Hello! It is time for my Summer Box Office prediction contest. Last year there were about ten entries and the winner of the Animatrix DVD was Spurious George.
Here are the rules:
For the movies listed below you must predict their opening weekend box office gross as listed at Box Office Guru. Note for one movie (Spider-man 2) this is actually a five-day weekend gross. Your prediction for each movie should be in millions of dollars with one decimal, i.e. 33.4 (for $33,400,000.
The winner will be the person who has the lowest total absolute deviations from the recorded numbers.
Entries should be emailed to boxoffice@leftfieldsports.com with the subject header SDMB Box Office Contest. Be sure to include you SDMB handle in the email. You may post your guesses here, but only emailed entries will be official. Only entries with guesses for every movie will be accepted.
Entries are due by 6 pm Pacific time, Thursday May 13. You may change your prediction anytime up to the shut-off time. No multiple entries will be allowed.
The prize is yet to be determined, but it will be nifty.
This contest is not associated or affiliated in any way with The Straight Dope or the Chicago Reader. It is simply my own invention.
The Movies:
Troy - Opens May 14 Shrek 2 - Opens May 21 Day After Tomorrow - Opens May 28 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkhaban - Opens June 4 The Stepford Wives - Opens June 11 Dodgeball - Opens June 18 Spider-Man 2 - Opens June 30 I, Robot - Opens July 16 Cat Woman - Opens July 23 The Village - Opens July 30
The standings and picks will be available at yet to be developed website.
I’m willing to make up numbers – but I’d like to look at past numbers as I do so. The link above doesn’t work for me – is that a good place to look, or should I check out SDMB or somewhere? Are opening weekend numbers usually given as a separate figure?
Can we do this week by week. It’s much easier to guess that Van Helsing is going to do xxx this weekend but trying to predict what is gong to happen almost 3 months from now is a bit harder. Heck, the release date may change for some of these.
I suggest a weekly contest with points awarded for how close you are. Say 2 points for within 5 million 1 for 10 million and 3 points if you a within 1 million. (bullseye)
That way the thread does not go away next week to be resurrected at the end of the summer but goes on and on all summer long.
SmackFu, it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with ten numbers, and just ranking the movies would not really give me a definitive way to determine a winner.
Zebra thanks for the suggestions. I am just going to keep the contest as is, not because I think it is the best way, just because it is the best way for me :). Maybe next year I will tweak it with people’s suggestions. I realize that guessing three months down the line is difficult, but everyone has the same handicap so it seems fair. I will post updated standings each week to keep it fresh. I hope this doesn’t dissuade you from entering! It’s free!!
BTW, I will also be entering, but I will not be eligible for the nifty prize.
Just giving this a bump. Don’t be fooled by the lack of posts here - people are e-mailing Gansta privately with their selections. I need some more competition, because I’d hate for this to be a runaway!
They give you 2 million virtual dollars that you can invest in movie stocks. The value of the stock is also based on the opening weekend. The take is multiplied by 2.9 (I don’t know why). The maximum amount of shares you can have is fifty thousand. So if a movie makes 50 million dollars the first weekend, the stock is worth about 150 dollars a share. If you bought it at 120.00 dollars, you just made 2 million. If you bought it at 170.00 dollars a share, you lost a million.
I have built my two million into about 130 million. It takes a while to learn, but I think that SDMB folks have the intellectual capacity to enjoy it. There are other features as well, but you can explore the website for those.
I don’t mind answering questions, but if too many pop up, I will start my own thread rather than hijack this one.
[**Spurious George **steps into the ring, wearing gold boxing shorts with green trim, big Elvis-style diamond-encrusted sunglasses, and a robe with “Boxoffice Champion” emblazoned thereon. Throws a few shadow punches, stares down all competitors with a steely glare, and declares victory pre-emptively. Then hands out candy. :D]
Gangster, thanks for doing this again. It was a lot of fun, and is sure to be this time.
And thanks Spurious George for the info. Shrek 2 take will now be based on the 5-day total from starting Weds. May 19. I will be sure to email anybody who has already sent me entries when I get home to let them know, or feel free to email new predictions. You can change your picks anytime up to the cut-off time of 6 pm Thursday, May 13.
I haven’t gotten too many entries so far. C’mon folks, only ten numbers, it’s free and I only use your email address to try and sell you time shares, viagra, low mortgage rates and stuff like that. (I’m just kidding!! I don’t do anything with the emails!)
Former rec.arts.movies mainstay Peter Reiher’s been doing a blockbuster prediction contest for 12 years now. As long as you’ve filled out a ballot for Gangster Octopus’s contest, you might as well see if you can snag bragging rights in another one: http://lever.cs.ucla.edu/reiher/film_contest/
Note: I am not Peter Reiher, nor am I affiliated with him in any way. I just guess poorly in his contest year after year.
I have only gotten 5 or so entries so far. C’mon folks, just ten numbers. If you think you sent me your picks, but you did not get any kind of response back then there is an excellent chance I did not receive your picks. You can always re-send them if you want to be sure. Again send entries to:
