Holiday Box office Contest: The Rules

[JMK]

Just kidding. :D



Damn I'm bored. :zzz

:(
:x

[Jedi Master Carr]

Well we are getting close to it, about a month away, I guess we could discuss how we will run it. I am thinking of it going from Nov 1 to New years, there will be at least one holiday weekend with Thanksgiving. Christmas and New Years fall on weird days Wed, and I am not sure if I want to do a weekend from Christmas Day to sunday that would have to make people guess on Christmas Eve. Unless somebody came come up with a sane way of doing it, I was just going to go with standard weekends besides Thanksgiving which would be 5 days and double points.

[Jedieb]

You're bored! Tune in to the BIG game!

[JMK]

Were having one??? Geez, sorry to steal your thunder! I thought our business hours were in the summer only!

[Jedi Master Carr]

Well the last weekend of the Summer contest I asked everybody and I had a lot of people that wanted us to do it, so I figure we try it, hopefully it will work.

[JMK]

Cool!

[Marcus Telcontar]

And here I was thinking about exactly the same thing :)

[JonathanLB]

You are bored...

I wish I were bored! I have so much to do :( Stupid reading and class nonsense...

[Jedieb]

So exactly when are we going to start? Will there be fabulous prizes?!

[Jedi Master Carr]

November 1, I think the movies coming out that weekend are The Santa Clause 2 and I Spy so it should be a competive weekend. As far as Prizes I will come up with something.

[Marcus Telcontar]

I'll help you run it if you want

[Jedi Master Carr]

If you like though both Yog and CMJ have said before they would help, I'll have to see if their still willing first.

[JonathanLB]

Grrr, 6 movies open in national release this weekend. I'm so frustrated about that. I am staying in Corvallis for the weekend and going to try to see two movies I guess, but that means the next weekend I'll have 4 + whatever else is new, so somewhere around 6-8 films to see I imagine.

This is the first time all year where 6 movies have opened in national release. In fact, the only other weekend with 5 was in February (the 15th: Super Troopers, Return to Neverland, Crossroads, Hart's War, and John Q). This slate of 6 movies looks way better than the 5 movie weekend in February, but even so, it's very hard to see this many movies when I'm down at college.

October should end up being one of the busiest months in pure number of films. November and December look really busy, you might say, but I doubt more than 3 movies open on any weekend. They are all high profile releases, which actually cuts DOWN on the overall number. Less films come out in the summer than in the off months...

Many summer weekends had only 2-3 movies each, whereas plenty of fall and winter ones have 3-4 anyway. May 31, June 7, June 28, and July 26 are examples of only two movie weekends. It does vary I guess, though, because in February - March there were 3 straight weekends with only two films opening in major national release.

It seems to me, though, that as the quality of the movies increase and when they become higher profile, they become less numerous because they each present more competition. You can't have 5 movies open and play them all on 2 screens, so studios don't want Spider-Man, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Harry Potter opening on the same weekend or something obviously.

Now if you have 5 medium to small films opening in one weekend, they figure that is fine because their goals are less lofty. Obviously if the studios are all hoping for $30 million openings, a lot of people are going to be disappointed because never in history have 5 movies made $30M in the same weekend. I don't think 3 movies have ever made $30 million in the same weekend, but I could be wrong. I know the first time that 2 movies ever made $30M in the same weekend was sometime in the last 4 years, and I'm pretty sure it was summer 1999.

[Jedieb]

I think the winner should get a brand new car. Whoever comes in last place should have to pay for it. Some of you may think this unreasonable, but if the second to last place finisher pays for the title and tag I think it's doable.
:crack

[JMK]

I concur, as I long as I don't finish in either of the 2 bottom spots. :p

[Sene Unty]

How do you play this game...just pick the top 5 box office money makers?????

[JMK]

Yeah, we make estimate guesses to the nearest 2 decimal places for the top 5 movies of the weekend. Nothing complicated. :)

[JonathanLB]

If a full moon happens to occur during a movie's opening weekend and that movie has at least two vowels in the first word of its title, it is 87% likely to make more than $20 million.

Haha, j/k. ;)

[Admiral Lebron]

I never had any real strategy and I was first for half the summer.

[Quadinaros]

...but strategy prevailed in the end as Last-Minute Yogs was the winner! :p

[Admiral Lebron]

Maybe I should try and find out who made what the weekend previous.

