesses, and its only week 2. People seriously under-estimated how much this is going to make. Even my high-ball of $500, seems rather low, now.
Especially when you take in account that Dark Shadows, Battleship, and The Dictator are all tracking a lot softer than expected. So it doesn’t really have any competition for three weeks till MIB 3 comes out.
It’s funny how Battleship does okay overseas but will tank domestically. It was the right move though, to open first internationally. Still, this whole process of studios releasing films over there before North America reminds me of the handicap system in Mario Kart, rewarding the sucky racers with cooler items.
I wonder over seas how well they are aware of the game Battleship. As it almost seems like a license that actually hurts the movie, rather than helps it as the more familiar with the game, the more ridiculous the movie seems.
Also a battleship movie fighting off an alien invasion loses it’s appeal a bit after a movie with a flying battleship and superheroes fighting off an alien invasion. I think Battleship would have done better in April but could have been a bit better with better marketing. I think the latest trailer looks like a completely different and more interesting movie than the last 2 trailers. Was this part of the plan or did the marketing team realized the last 2 weren’t working and changed direction?
We’re well aware of the game Battleships overseas – I really don’t think the game license is all that noticeable to the general public though. I imagine most people just think it’s a film about war at sea. I doubt they make the connection, because the idea of making a film about a board game like that is insane.
I think it did well over here (in the UK at least) because it didn’t really have much competition. If it had come out now The Avengers is in full swing it would tank I imagine.
It took The Dark Knight 6 months to reach a billion and only took The Avengers 19 days.
Matthew Modine throws down the gauntlet.
http://batman-news.com/2012/05/08/matthew-modine-on-his-the-dark-knight-rises-role-says-batman-will-kick-the-avengers-butt-video/
Without 3D bringing in extra revenue, I really think the Dark Knight Rises is out of the range of Avengers. Friday had a big drop because of midnight screenings being included in the previous Friday but Saturday had a drop of 38.1% and Sunday had a 46.8% drop. This movie has got legs and I think will easily pass $600 million and has a shot of surpassing Titanic’s $658 million domestic total.
As I pointed out earlier if it has drops similar to Iron Man 1, it will bring in around $680 million.
I don’t know about 600m because once MIB3 and Snow White comes out in a few weeks I think it will take a big chunk out of Avengers business. Seeing as how they share similar audiences.
MIB is tracking for shit and is only a threat to take that weekend because its week 4 of release for Avengers. By that time, it will already be around $500 mill anyways. That weekend and the following are what will determine if it tops $600 mil domestic and it has a very solid shot at doing so.
Here comes Gamble to ruin my argument with facts.
Son of a bitch.
Look at this Shang Tsung motherfucker right here. ; ) It’s comments like these where I wish you could just get off your throne and play. You can only rely on your boy, Goro(Kurt), for so long.
Your Mortal Kombat analogies have been noted. I’m processing on whether or not this is a complement or insult!
Picturing Matt Gamble as Johnny Cage from that movie is making me laugh pretty hard.
I’d be Scorpion of course.
Gonna go out on a limb and suggest maybe everyone has Spider-Man too high. The ill will for it seems to be spreading. I actually liked the 2nd trailer somewhat, but the new one has dubstep, which is basically confessing to the world that they are desperate or that it sucks.
Also might speculate that Dark Knight WILL make as much money as the Avengers, and that together a few movies could suck the box office life out of everything else.
That’s my bet, yes. Generally speaking I work from the starting point that we are aiming at a $2.4 billion summer for the domestic top ten; this falls in line with the growth year-over-year of the top tens over the past decade.
I think Dark Knight and Avengers are both certainly $400M+ earners, and possibly both $500M+ earners. If those two films alone are responsible for a billion dollars’ worth of the domestic BO this summer, there’s less room for the other films in the top ten to earn against the $2.4B cap.
This is all voodoo, of course, but it’s my voodoo. There’s no reason to believe one lunatic summer, bolstered by a series of mega hits, couldn’t crush the year-over-year growth pattern as a random anomaly. But I don’t bet on anomalies.
Which is a long way of saying, yeah, this is why I put Spider-Man in the $200s, not the $300s or $400s. I think Pirates 4, which pulled $240M domestic, is the best model for Spider-Man 4.
Last week Dark Shadows had the Speed Racer slot, this week Battleship gets the Prince Caspian slot(though it won’t do as well as Caspian). I’m thinking mid 30s.
@Kurt You know how, on the Cinecast, you sometimes over-analyze things. Well, Goro has 4 arms for reaching.
Took a look to make sure nobody put The Dictator on their list.
Good. It won’t, and doesn’t deserve,to make a dime.
Really? I thought you would love it, the way it bashes the US.
Deadline’s rough estimates based on Friday night’s tickets:
http://www.deadline.com/2012/05/dictator-off-to-slow-domestic-start-international-box-office-begins-stronger/
1. Marvel’s The Avengers (Disney) Week 3 [4,349 Runs] PG13
Friday $15.5M, Weekend $52.5M, Cume $454.5M
2. Battleship (Universal) NEW [3,690 Runs] PG13
Friday $9.5M, Weekend $26M
3. The Dictator (Paramount) NEW-Wed [3,008 Runs] R
Friday $5.5M, Weekend $16.0M, Cume $23.0M
4. What To Expect When You’re Expecting (Lionsgate) NEW [3,021 Runs] PG13
Friday $4.4M, Weekend $12.0M
5. Dark Shadows (Warner Bros) Week 2 [3,755 Runs] PG13
Friday $3.7M (-61%), Weekend $11.5M, Cume $49.6M
6. The Hunger Games (Lionsgate) Week 9 [2,064 Runs]
Friday $850K, Weekend $2.4M, Cume $391.0M
7. Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Fox Searchlight) Week 3 [354 Runs] PG13
Friday $800K, Weekend $3M, Cume $8.7M
8. Think Like A Man (Screen Gems/Sony) Week 5 [1,722 Runs] PG13
Friday $800K, Weekend $2.4M, Cume $85.6M
9. The Lucky One (Warner Bros) Week 5 [2,055 Runs] PG13
Friday $650K, Weekend $1.8M, Cume $57.0M
10. Pirates! Band Of Misfits (Aardman/Sony) Week 4 [1,840 Runs] PG
Friday $450K, Weekend $1.4M, Cume $25.7M
Dark Shadows is going down in flames. Battleship looks like it’s bombing. What To Expect When You’re Expecting is not the breakout comedy hit that Matthew Price was expecting.
Nice! 9 people put Battleship on their lists including current champ, Toro, and another strong player, GE Hale. Also nice, Dark Shadows looking like it’ll only gross around 75m total, which will put it much further away from the top 10.
“What To Expect When You’re Expecting is not the breakout comedy hit that Matthew Price was expecting.”
I like what you did there.
Next week is MIB3 and my possible first stumble of the contest. I have it at 107m (4-day weekend) and 234m total. Come on Big Willy Style!
What? I am pretty sure I left that stinker off my list although I think it was 11 or 12th when I compiled my picks. That now looks to be quite fortuitous. Right now, it is Snow White that I am most unsure of and that I might have overbid on Spiderman and MIB.
Oh my bad. I did Ctrl F on “Battleship” and it was tenth in the “Row 3 Collective” that you posted.
Gamble, what’s MIB3 tracking at?
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/14/entertainment/la-et-men-in-black-20120514
“Despite all of the film’s obstacles, Sony executives believe they have a hit on their hands. Pre-release “tracking” surveys indicate that moviegoers’ interest in “Men in Black 3″ is solid if not spectacular in the United States, and is through the roof across Europe and in such fast-growing markets as Russia and Brazil. Today, overseas ticket sales for big 3-D Hollywood movies frequently outsize their take at the North American box office. And Smith is a proven box-office draw around the world.
Still, with combined production and worldwide marketing and distribution costs of close to $375 million, “Men in Black 3″ needs to be a huge hit to turn a profit. Staying out of the red is further complicated because the big-name talent involved, which includes executive producer Steven Spielberg, will get a share of the proceeds.”
Earlier in the article, it mentions that the movie began filming before the script was finished. There were a lot of re-writes and changes which caused the price tag to go up. Doesn’t sound like it will result in an interesting movie.
Thanks. It also seems like it’s getting decent reviews, saying it’s more in the vein of the first MIB.
I wouldn’t expect that to hold. The movie has been pretty widely known to have had multiple productions issues, the most obvious of which was the lack of a script when production started.
Nonetheless, the reviews on both THR and Variety are surprisingly positive, even though they also display unveiled contempt for the mileage of the franchise at this point.
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117947604?refcatid=31
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/men-black-3-review-will-smith-327501
I think you’re right, Gamble, the Tomatometer is gonna fall like a stone come Friday, but on first blush it sounds like the production fracas(es) may not have dented the final product as much as you’d expect.
I don’t think the average movie goer cares about production problems or for that fact even know what that means. it makes for great blog posts on movie websites but only a small amount of people care about it.
Plus, let’s remember it is a big budget Will Smith movie so all bets are off.
Well, if anything, Men in Black III will be a test of Will Smith’s box office clout. He is coming out of a (well deserved) four year hiatus for this film and we’ll see if he can still draw at crowd (at 43 years old, he is starting to get a little ripe).
I had to double check to make sure that was right, but yup, it’s been 4 years since his last movie.
Yeah, no one pays attention to production issues, it’s just we’re guessing that starting a film without a proper script might lead to a bad movie and bad word of mouth. It’s quite possible that they manage to fix the scripts issues and the movie is not as bad as expected.
Hi team! The next episode of Mamo is up and running, continuing to cover The Avengers, along with Battleship, Dark Shadows, and What To Expect, and all the other mistakes we’ve made.
http://www.rowthree.com/2012/05/22/mamo-254-anything-is-probable/
Strike GI Joe off your list, just got bumped to March of ’13 for a 3-D release.
Well this is unexpected and will cost me some points:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gi-joe-retaliation-film-to-be-released-in-3d-2012-05-23
Hmmm… I guess there aren’t any special rules dealing with what happens when an legible summer of 2012 movie becomes illegible, as I don’t believe this has happened before.
I see I picked GI Joe 2 for my #10 and if I remember correctly I had a few different movies at the bottom. I think it came down to Ice Age 4 or GI Joe 2 and I went with GI Joe.
Man, GI Joe must have complete garbage to remove it with five weeks remaining. I’m in total shock that the director of Step Up and Justin Bieber doc made a bad movie.
Holy fuck! Chaos reigns!
Dang, that wrecks my BO picks, as I think I had it at #8. And as mentioned (astutely) in the Mamo Podcast, with Battleship failing domestically, Joe would have looked great by comparison, even if it was CRAP.
Yep. They were in a good position on this one, which shows you how much they think that 3-D conversion is gonna be worth, given how much it’s going to cost them in the short term.
I’d say its more an indication of how important Foreign BO has become to studios’ bottom lines.
I think next summer, all the big tent-pole summer movies are all going to be in 3D. It just makes good business sense because any big movie is going to bring in that much more money.
Of course the flip-side is also true that any movie that bombs is going to lose that much more money.
I would go as far to say that if the Dark Knight Rises came out in 2013, I think Warner Brothers would convert it to 3D. They would either be stupid not to, unless it would piss off Chris Nolan that much (as he’s probably more valuable to stay on board with them and keep him happy than any short term money they would be making).
This comes as someone who dislikes 3D, but once again any big movie NOT in 3D is leaving money on the table, as people will pay for it, even if it’s done in post and not that great.
Brown needs to stop making predictions. He is the Angel of Death.
So I guess we aren’t waiting until March 2013 to see who won?
I have Battle Ship, Dark Shadows, What to Expect…, and GI Joe 2 on my list… First one to the bottom wins!
This could definately hurt them as momentum was building for the June 2012 release. It was never going to gross 200m domestically but like Cringe stated, many will see this move as a sign that the movie sucks and I can definately see this leading to a below 130m gross.
Anybody that didn’t put it on their list now have a slight advantage (this includes both MAMO Matts). Anybody who has it on their list (Goon, The Het, Rot, Antho, CS, Cringe, Dave, Kurt, Tal Aubrook, Rajo, Christopher M, GE Hale, Matt Fabb, and me, Tum Tum) have now lost the chance at a possible 10 points. This sucks.
Hello everyone, just to be clear, there will be no adjustment to the rules of the contest to reflect the removal of G.I. Joe from the summer. We will proceed as normal.
If you picked the film for your top ten you are, unfortunately, going to get dinged some points, but no differently from those [cough] (me) [cough] who picked Dark Shadows or any of the other turkeys for their lists.
One month in, and this summer is already putting up one hell of a fight…
Send as many punches my way, summer. I can still wrestle the beast to the ground.
(I only say that because Avengers is currently cresting in the neighborhood of my $500M box office prediction (on it way to sailing to possibly 700, and thus artificially puts me tied for first!)
So Universal just moved Ted to take GI Joe 2′s June 29 release date. However, that puts Ted closer to Adam Sandler’s That’s My Boy which I think is more it’s competition. Still, I guess that gets it out of the way of the Dark Knight Rises.
Ted’s my wild card pick of the summer, so moving farther from Batman can’t hurt. I have to think one non-animated comedy is going to stick and crack the top 10 and I think Sandler generally around $100 M.
Rumor is one of Bourne or Total Recall will move to fill the void Ted left, though I’m not sure that is a great decision for either.
Also, The Watch or The Campaign might reap some benefit from Ted moving, as now their is close to a month between comedy releases. After getting hammered by serious action films either of those might have a bit of a coup.
If they do decide to do that, I think that would be suicide. If a broad comedy was afraid of getting cannibalised by two action movies, what an the hell do they think is going to happen if they put a action movie between two other action movies?
Bourne shouldn’t move, they’ve got a spot in the summer that’s worked for them in the past and they should stick to it. Let Total Recall fill the void, it’s going to get slaughtered no matter where it lands.
Bourne and Recall have an uncontested two weeks after their opening before Expendables 2 is released. Its a good slot reminicent of RotPota last year.
Its a good slot for a single film, but the two of them are competing for the same demographic, which will only hurt both of their BO numbers.
Remakes of 80′s properties have not done well of late, Footloose, The Thing, Fright Night etc. I hedged my bets on Bourne because of the easier name recognition on a more recent property, and also a better creative team behind it which should lead to a decent film.
If one were to move to that slot, would it be all that beneficial given that its sandwiched between Brave and The Amazing Spider-Man.
They may simply aim for a big opening weekend and walk away with that.
The Chinese government has adopted a recent policy where 3D and Imax films are giving special leeway in that they do not count as part of the Hollywood quota.
Wow, Men in Black 3 cost 375 million dollar… I repeat 375 million dollar! wtf
That doesn’t seem possible.
