Welcome to week ten of our 2014 Summer Box-Office Challenge!
Think of it as a summer-long contest for movie-lovers ‐ you’ll make predictions and guesses as to which summer movies will rule the box-office each week, we award points and at the end of the contest the three top point-earners will each win a Blu-ray/DVD prize pack! First place will win ten (10) Blu-ray/DVD titles released throughout the coming summer, second place wins five (5) and third place wins two (2). We’ll have bonus questions each week as well to help bolster your point totals and keep you in the running.
This week’s results were a forgone conclusion in the general sense, but the specifics are still up for debate. The studio itself is pegging Transformers: Age of Extinction at $100 million for this past weekend, but we shouldn’t be surprised if the actuals see that number drop some by this afternoon. We have a couple players who will would earn the “within a million” bonus if it holds up, so for that reason the top five players won’t be updated until later today. As for the actual bonus question ‐ well, that will also have to wait for the actuals as Nothing Bad Can Happen isn’t even appearing on Box Office Mojo’s weekend estimates yet.
[UPDATE: The actuals are in, and Transformers 4 made… $100m. The answer to the bonus question is “lower” as Nothing Bad Can Happen only opened to a $700 per theater average. Here are the current top five players.]
- Gary Salem ‐ 23 points
- Chris B ‐ 22 pts
- AKFilmfan ‐ 22 pts (tied for 2nd)
- Jamie Boyd ‐ 21 pts
- Thomas McCallum ‐ 21 pts (tied for 4th)
And now it’s on to week ten! Check out the challenge questions below and play along in the comments section. And note that this week is a little bit different in that all three new wide releases open on Wednesday (7/2) instead of Friday (7/4) due to the holiday. **But that does not change our contest!** Your guesses are still due by Wednesday night and the box office numbers we’re looking at are still Friday through Sunday only.
You’d think that with three new wide releases one of them would be a lock to take next weekend’s top spot, but with Transformers 4 opening so high the usual drop will only bring its second weekend down to around $40–45m. That may very be enough to beat each of the newcomers ‐ it’s definitely enough to beat one of them. (Sorry Earth to Echo.) The remaining two films are a different story though. Melissa McCarthy’s last two lead roles have opened with $34–39m, and that combined with the very funny teaser could mean a big first weekend for Tammy. Scott Derrickson’s new film, Deliver Us From Evil, has a tougher fight. His last film, Sinister, only opened to $18m ‐ but that was in October when people aren’t thinking about horror. Apparently. Instead, the $41m opening of last July’s The Conjuring showed that people respond well to chills during the heat of summer, so that may end up being a smart bit of counter-programming.
To enter, leave a comment below with your answers to these questions by 11:59 pm Central time Wednesday:
- Predict the #1 film at the box office for July 4–6 and how much it will earn: The closest correct answer earns 5 points, the 2nd closest earns 3 points and a correct guess within one million dollars earns an additional 2 points. (Example: “America, $1776”)
- Bonus Question: Will the highly acclaimed Roger Ebert documentary, Life Itself, open to a per theater average higher or lower than $25k? As completely and utterly unrelated reference points, the also highly acclaimed The Rover opened to an average under $14k while the once again highly acclaimed Obvious Child opened to a $26k average. A correct answer earns 2 points.
Here are the incredibly simple rules:
- The cutoff for predictions is 11:59 pm Central time each Wednesday, and there will be no exceptions.
- Predictions are for Friday to Sunday domestic box office as reported by Box Office Mojo.
- The contest runs through the weekend of July 25–27 (that will be the final round).
- Be sure your Disqus info is accurate and consistent as that’s how we’ll be tracking your guesses week to week and contacting our three winners.
- Comment edits made AFTER the cutoff time constitute cheating and will result in player forfeit.
We’ll return next Monday for week 11 and our updated leader-board. Thanks for playing and good luck!