[Master Yoghurt]

Well, like stated earlier, I would be willing to do the maths and some commentary on the predictions & race in general as the results are posted. This should be fun. :)

Marcus and CMJ are more than welcome to assist checking/double checking the numbers. I will however make sure the calculation of the points are 100% accurate and announced shortly after the official numbers are public.

[Master Yoghurt]

I assume we are going to use the same rules as through the summer?

:: digs up the rules for reference ::

Period of contest: 1'st of november - 31'st of december

1. How to play: Each weekend, predict the order of the top 5 movies, and how much each film will make. To make sure people don’t make the same predictions, post your dollar figures to the nearest ten thousand, for example "25.58M" (25 million 580 thousand).

2. Movie Order Points: For every film you place in the correct order, you get 5 points. If you get #1- 5 right, you would get 25 points.

3. Accuracy Points: The closest person to each of the five films also gets points, and they are as follows;

# 1 - 25 pts
# 2 - 20 pts
# 3 - 15 pts
# 4 - 10 pts
# 5 - 5 pts

Please notice; you only get points for a movie if you have it in the right #1-5 position.

4. Double Points Weekends. Points are doubled on the following weekends:
* Thanksgiving; 28 november - 1st of december. All points are doubled.
* TTT weekend; 18-22 december. Double points for TTT 5-day weekend and the rest of the top 5.
* Harry Potter weekend 15-17 nov. Double points for HP prediction.

5. "The Price is Right" - bonus for extreme accuracy. If someone guess a movie correct down to the nearest 10-thousandth, the contestant will be awarded with 50 extra points, in addition to the points he won that weekend. Example: If a movie makes 25.343M and you predict 25.34M, you will win the bonus.

6. Deadline: All predictions must be in by saturday 9 am EST every weekend. On double points weekends, special deadline will apply. Please make sure your predictions are in before the deadline, however, we may look the other way if the estimates are not yet made public and/or it is obvious such results have not been seen.

7. Who can play? Everyone. It is fun! You may enter or exit the contest at any time or post predictions whenever you like, as long it is within the deadline. Of course, be aware maximum participation increases your chances of a high score at the final tally, so it is recommended to participate as often as possible (it makes your predicting look smarter! ;)).

8. The winner: The player with the most points at the end of contest, wins instant fame and glory (being worshipped by the all the BO forum posters) AND a prize! :rollin


(Forgot anything? Comments? Anything that needs to be added or changed?)

[JMK]

Should we include any bonuses if someone guesses a movie's B.O. take correct down to the nearest 10-thousandth? This summer some movie made 11.102 (or something like that) one weekend, and I posted 11.10. I propose adding some bonus points, like on the Price is Right. If you're in contestant's row and guess the price right on you get $100 or whatever it is. Something like that would be cool too IMO...

[Master Yoghurt]

Yeah, I agree, bonus point for extreme accuracy would be cool. I suggest 50 extra points would reflect the difficulty of getting two decimals right. It would be a great bonus treat, and make each weekend extra exciting for those who are close to a weekend estimate.. :)

[JMK]

It could also vault someone from the low-mid ranks up the top with one guess, but it would have to be dead on in order to get the points. I was thinking that anything between 25-50 points would be sufficient for a bonus, I tend to lean toward your fifty though. It could make all the difference to someone in the contest. I know that if we had that in the summer, at the time I would have leapfrogged into the top 3 or close to it as I was in 5th place at the time.

[Master Yoghurt]

Yeah, it means everyone still got a chance, even if they are behind on the scorepad a little. It also adds a an element of surprise into the mix. There is a good chance someone will get it, but who? It should be interesting to see.

As for double bonus weekends, if we are not going to have a bonus for christmas holiday weekend, perhaps we should have bonuses for the weekends when Harry Potter - Chamber of Secrets and Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers opens?

[Jedi Master Carr]

Thats sounds cool Yog, though it starts Nov 1 (figured that was a typo). I like the bonus for getting it really close to dollar figure. As far as bonus weekends, well Christmas would be very, very hard as I said because the numbers would have to be due on Christmas eve, if we went from Christmas Day (which is a wed) to Sunday (that would be five days. I guess we could go from that Friday to Christmas Day thought that would be a six day weekend, which would be a little long. I think we can do it for TTT, since it opens on a Wed (we can do it like we did it for SW) HP I am not sure I guess we could give double points for predicting HP's total or something like that. Any suggestions would on that would be those two issues and Christmas would be great.