Roughly four million dollars per minute of finished film.
A healthy ‘regular Joe’ annual salary: $66000 per finished second. Oh. My.
From what I read that’s not the cost of the movie but apparently the whole package: the film, marketing, distribution, everything. I mean Avengers apparently cost north of $200 million, but I imagine when everything is added together it was way over $300 million.
I’m guessing the 2+ years to make the film caused a lot of that expense.
http://www.deadline.com/2012/05/men-in-black-3-opens-to-1-3m-midnights/
$80 to $90 million weekend? That’s a lot bigger than my $52 million estimate. However, I totally missed that it was a long weekend in the US this weekend. Looking at a Canadian calendar I though the long weekend was going to be with Battleship. Still I might have pushed it up to perhaps $60-something or as far as $70 million, not $80 to $90.
Boxoffice mojo predicts 84M for the weekend. If true…. I picked 80M for MIB3, so yay me. maybe.
If that pans out, it adds further evidence that Will Smith is truly the last movie star. Perhaps avoiding stretching out to controversial territory like Django isn’t a bad choice on his part if he simply wants to maintain that family friendly star power of his.
Would have to agree, he’s only has had two leading role movies that didn’t cross the 100 million mark.
From the 10 pm PST update, it says MIB3 is aiming for a $18M-$20M Friday and a $65M to $75M for the 4-day holiday.
Battleship sinking 65% for a $2.8M Friday and estimated $13.5M weekend. Ouch!
The Dictator isn’t showing any legs either getting an estimated $11 million this weekend.
Ooops. Forgot the Memorial Day Weekend factor when calculating my MiB3 Opening weekend. DOH!
It says a 4 day weekend, where is the 4th day? Is Friday a day off in the US or is it a Tuesday?
Monday is Memorial Day in the US. Pretty much everyone except movie theatre employees have it off.
I kept think of 4 day weekend as days off, not the Hollywood of Friday to Sunday + holiday.
MIB3 made $55M Friday to Sunday, which meant I was very close in my estimate of 52 million, but completely off because of looking at a Canadian not US calendar for holidays. D’oh!
I guess this puts the nail in the coffin for Hancock 2 and I am Legend 2….Thank God!
http://www.deadline.com/2012/05/men-in-black-3-opens-to-1-3m-midnights/
Can’t figure out if Avengers is eating up everybody else’s box office or the movies this month just suck.
Probably a combination of both.
We cover the MIB3 shenanigans along with G.I.Joe 2 and the 360 Screenings event on the latest episode of Mamo:
http://www.rowthree.com/2012/05/27/mamo-255-knowing-is-half-the-battle/
While I’m not doing awful in the standings, it’s apparent I’m probably not going to win this thing.
I overestimate too much.
You got closer to Avengers than anyone else did. You also missed the bombs of Battleship and Dark Shadows, so it is still anyone’s game at this point.
So begins my inevitable decline
Question to MAMO: MIB’s ow is 69.2m. If somebody guesses 68m for MIB’s ow does that qualify them for the ‘within 1m’ 10 bonus points. I think I asked something like this last year too but don’t remember the answer.
Sadly no, $1.2M does NOT qualify for within $1M.
Bummer to GE Hale & Darcy S McCallum who both had it at 68m and will get 5 bonus points instead of 10. Still, 5 is better than my 0. Also, great job to Dave Nandes & Christopher M who both guessed 70m.
My first headshot of the summer! If I get one or two more I won’t be so disappointed when my total score soils the sheets.
I think the majority of people on this site are about to be disappointed. Most of the Prometheus reviews are saying it’s a decent to good sci-fi movie but nothing more. One common thread that all the reviews are having from the great reviews to the bad ones is the writing is pretty poor.
I think I hyped this thing way too much in my own head. So I will be fine if I come away with at the least a decent/good sci-fi movie.
Darn it, everyone was looking forward to it but then again, Ridley Scott has been peforming at par level for a while now. In retrospect it was a bit much to ask he would pull off a classic after his recent performance.
Hopefully it can still make the numbers I predicted, I have a feeling I have overestimated.
http://www.deadline.com/2012/06/snow-white-and-the-huntsman-opens-to-1-383m-midnights-from-1092-theaters-better-than-mib3/
Snow White & the Huntsman is expected to pull in $50 to $56 million.
I had it at $60 million, so I’m hoping that it’ does better than expected.
Meanwhile internationally: “…Prometheus is doing 150% of Men In Black 3 and Snow White COMBINED!” However, Battleship shows that international audiences aren’t always a good measurement of how it will do in the US & Canada.
http://boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3452&p=.htm
BOM predicted far lower, $39.8.
Matthew Fabb — Battleship also under-performed internationally. 232 million dollars is not that great for major blockbuster.
Thanks for the correct. I wasn’t paying attention very closely, just that at least it started out with good numbers. I think it was earlier in this thread that linked to an article about it.
Based off just Friday’s numbers Deadline has the following estimates:
1. Snow White And The Huntsman (Universal) NEW [3,773 Theaters]
Friday $20.3M, Weekend $55.8M, International $39.3M
2. Men In Black 3 (Columbia/Sony) Week 2 [4,248 Theaters]
Friday $8.1M (-54%), Weekend $29M, Cume $112M
3. The Avengers (Marvels/Disney) Week 5 [3,670 Theaters]
Friday $5.6M, Weekend $19M, Cume $541.5M
4. What To Expect When… (Warner Bros) Week 3 [2,907 Theaters]
Friday $1.4M, Weekend $4.8M, Cume $31.1M
5. The Dictator (Paramount) Week 3 [2,649 Theaters]
Friday $1.4M, Weekend $5M, Cume $51.1M
6. Battleship (Universal) Week 3 [3,144 Theaters]
Friday $1.3M, Weekend $4.9M, Cume $55.2M
7. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Fox Searchlight) Week 5 [1,294 Theaters]
Friday $1.2M, Weekend $4.8M, Cume $25.7M
8. Dark Shadows (Warner Bros) Week 4 [3,002 Theaters]
Friday $1.0M, Weekend $3.6M, Cume $70.6M
9. Chernobyl Diaries (Alcon/Warner Bros) Week 2 [2,433 Theaters]
Friday $1.0M (-70%), Weekend $2.8M, Cume $14.2M
10. For Greater Glory (Arc Entertainment) NEW [575 Theaters]
Friday $585K, Weekend $1.5M
Revised top 5 based off of Saturday’s estimates:
1. Snow White And The Huntsman (Universal) NEW [3,773 Theaters]
Friday $20.3M, Saturday $21.5M, Weekend $56.1M, International $39.3M
2. Men In Black 3 (Columbia/Sony) Week 2 [4,248 Theaters]
Friday $8.1M (-54%), Saturday $12M, Weekend $28M, Cume $111M
3. The Avengers (Marvels/Disney) Week 5 [3,670 Theaters]
Friday $5.6M, Saturday $9.0M, Weekend $19.8M, Cume $541.5M
6. Battleship (Universal) Week 3 [3,144 Theaters]
Friday $1.3M, Saturday $2.1M, Weekend $4.7M, Cume $55.0M
5. The Dictator (Paramount) Week 3 [2,649 Theaters]
Friday $1.4M, Saturday $1.9M, Weekend $4.6M, Cume $50.0M
Avoid Snow White this weekend. See anything else. See Avengers again. Better yet, see Moonrise Kingdom or Bernie if you still can.
