Welcome to week nine 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.
The majority of you chose correctly last week and picked the Think Like a Man sequel to win the weekend box office, but it looks to be incredibly close with 22 Jump Street earning just one million dollars less. The estimates show Think banking $30m ‐ a nice round number sure to change slightly once the actuals come in later today ‐ and Jump falling less than 50% in its second weekend to bring in $29m. (It’s rare but not unheard of for estimates to be off by more than $1m, so it’s possible our results below may change significantly.) As for last week’s bonus question, Roman Polanski’s Venus In Furs earned less than $32k bringing in only $26k for its opening weekend.
We’ll update once the actuals come in later today, but here are the top five players based on the estimates. [EDIT: The actuals are in, and Think Like a Man 2 retains the top spot with $29.2 million. Our scoreboard stays the same.]
- Gary Salem ‐ 21 points
- AKFilmfan ‐ 20 pts
- Chris B ‐ 20 pts (tied for 2nd)
- Thomas McCallum ‐ 19 pts
- Husain ‐ 17 pts
And now it’s on to week nine! Check out the challenge questions below and play along in the comments section.
After a series of weekends featuring dueling new releases this coming Friday sees a singular release guaranteed to take the top spot. I am of course referring to Bong Joon-ho’s English-language debut, Snowpiercer. Bong’s directorial resume consists of a string of critically-acclaimed and highly entertaining films including Mother, The Host and Memories of Murder, and his latest promises to be just as brilliant. It’s already racking up positive reviews, and with a cast that includes Chris Evans and Tilda Swinton it seems to be a lock for a well-deserved #1 this coming weekend.
No one can predict the future of course, so I suppose there’s a chance Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age of Extinction makes more money and wins the weekend… but are you really willing to risk it with your guess below?
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 June 27–29 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: “Snowpiercer, $121m”)
- Bonus Question: Drafthouse Films’ last foreign language release, Borgman, opened to a per theater average of $2659. Will their latest film, Nothing Bad Can Happen, open to a higher or lower per theater 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 10 and our updated leader-board. Thanks for playing and good luck!