[Master Yoghurt]

Yeah, you were right, it was a typo. Not sure why I keep mixing up october and november. Like the week before when I was getting worried I had missed the deadline for the first weekend of the fall box office weekend :rolleyes

Double bonus for TTT like we did for AOTC sounds fine :). I was thinking, maybe we could do the double bonus thing for HP as well. As I see it, HP2 and TTT are the two big BO movies this fall. Even though it is just a 3-day opening, it would allmost certainly be #1. So instead of 25 points for getting #1 right, you would get 50. Let me know if it works, if not, I may have another idea.

[Sene Unty]

Sounds like fun....oh and please keep these rules on the first page. There are alot of them and I have a pretty eractic memory.:D

[Jedi Master Carr]

That will work, so for HP we will do #1 will get 50 points for LOTR's weekend it will be doubled for all the movies (we can look at like the big christmas weekend). Also I think we should invite CC.net members to join. Not sure if we ask them to put a thread for it or not, most of the ones who would be interested post here already. But it could be an idea.

[Darth23]

"Please notice; you only get points for a movie if you have it in the right #1-5 position. "

I HATE that rule.

[Jedi Master Carr]

I remember that you did, I guess its up to discussion. Also if anybody wants to suggest any other changes than go ahead now.

[JMK]

I used to hate that rule too because it screwed me twice over the summer, but it makes it more challenging.

[Jedi Master Carr]

I think so too, so I am slightly infavor of keeping it.

[Sene Unty]

So even if you get the money amount right.....you still dont get the points if its in the wrong order???

[JMK]

Yep, that's it.
I got stung by that twice in the last contest!

[Jedi Master Carr]

First any other questions about rules?
Second since we are on the holiday movies what does everyone think will be the top of the holiday season? I am just curious to see everybody's guesses. Here are mine
1 Lord of the Rings : The Two Towers
2 Harry Potter 2
3 The Santa Clause 2 (I really think it will be a surprise)
4 James Bond: Die Another Day
5 Solaris

[Sene Unty]

1. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2. Harry Potter 2
3. 8-Mile
4. James Bond: Die Another Day
5. Santa Claus 2

[Master Yoghurt]

1. Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers
2. Harry Potter - Chamber of Secrets
3. James Bond - Die Another Day

[Jedieb]

Just when are we going to start?

[Master Yoghurt]

Friday 1'st of nov - sunday 2'nd of nov would be the first weekend. Assuming we use the same procedure as before, the first contest thread will be posted during the first days of that week.

Movies opening 1'st of november:

"I Spy" w/Eddie Murphy & Owen Wilson
2,800+ estimated theaters - Sony

"The Santa Clause 2" w/Tim Allen
3,000+ estimated theaters - Disney

"Blackboards"
Limited release - Leisure Time

"Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (IMAX)"
70+ IMAX screens - Fox

"The Weight of Water"
Sean Penn, Dir. Kathryn Bieglow
Limited release - Lions Gate

[Master Yoghurt]

There will be some holdovers from the weekend before as well, so for your convenience, here are the 3 widest openers for 25 of october:

Theater counts for friday 25th of october (estimates):

Ghost Ship w/Gabriel Byrne, Julianna Margulies
2,500+ Warner Bros.

Jackass: The Movie w/Johnny Knoxville
2,400 Paramount

The Truth About Charlie w/Thandie Newton, Dir. Jonathan Demme
700+ Universal

[Jedi Master Carr]

That first weekend shouldn't be that hard, the biggest question will be what will be #1. I think it will be the Santa Clause 2 as its a family movie and Christmas is almost on upon us. Also the first one was very popular.

[JMK]

I don't know, Eddie Murphy movies that don't involve morbidly obese people or animals don't seem to do so well. Pluto Nash being the most recent failure...but people do like Owen Wilson and it does look a whole lot better than Pluto Nash.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Not much better though the trailers for the Santa Clause 2 seem funnier, it will be interesting to see, also the Santa Clause 2 will be the first family movie since Spy Kids 2 came out months ago so that should help it. Both movies should open over 20 million it should be a big weekend, I think.

[ReaperFett]

Can you rename this thread please? It's confusing for those who will join in, but arent posting in here.

[Sene Unty]

Yeah I keep thinking it has started....:D