Review:
Nicolas Cage would have made a more convincing Snow White.
This is one of the most boring films I’ve seen in a very long time. The leads have no personality whatsoever and barely even an arc, the dialogue never gets any better than “We’re very much alike, you and I” simplicity.
Save Hemsworth who is passable, and Bob Hoskins, nobody makes you care. Kristen Stewart is in Bella mode, blankly staring and brooding, more or less tagging along than actively clawing her way towards leadership. Charlize Theron is shockingly hammy and stilted, laughable as she screams her threats and writhes on the floor. The dwarves, featuring Ian McShane are piss-poor comic relief at best.
The pacing is the biggest flaw at all, as there is never a shred of momentum, feeling like it is never going to end.
I never saw Season of the Witch or the Robin Hood reboot, but I imagine this is what sitting through both of those were like. This film takes itself very seriously but never feels menacing or like an epic adventure, leaving you only with the occasional look at a watered down wannabe-Tarsem’s take on fantasy visuals.
Which is ironic, since we have Mirror Mirror for obvious comparison, a film which doesn’t take itself seriously at all but merits more consideration as such by actually investing in each of it’s characters, taking actual risks in tone, humor, genre experimentation. I don’t want to necessarily start a fight but it’s an absolute joke that anyone would consider this version anywhere in the same league quality wise, even despite their obvious differences. I realize Mirror Mirror is divisive but it’s clear which one put in an effort, and which one pumped out a wad of generic January-release level garbage, never rising above lower-tier mediocrity in every aspect from score to costuming to creature design. (Speaking of which, Stewart stares at the Forest Troll the same way she does Edward and Jacob. Will there be a “Team” for this beast now?) The action scenes come out of the blue and play like video game cut scenes, and all the unexplained mysticism is senseless and/or inconsistent. As a whole with all it’s raining glass and crow morphing it looks like a “dark” 90s music video, and not even as good as a Nine Inch Nails video.. more like… Stabbing Westward, at best.
What’s additionally weird is that despite eventually ending up in armor, this Snow White is remarkably less empowered than Lily Collins’ portrayal. In Mirror Mirror, Snow truly leads the dwarves and has a verifiable arc of ascension. The prince in that film is affable but ultimately incapable of saving the day, it’s all up to Snow, mixing physicality with smarts and mischief. And the dwarves all have legitimate grievances and become empowered along with Snow, with plenty of ingenuity in how they defend themselves. Compare that to here, where they are always second fiddle to a muscular hunk in leather, and aren’t even played by dwarves but instead by CGI’d up well known actors? What does that say, exactly?
This isn’t even an interesting failure, it’s just a slog from start to finish, and the worst film I have seen in 2012. I could not recommend enough that you skip this in the theater, skip it on Netflix, just never think of it ever again.
I saw it earlier today and while I agree that Kristen Stewart is definitely the weakest link, I thought it was okay but not great. However, I have no idea how it compares to Mirror, Mirror which I haven’t seen.
Making the dwarfs out of well known actors really took me out of the film. As these are recognizable faces on midget bodies and it’s just weird. Could they not just hire real dwarfs, save themselves some money and give Warwick Davis some more work?
However, I do have to say Goon, the NIN vs Stabbing Westward put down was great.
The real dwarves in Mirror Mirror had so much more personality and individuality. And weird enough, I didn’t recognize some of these big name actors in this film as the dwarves. Either way it was a massive waste of their talent. And based on how Kurt normally reacts to “a wasted Squall” in a fantasy film (Enchanted) where in comparison he had much more to do, I don’t think he’d like how Eddie and Ray fared here.
On one hand I’d like Kurt to see this to bookend the Mirror Mirror love, etc, but I also think it’s a waste of time. i usually don’t regret seeing bad movies, but I regret spending time on SW&tH.
I can’t wait for Rot to come on and drop 3000+ words in defense of this film.
I’m telling ya, the smart money is on Kurt jizzing all over this movie.
I think the best defense is that Kristen Stewart is pretty cute in it. Give her a big tattoo and double Ds and boom: Greatest Actress Ever.
Going to have to wait til monday, I don’t work weekends.
you are all fucking nuts. Five words could suffice.
Theron over-acting? She is The Wicked Queen who eats bird hearts for snacks, should she have played it subtle? She is what Tim Curry is to Legend, was he overacting? Probably, but kind of the point to be bigger than life.
It just took me out of the movie, it just didn’t feel right. I think the point was to make her come off evil not goofy. Since the whole tone of the film was supposed to be “serious”. Hell, I thought her brother came off more menacing then her.
Yeah, I was okay with Theron overacting and chewing up the scenery as the wicked witch. To me it never fell into the goofy category.
I also give the script some credit for giving a bit of an explanation of how she & her brother got to be so bloody messed up and evil. It was much, but I think it made the character not so 1 dimensional.
Can’t believe this is happening but – I’m completely with Rot on this one. Snow White is terrific.
I said in my Lbox review that I think Theron’s acting was a mix of method acting and classical stage acting. I think that’s what the script called for.
@Matt Brown, I think the last time we crossed the streams was Avatar, another blockbuster snarkfest
I can only shake my head.
I feel like you’re standing up for a Twilight take on LOTR.
7 dwarves, Kristen Stewart and a Huntsman make up The Fellowship of the Bo-ring.
Goon’s right on this one. That is all.
You straight-up trippin’, Boo.
While I disagree about the movie, I do agree that the dwarves and Kristen Stewart were the weak points. And Hemsworth too.
I really thought animation of the troll was outstanding – as lifelike as anything in Lord of the Rings or Avengers.
I disagree the weakest part of the movie was the prince charming/robin hood guy and Theron. Theron wasn’t bad but she was overacting like a mother fucker, where everyone else was keeping low key and down to earth. She seem to be in a different movie than everyone else (see Hopkins in Wolfman). Hemsworth was the best part, his acting was too good for this movie.
On a side note, I love Tom Hardy, but I think I wouldve liked to see Hemsworth in the upcoming Mad Max films.
Maybe I should’ve mentioned this early but I really enjoyed Snow White. The Theron thing was just my nitpick.
I will agree that the role is not played consistently, she is shown as someone with some depth and nuance and then at others times is bellowing like a cartoon villain, but to me it seems consistent to her fragile mania, trying to hold together to be desirable but really batshit crazy. Her hormonal craziness is part of the charm.
I agree with Rot – she’s unbalanced. the thing that I liked most about her characterization was the talking to the mirror.
slight spoiler warning!
I think the fact that she was the only one who saw the “mirror” talking raised the point that it could all just be in her imagination. The mirror could just be her split personality.
Those following the box office summer race might find this article interesting:
‘Avengers’ Accounts for Over Half of May 2012 Grosses
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3453&p=.htm
However, I’m of the opinion that despite as much as I and can see others enjoyed Avengers, it was to the movie’s benefit that the other May movies carried such bad word of mouth.
Gonna be an interesting weekend. Possibly another Wall-E/Wanted situation.
I don’t think the Dark Knight Rises runtime of 2hr 45min is going to help it box office earnings. There’s going to be less showings in a day and probably will hurt its rewatch value.
Heard about this yesterday. I’m sure Mr. Price would remind us that there are more than enough theatres and they’re all gonna be showing TDKR for the back half of July, but I kind of agree with you Cringe, I think this is going to defray any bonus earnings the IMAX ticket prices bring.
Which is a long way of saying, the film is still going to make squillions of dollars but about 1.5 less squillions than we thought.
(I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that Pirates 3 had the same run time, and that didn’t stop it from clearing a billion worldwide in 2007. And that was Pirates 3. I presume we can expect the reaction to TDKR to be better. And the run time, at least, explains how they’re gonna get that many unconnected characters and plotlines into one movie. Hey, maybe the first 20 minutes are just JGL wandering around a Gotham without Batman, and becoming increasingly depressed.)
It is nice to see that WB wants Nolan to tell the story he wants to with this longass movie. But what gets me more excited is that It seems Nolan has earned complete autonomy for future projects. Which should give every cinephile a hard-on.
Yep. I’ve always believed that the movies that Nolan does between the Batman ones, on bigtime WB-$$$ are the most interesting.
The Imax bonus is not meaningful for the summer contest, because although not shot in Imax, Avengers was also projected on Imax screenings. .
There’s a little 2hr42min film called AVATAR that will prove that statement wrong.
I think we can be fairly confident that this ain’t gonna be Avatar. At this point they’ll be lucky to be the Avengers.
#movieswithAinthetitle
#hashtaggingacommentnow
Titanic was 3h 14 min and people had no problems going back two and three times. As long as the film is good people will not care about the running time. Heck, The Avengers (2h 22min) has already proved that this summer.
I think the actual runtime for Titanic was 10h 37m.
Uggh, I hate that movie so much, even in 3D.
Aren’t most blockbusters these days past the 2 hour mark? It annoys the hell out of me, but most cinema goers don’t seem to care that they tend to be quite bloated most of the time.
Wasn’t that the same amount of time as The Dark Knight? It was ridiculously long too.
It’s almost 15 minutes longer than TDK, which was a horribly bloated and over long film.
If they had excised most of the daffy Two-Face plot from The Dark Knight, it would have been a far better movie.
It feels like everyone is prepping themselves or giving themselves room to trash DKR. No threequel to any successful superhero franchise seems safe from the horde.
I’ve got plenty of Room to love. I dig on Nolan’s ‘grounded’ mentality for this franchise.
Looks like $3.5M for PROMETHEUS for the midnights. Place your bets…
http://m.deadline.com/2012/06/prometheus-box-office-weekend-fox/
Its gonna be close. I have a feeling middling reviews may hamper the rest of its weekend.
So it looks like somewhere between $56 to $68 million right now. Better than I thought it was going to do seeing that I estimated it at $50 million. I’ve yet to see Prometheus, but I rather be wrong in this contest and have this movie be hugely successful, so that there’s a possibility of more like this. Not a Prometheus 2, but just have the studios not shrink away from a smart R-rated sci-fi. Not to mention this helps the case of Blade Runner sequel getting a decent budget and once again not shrinking away from it being a smart movie. Once again saying without seeing Prometheus because even if I think it’s empty or dump, the advertising has sold this as a smart sci-fi.
Since it looks like Prometheus is a hit. I wonder if we will get a sequel?
Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler
I didn’t love it but I thought it was decent enough. That being said, I would be totally down for a movie based on Elizabeth/David’s upcoming adventure/living hell.
Prometheus is a hit, but estimates have it at $50 million, not the $68 million it looked like it might reach on Friday. There was a big drop off from Friday to Saturday. Was it the mixed word of mouth or was it the more geekier audience wanting to see it right away? As based on purely the online discussion, it seemed like a HUGE number of people saw it Friday night and were really to have in-depth discussions about the movie right away.
Also if estimates hold, I will pull off a lot of points at my $50 million opening weekend estimate. Which I realize was a complete blunder on my part. When putting together my picks I had pushed up the total of Prometheus and had meant to bring up the opening weekend total, but I think I forgot. I think I had meant to have it at $55 or $60. Sad that my biggest point grab to date might be just a mistake.
It’s amazing what expectations (and international box office) do to the perception of a hit or disappointment. Watchmen, in 2009 and without 3D premiums, had a $55 million opening weekend and was viewed as something of a disappointment.
Prometheus – Lacks atmosphere (boring, ‘just there’ score). Lacks depth (surface-level ideas/wasted potential). Noomie Rapace saves it (she’s very watchable).
Word of mouth will be terrible. With no real effective pay-off, people will hate the pacing.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
How terrible was that Idris Elba and the 2 goofball guys “heroic” moment. Talk about unearned and coming out of nowhere.
Sorry I haven’t been too up on it. I will update the Mobile app with all of the current scores on Monday morning.
Hi gang, our PROMETHEUS episode is now up and running:
http://www.rowthree.com/2012/06/10/mamo-257-mamotheus/
Dang. I lost out on 20 bonus points by having the opening weekends for Prometheus and Madagascar reversed.
Brutal! That’s gotta hurt.
Even though it will likely change next week, I’m now one point ahead of you.
I nailed Prometheus and Madagascar!
Wait for tomorrow’s actuals (your 20 can easily change to 10). Regardless, great job. I think you also nailed MIB3 as well. If the numbers stay the same, you’ll definately be a powerhouse in this race.
I was close guessing Madagascar at 60 but Prometheus at 58.
Matt Brown – “Sadly no, $1.2M does NOT qualify for within $1M.”
What about $1.05M? Cause Christopher M. has Prometheus at 50 and its actual is 51.05
Sorry Christopher, it does have to be within an actual million dollars. $1M or less, as reported in the actuals on the site of record (Box Office Mojo), to stick the points.
D’oh! Because I also estimated $50 million. Strangely enough as I mentioned earlier I think it was a mess up on my part and that I had meant to bump up it’s opening weekend a bit. However, I doubt I would have just gone $51 million or $52 million and stopped.
I’m now exactly in the middle of the standings.
Another act-of-god no one saw coming: what if THE AVENGERS comes back in August with a 3-hour cut?!
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/56367
Holy Milking the Cash Cow, Batman!
Wow… During the various press for Avengers it came up that Whedon’s fist cut was 3 hours long and if he would release a director’s cut on DVD. He said there would be deleted scenes, but the final cut that was going into the theatres was his director’s cut. He mentioned he was specifically against having separate director’s cut.
So I have to wonder if Whedon is on board for this? Or is Whedon against this but Marvel going ahead anyways knowing they can milk an extra $20 to $50 million.
http://www.totalfilm.com/news/joss-whedon-discusses-the-avengers
So will we ever get to see the stuff Whedon cut out of the movie? Well, possibly as deleted scenes, but not as part of a director’s cut…
“I believe very strongly in putting the director’s cut into the theatres,” says Whedon. “I believe that the director’s cut is the best movie for the studio and the best version of the movie for the audience. I’ve never really been in a situation where I had to pull the beating heart out of something that I did.”
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Avengers-Director-Joss-Whedon-Doing-Right-By-Hulk-30758.html
Cinemablend: “So this is the director’s cut.”
Whedon: “Yes. You know what, and someday this may bite me and I may not be able to accomplish it, but it is always my intent to put the director’s cut in theaters. I don’t like to have different versions of a story, it kind of tweaks me. I like to know this is the story, this is it.”
Those were found with a quick Google search and I think it came up in other interviews as well. Whedon really doesn’t like having multiple versions of a movie.
Joss Whedon recently cut down the rumors that an 3 hour cut of the Avengers is coming out:
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1689752/joss-whedon-comic-con-firefly-avengers.jhtml
As I pointed out with the links earlier, it’s not something that Whedon would be for and I can’t imagine that Marvel would want to piss off Whedon after the success of Avengers and the possibility of him doing a second.
So, the HUNGER GAMES quietly passed $400M Domestic last weekend…Anyone still remember this film?
About 125 million women.
Touche.
Actually, CinemaScore polling of the opening weekend had the audience somewhere around 40% male and 60% female. Unlike say movies like Twilight and Sex & The City which had gotten in the 80% area. The success of Hunger Games was that it was a four quadrant movie appealing to a wide audience.
Right now pre-orders of the Hunger Game is the #6 top selling blu-ray on Amazon.com (#14 on DVD), despite the fact that it’s not coming out until August.
So yeah, there are still people who give a damn about that movie and are following closely what is happening with it’s sequel.
Well the sequel is all over the movie news right now, including the rumoured casting of Philip Seymore Hoffman.
Also, the next film with have the very lame official title of THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE, because apparently audiences need to be reminded that a film’s a follow-up.
Hunger Games has since made another $7 million and this past weekend made another $325,000. It now has more screens and a better dollars per screen average than Avengers. So looks like some people haven’t exactly forgotten it yet.
I don’t know if the movie will be any good, but I’m damn sure it will look amazing.
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=91487
Could the Olympics affect the box office of The Dark Knight Rises?
Considering the fact that the last film was released the same year as the last Olympics…..I highly doubt it.
To this day Robert Zemeckis and Peter Jackson contend that THE FRIGHTENERS was killed at the box office due to it opening the same weekend as the Opening Ceremonies of the 1996 Olympics.
Cute little comic that sums up the SUPERHERO SWEEPSTAKES of Summer2012:
Love it.
Ouch! ROCK OF AGES bombing out for third place against MADAGASCAR and PROMETHEUS:
http://www.deadline.com/2012/06/box-office-yawn-tom-cruises-rock-of-ages-and-adam-sandlers-thats-my-boy-open-mediocre/
PROMETHEUS is taking a big drop this week even with the new films being very disappointing. That’s going to hurt my predictions. It’s hard to see PROMETHEUS cracking $130 million domestic at this point unless it plateaus quick.
MIB3 has been a steady little earner despite no hype.
Holy shit! Did I finally get an opening weekend right?!
http://www.deadline.com/2012/06/brave-box-office-results-abraham-lincoln-vampire-hunter-weekend/
Another bit of news: BOURNE 4 just jumped back a week to get the hell out of THE DARK KNIGHT’s way:
http://www.deadline.com/2012/06/bourne-legacy-delaying-release-to-aug-10-because-of-total-recall-and-dark-knight-rises/
Ahhh… just a week back. I thought until reading the link that another movie that gone of GI Joe and had dropped out of the summer. Which would have really shaken up the contest to have 2 big movies drop out.
Brave looks like it’s opening somewhere in the neighborhood of $70 million this weekend which seems right in line with everyone’s expectations.
Wow! I’m now in 4th!
I have the Android app and its not updating…
is there another place to see the running results?
If you clear your cache, it should be updated as of early last week. I will update the numbers this afternoon too.
Scratch that last. It is updated now.
Here’s the direct link:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AhWHObQUpxlQdF9BTzFlMDB0VXE4WXJoSTZCVGpleFE&gid=10
I wonder if it will open up in the Google docs app when selected on Android.
I noticed most people left Expendables 2 off their list. But I think it has a chance to double the money of the first one.
Initial reports are that Ted is going to open really big for a comedy. There’s your top 10 comedy of the summer.
Looking through the list of people’s picks it seems that you are the only one who had Ted on their list. So congrats for picking that correctly. I know Family Guy has quite the fanbase, but I had no idea that it would prove to be so successful in a live action comedy.
Neither did I have that idea, only that the trailer seemed to make an immediate impact.
For that matter, Magic Mike might be a dark horse for the top 10 based on its opening if it has legs. I didn’t see that one coming.
I’m feeling good about my picks not having the likes of Dark Shadows, Battleship, and G.I. Joe in my top 10. Certainly, it helps not to have any bombs in your top 10 based on the scoring.
Magic Mike is pretty damn good. It is not at all the type of movie the trailer would have you believe.
Wow, everybody’s box office predictions are shit.
With Build-A-Bear* now rising to be the dominant comedy of the summer, I’d say yeah, there has never been a more clusterfuck year in the history of the contest.
*this was snarky.
Contest updated in the mobile app:
http://www.rowthree.com/2012/03/25/rowthree-mobile-app-is-here/
And we’re off – $7.5M at the midnights for SPIDER-MAN 4.
http://www.deadline.com/2012/07/spider-man-debuts-amazing-7-5m-midnights/
Out of all the movies coming out this summer, I’m probably the most curious about this and how people will react. Especially with a number of reviews saying the first hour of the movie feels very déjà vu.
$35 million yesterday. That’s a very good start.
There’s a theory out there that the scorching heat is going to push people into theaters. I think there’s merit to that idea.
With Deadline reporting for a good part of yesterday that Sony weren’t releasing any box office results, I figured it hadn’t done so well. Pretty high Cinemascore as well at A-.
We got crushed yesterday. It was as busy as a typical Friday. And this is on the heels of a monster weekend for us. It’s going to be an ugly week and a lot of that is due to the heat.
I’m going to be way low on OW. I honestly thought it was going to be a Superman Returns type fizzle (with great international box office).
We’ll see if it has legs, but it’s going to get people in the door for the opening week.
July is pretty bare in terms of major releases. Unless to the new ICE AGE film is a runaway success, I expect Spidey to remain strong until DARK NIGHT RISES
What’s OW?
OW = Opening Weekend.
Meh, we’ll see what word of mouth does. My audience was a quarter full and didn’t laugh at any of the jokes. Clearly it’s going to make a good amount of money over the next six days, but it’s also likely to be a top-heavy performance.
We’re trying to get the Amazing Spider-Mamo together as quickly as we can, but it might be a few days. Till then, my written review of the flick is up on the Substream:
http://www.thesubstream.com/html-review-the-amazing-spider-man.html
I’m kind of surprised how good ASM is doing, I thought it was going to do more in line with First Class. I guess we learned that the world is filled with people that want to see teenage boys in spandex.
Or just Spider-Man continues to be one of the most popular superhero characters.
It’s hard to compare the box office to the other Spider-Man movies, as none of them opened on a Tuesday. Still, while it’s been successful, I still have a feeling it will be the least successful of the Spider-Man movies. It’s hard to tell at this point with the holidays making it hard to get a read on the drops it’s been having.
Damn, why did I low ball Dark Knight Rises by so much?
$450M is a lowball?
I meant for opening weekend, 170 million seems low now. THR has it tracking over 200 million.
Without the Dark Knight Rises being in 3D with the extra ticket prices, I really don’t see it crossing $200 million opening weekend.
Yet strangely enough I gave it an opening weekend of $210 but right now I think that is waaaaay too high.
ICE AGE 4 is about where you’d expect… $45M opening weekend. What’s really terrifying is that it’ll clock $300M worldwide by the end of the weekend, suggesting that this franchise ain’t ending anytime soon.
http://www.deadline.com/2012/07/ice-age-4-looking-like-14-5m-16m-friday-and-40m-44m-weekend/
well, the 2nd film made out like a bandit overseas (I know that Golden Compass and Pirates 4 get all the credit, but The Ice Age Franchise has (unfathomably) always been an outside-the USA mega-blockbuster, with the 3rd one edging up close to $1B worldwide. Yea, crazy.
The Amazing Spider-man had a surprisingly small drop. So I’m guessing that it’s not all good advertising and that it has good word of mouth. However, when you compare it’s $35 million to other Spider-man movies, from $71 to $45 million, you can see how low it’s tracking comparable to where it could have been.
Part of it was the stilted release weekend.
Had it opened on a normal three day weekend, its first weekend total would have been higher and the the decline would be more pronounced.
If you compare its six day total of $140 million to $35 million… looks much worse.
Ted and Magic Mike are the surprise summer hits, so far.
Robert Reineke is tied for #1 and is the only one who correctly guessed that Ted would be a hit. However, I don’t think anyone picked Magic Mike.
At least I am not last.
Many are still paying the price for the GI Joe movie.
But Madagascar 3 is certainly outperforming expectations. Albeit the ’2nd sequel animated feature’ is all over the place at the domestic box office from plateauing (Ice Age3) or sharp drop off (Shrek3) to huge numbers (ToyStory3).
Hmmm, I wonder how Kung Fu Panda 3 will do when it inevitably gets made.
And so it begins! http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_dark_knight_rises/
Trying hardest to not get expectations too high, also not making the mistake of watching any Batman this week. Need to see this thing on its own.
Smart, Rick. I was debating on whether to watch the first 2. I’ll think I’ll watch Rises the first time on its own, then watch the first two, then watch Rises again.
And so begins the typical Internet reaction against the one critic who doesn’t like it by people who have not seen it yet:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_dark_knight_rises/comments/?reviewid=2095667
That is disappointing and kind of inevitable yet easy to ignore.
a fake review at that
http://www.ericdsnider.com/
The first negative review (Marshall Fine) wasn’t fake, as far as I know, though looks like his site is down right now (either he took it down, or overtrafficed – when I tried to hit it earlier today, it was over capacity). Eric Snider posted his fake one a little later. The comments slamming him for lowering the RT score (whether with a real or fake review) are pretty hilarious. Are people really that insecure that they need RT to have the movie at a 100% score?
It’s still at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marshall-fine/movie-review-ithe-dark-kn_b_1676367.html
“Are people really that insecure that they need RT to have the movie at a 100% score?”
Apparently:
“There needs to be someway to get this review off the tomatometer because it doesn’t even have the right to be there.”
Idiots.
”
Geoffrey K. on 07-16-2012 08:30 AM
I’m disappointed at how quickly we lost the perfect 100%
Reply Flag Spam
“
I think Snider’s fake review was a dick move. What is he, twelve years old? He already did it before and made his point. Not that I care one whit about the perfect score.
It was a dick move and he was behaving like a 12 year old. But RottenTomatoes actions prove that his ill-proved point was valid in their eyes.
“At times, the action is so massive and thunderously clunky that I might as well have been watching one of the Transformers movies.” – Marshall Fine. Ouch! However, I remember someone comparing the Avengers to Transformers as well. It seems to be the go to movie now for a horribly done big action movie. However, I can’t help but wince every time that comparison is brought up, because really I cannot think of a worst kind of insult.
Some of the reviews that I quickly went over last night said it was good but not nearly as good as The Dark Knight.
So if I think The Dark Knight is overrated, I should adjust my expectations for DKR accordingly. Noted.
Writer Neil Gaiman went to the premiere with DC Entertainment head Diane Nelson.
Here is his mini-review and why he prefers the Dark Knight better:
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2012/07/post-premiere-thoughts-also-grave-box.html
“Last night I went to New York for The Dark Knight Rises premiere. I really enjoyed it. I think I preferred The Dark Knight movie, because it had Heath Ledger’s Joker and a plot I found hard to predict. Dark Knight Rises doesn’t have those things: once the set-up is done you have a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen and when (even if you’ve worked hard to keep yourself spoiler free, as I had), but how it happens is the delight. I preferred the last movie, but this is a better Batman movie, and, I suspect, a better film. (It’s my third-favourite film of the year so far: Moonrise Kingdom and The Cabin in the Woods are ahead of it.)”
Also in that link is pictures of one of the stop-motion figures from Laika for Paranorman. I guess similar to Coraline, Laika are giving away items from making the movie to help drive publicity.
Rotten Tomatoes has flat out disabled comments for ANY Dark Knight Rises review, positive or negative.
That’s a smart movie by RT. Perhaps they’ll disable comments all together?
Agreed.
(And then Eric. D. Snider can take credit for ‘winning’)
Last straw, Andrew? http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/andrew-stanton-pixar-finding-nemo-sequel-350267
Maybe all the Pixar fanboys will finally admit that their beloved studio is no different then every other Hollywood studio.
There is always Studio Ghibli, Andrew.
It is noteworthy that Ghibli have yet to do a sequel to any of their films (unless you count THE CAT RETURNS, which explores a fantasy world only brushed at in WHISPER OF THE HEART.)
Warner Bros’s selective trade embargo totally back fired. It would have been better if Warner just went with the traditional trade embargo routine.
Warner Brothers isn’t reporting box office for the weekend and neither is Rentrak. In the meantime, we discuss THE DARK KNIGHT RISES in the wake of the shootings on the latest episode:
http://www.rowthree.com/2012/07/21/mamo-262-mamo-rises/
The weekend numbers are in:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/
The Dark Knight Rises comes in at $160 million. Huge just nowhere as big as many were expecting.
The Amazing Spider-Man has a huge drop of 68.6% pulling in only $10 million this weekend. Compared to the other Spider-Man movies by the 3rd weekend were making $25 to $45 million. At this rate, I’m not sure if it will even pass $300 million.
Well, to bad Andrew and Kurt — looks like all the future blockbusters are going to be in 3D.
Ouch for the $25.5 million that Total Recall made on it’s opening weekend. Now there were some trailers out there for it, but it seemed beyond that the marketing push seemed almost non-existent. For a movie that apparently had a $200 million dollar budget, I would have figured the studio would have pushed it more.
I think the Bourne Legacy is the last movie on anyone’s picks. Then it’s just a matter of how the movies wind down and if they fall into people’s totals.
The original TOTAL RECALL opened to $25.3M in 1990. The new TOTAL RECALL opens to $25.5M, over twenty years later. There’s a word for that: embarrassing.
From what I’ve read, the studio butchered it, completely forcing the filmmakers to create a movie so far away from the original remake’s script that one must wonder what the original product was supposed to be (e.g. more Bryan Cranston, the supposed Ethan Hawk monologue, etc.).
I suppose Expendables 2 is enough of a wild card that it might effect picks as well as Bourne Legacy.
I’m not going to win, unless I get some crazy amount of bonus points in totals, but I feel good knowing that my top 10 stands a good chance of being the top 10. Not in the exact right order, but I was consistent.
Yeah, Expendables 2 could have an effect but no one picked it for their top 10. Bourne Legacy is the last of people’s picks.
I’m also completely out of the game, but I had figured that very early on in June.
The Bourne Legacy is estimated to come in at $44 to $41 million:
http://www.deadline.com/2012/08/first-box-office-bourne-legacy-46m-48m-the-campaign-24m-26m-hope-springs-12m-14m/
If it comes in at the higher range, Benji is set to pick up the most points having estimated $45 million. Everyone else (via a quick scan) who had it on their list had it coming in a lot higher from the $50 to $75 million range.
Dave Nandes and Christopher M. who are #1 & #2 in the ranks didn’t pick Bourne Legacy at all. Benji is #3, so how well it does his prediction on this could push him up the ranks.
Bourne is definitely going to push Dark Shadows and Battleship further from the top 10. It might catch Prometheus, but it seems like it will need good legs for that.
Well, The Bourne Legacy made a lot less than expected at $38 million, so Benji only got 1 point. That’s it for picks of opening weekends, it now comes down to how people’s totals turn out.
I think the best way to sum up this summers’ movies box office is disappointing, as most came in less than expected. With the exceptions being Avengers, Ted perhaps even Snow White and the Huntsman.
Also creatively, I would say the same thing, that for me Avengers was the only stand out movie. Note I haven’t seen Moonrise Kingdom, which I think might become one of my favorites of 2012.
Prometheus, The Dark Knight Rises & The Amazing Spider-Man were all movies where I enjoyed parts of it, but other parts I felt were deeply flawed (to various degrees for each movie). Still all 3 I was hoping for a lot more from each film & from each director.
Expendables 2 was pretty much a whimper of an opening. It will probably pass the likes of Battleship and Dark Shadows, tweaking some points, but August has certainly been a big nothing to a Summer that started so spectacularly.
This is going down to the wire. The top three are each one point apart, and the MAMO boys are tied for fourth place. Even if the box office has been a late summer bust, it looks like the contest won’t be.
I won’t win it, but I’ve got a realistic shot to be in the ballpark on the total for The Dark Knight Rises. My rank points are pretty much set in stone, but I’d like to break 100 points on the scorecard.
It’s going to be a nail-biter finish.
Those who had $440 million on TDKR’s total gross look to receive a big boost in the standings.
Haven’t I already won this thing?
Only in our hearts.
Congratulations to those who picked $440M for TDKR – but I’m still counting on an early-September rally towards $500M.
Or at least 480.
480 would put me over the top… of TheHet.
http://eriklundegaard.com/item/hollywood-bo-the-growing-link-between-box-office-and-rotten-tomato-scores
At long last, science catches up to Mamo!
Great link, thanks for that. We may discuss this in the summer-box-office-closing-episode.
So… when do we get final results exactly?
As it’s been done in the past, after TIFF.
Dark Knight Rises and The Bourne Legacy are still bringing in millions each weekend and can still alter the final scores. Even then it might be too soon as summer movies continue to make money long into September.
Officially we close the contest 6 weeks after the release of the last eligible film to be picked. So for this year we will call the winner on September 20.
That said, it looks like Benji has won it this year. Some people might pick up some points depending on how far up the Dark Knight Rises adds to it’s total, but I don’t think it will be enough to catch Benji.
Looks like I’m screwed.
Look, I think we can all agree that the important thing here is that I beat Price.
Fair.
You actually doing quite well currently at 5th place.
Interesting enough, from a quick scan through people’s picks, it seems to me that a lot more points were picked up from opening weekends rather than total gross. Perhaps someone could get some statistics about where points were picked up on September 20th.
What a difference just a couple of weeks can make in this contest, Price has now beat you by just 3 points.
No idea where I was. The Android app has not updated the grosses contest in forever.
I update it every week (except this past weekend).
Try clearing your cache?
I think Dark Shadows still has some life to it, come on!
I know that the box-office contest has wrapped (More on that later), but interesting box-office factoid. THE MASTER has highest per-screen average ever. Probably a side effect of it playing HUGE 70mm Movie Palaces (like The Music Box in Chicago and Castro in San Francisco) .
The Blair Witch made waves with its $62,000 per screen, and even big comic book extravaganza like The Avenvgers made $48,000 per screen.
The Master, albeit on 5 screens only, made $147,000 per screen. That says to me that most shows were sold out, right around the clock.
http://www.slashfilm.com/the-master-sets-an-all-time-per-screen-box-office-record/
As I mentioned in the other thread, that was certainly the case at Arclight Hollywood – selling out 500-seat shows every half hour on Saturday for $13.50-$17.00 a pop.
I saw somewhere that it smashed the record that Moonrise Kingdom set earlier this year – interestingly, Moonrise Kingdom is STILL playing at Arclight Hollywood, and I don’t think has ever expanded in Los Angeles. Friends who live in northern suburbs have been waiting for it to hit their screens all summer, and finally had to head into LA proper to see it.
I didn’t even know such thing as 500-seat theaters existed. ha. I’m so sheltered here in Pennsylvania.
Heh, I exaggerated a little. I just went and counted the seats on the theatre’s website, and there were roughly 420 in the theatre we were in, which is one of the larger screens. Looks like the smaller screens hold a bit over 230. The Cinerama Dome, which probably hasn’t been selling out, but who knows, holds about 750.
This is easily the premiere movie theatre in Los Angeles, in terms of modern luxury multiplexes.
The Grand Theatre Lumiere at Cannes seats 2,300. It’s dizzying sitting in that theatre. I watched Lawless waaay down at the back and it was like watching it on an early generation iPhone I was that far away
Congrats to Benji for taking this down and Christopher M. for beating me.
Big thanks to the Mamo boys for creating this thing and GE Hale for setting up the calculator thingy.
Thanks everyone for playing and to GE Hale in particular for providing the leader board!
According to Mr. Price, today is 6 weeks past the release of the last submission on the list, so the contest is officially over. We will be recording a show on Saturday, where we will analyze the summer and “officially” announce the winner.
We need 11 more comments to get this thread to a whopping 500 (Congrats all around for keeping the conversation going throughout the summer!).
Oh wait a minute. 10.
Kudos.
Last year’s winner comes in #10 and the winner for 2 years in a row (me) comes in #14, showing how bloody hard and random this contest can be.
Congrats to Benji and thanks for GE Hale for the great Google Docs entry with leaders ranking, everyone’s picks and more.
Also for those who are interested, Box Office Mojo now lists movies seasonally. Their summer season is considered the first Friday in May though to Labour Day Weekend, which works great for this contest:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/seasonal/?view=releasedate&yr=2012&season=Summer
First, congratulations to Benji on his peerless performance.
I did a very quick look at where the points were allocated. Just over 78% came from the overall point rankings, 9% from the overall gross bonus points, 13% from the new opening point bonus. No one got the double bonus points for both total and opening for any film. Of course, higher up the rankings, more of the percentage came from bonus points. For Benji, it was 65% ranking, 13% total bonus and 22% opening bonus. From this, perhaps opening bonus points are a little more important than the total but they are both in the same ball park.
Finally, as I plan to do a spreadsheet again next year (if the Mamo boys and Row Three do it of course) I wanted to get some feedback, in particular the utility of the seeding system. I added it for two main reasons: first,without it, everyone starts at 0 and the horse race is a little boring for a month or two until some movies have come out. Second, I thought participants who pick moves that open earlier in the summer would appear to be unjustly ahead in the rankings. But since most people pick more-or-less the same movies, I am not sure this really makes a big difference. I am leaning towards sticking with the seeding system but I am open to convincing if anyone has any thoughts.
I likes the seeding system. I definitely liked seeing my name on top for most of the summer.
Thanks once again for the great ranking docs.
I think the seeded system was cool, but at times I would mistaken the seeding for actual points especially in the middle to end of the summer. If it’s not too much work, perhaps have the non-seeded ranking on another tab, so that people can see where they stand on just pure points alone.
My vote is to keep the seeding system. I think both ways have their advantages/disadvantages, but I preferred, as GE said, that there was less boredom early on.