Week six for our fall Fantasy Movie League is done and it quite clearly had a theme.
When I wrote last week’s post I ended up saying that Blade Runner 2049, despite being the big new title of the week, was too expensive, with The Mountain Between Us looking like the most attractively priced film, and marking My Little Pony as a potential dark horse candidate.
Sound words in hindsight. These were the prices for week six.
Blade Runner 2049 $838 The Mountain Between Us $150 It $143 Kingsmen $133 American Made $131 My Little Pony $126 LEGO Ninjago Movie $109 Victoria & Abdul $56 Flatliners $44 Battle of the Sexes $32 American Assassin $26 The Stray $16 Home Again $14 Til Death Do Us Part $10 Mother! $9
There was still some room to work with in the top six movies, with no real obvious right path save for the pricing of The Mountain Between Us.
However, come Wednesday a madness struck, a pony fever took over the FML chat. Box Office Pro, which had previously put My Little Pony in at about $7 million for the weekend box office suddenly and rather drastically upped their estimate to just about $12 million.
With $12 million as the target all question of who to pick went out the door… if you believed the estimate. A lot of people did as the pony fever spread, and the movie rose in the research vault from the 9th most popular pick with 22% of players choosing it up to 3rd position with almost 32% of the total, surpassed only by Blade Runner 2049 with 38% and It with 34%.
In the FML chatter forums people were complaining that the week was now a slam dunk and that FML ought to change the pricing after the fact if movies get a sudden bump like that.
Meanwhile, on the FML Slack channel I am on, the discussion quickly got most of us on board with the pony train hype.
The problem here is that estimates are just that… estimates. They are not reality. Though, after the Friday night numbers the estimates seemed to be coming true as the Saturday predictions showed the pony special pick… seven screens of My Little Pony and one of LEGO Ninjago being the prefect pick and My Little Pony the price/performance leader. That would have put all of us well past the $90 million mark for the week. We were going to leave everybody in our dust. Stats showed that half of the top 100 players were all-in on ponies.
That was my pick as well, so I was up on that pony high as well.
My Fall Week Six Picks
But the Saturday estimates are like a rock on the coast that has sunk many an optimistic mariner.
Sunday came and the My Little Pony party seemed to be over. The estimates turned out to be very optimistic and the Sunday numbers hangover was upon us. Pony dreams crashed and The Mountain Between Us ascended. In the end the perfect pick was six screens of The Mountain Between Us and two of Flatliners, the latter also getting the best price/performance nod. 138 people got the perfect pick this week.
Fall Week Six Perfect Pick
My Little Pony rang in just shy of $9 million for the weekend, putting it at 75% of its high end estimate. Bad pony! No treats for you!
Another victim of MLP fever
Meanwhile the Meta League scores for the week shook out like this:
- Ben’s X-Wing Express (M) – $70,041,952
- SynCaine’s Dark Room of Delights (T) – $69,285,911
- Aure’s Astonishingly Amateur Amphitheatre (M) – $69,203,767
- Corr’s Carefully Curated Cineplex (M) – $69,203,767
- Wilhelm’s Films from New Eden – $69,203,767
- Paks’ Pancakes & Pics (T) – $69,203,767
- Dan’s Decadent Decaplex (M) – $69,203,767
- Elly’s Elemental E-Plex (M) – $69,203,767
- Kraut Screens (T) – $66,935,930
- Logan’s Luxurious Thaumatrope (M) – $66,373,163
- The Filthy Fleapit (T) – $66,196,344
- Darren’s Unwatched Cineplex (T) – $47,543,164
- I HAS MOVIES (T) – $43,541,793
- Ocho’s Octoplex (L) – $26,325,300 [did not pick]
Meta League legend:
- TAGN Movie Obsession – players from it marked with a (T)
- MCats Multiplex – players from it marked with an (M)
- Liore’s Summer League – players from it marked with an (L)
Ben won first place for the week with six screens of The Mountain Between Us, but didn’t have Flatliners, while SynCaine got second with six screens of It. However that did not put them all that far ahead of the pony crew, who shared the next six positions with identical picks.
Not a big gap there. It wasn’t a week for one of us to get ahead with a good pick. Rather the pack stayed mostly in place with bad picks (or no pick in one case) causing people to fall back a bit.
So the overall season looks like this at the end of week six:
- Corr’s Carefully Curated Cineplex (M) – $495,822,427
- Aure’s Astonishingly Amateur Amphitheatre (M) – $487,853,090
- Ben’s X-Wing Express (M) – $481,634,080
- Elly’s Elemental E-Plex (M) – $464,913,125
- Logan’s Luxurious Thaumatrope (M) – $461,002,597
- Ocho’s Octoplex (L) – $417,219,840
- Wilhelm’s Films from New Eden – $458,705,932
- SynCaine’s Dark Room of Delights (T) – $457,758,858
- Dan’s Decadent Decaplex (M) – $436,092,325
- Paks’ Pancakes & Pics (T) – $398,132,000
- The Filthy Fleapit (T) – $374,010,367
- I HAS MOVIES (T) – $361,124,951*
- Kraut Screens (T) – $342,913,780
- Darren’s Unwatched Cineplex (T) – $188,230,727
Remember, some people in the (T) league showed up late… though not Isey of I HAS MOVIES who is clearly in the running for the “I voted my heart/gut” award for the season.
There it is, another week down and the next looming with a new set of picks and prices.
Happy Death Day $350 Blade Runner 2049 $237 The Foreigner $143 The Mountain Between Us $99 It $95 My Little Pony $84 Victoria & Abdul $80 Kingsmen $71 American Made $71 LEGO Ninjago Movie $70 Marshall $62 Flatliners $34 Battle of the Sexes $24 American Assassin $9 Til Death Do Us Part $7
Blade Runner 2049 got a big price reduction, not only because of it being in the second week but also because it fell far shy of the estimates for its opening weekend, hitting just $32 million instead of passing $50 million. But even before the estimates from last week were out they were saying they expected the movie to stay stronger than expected over time rather than peaking the first week and then disappearing.
Having seen Blade Runner 2049, I do recommend it, but only if you’ve seen the original. It might be hard to figure out why some things matter if you have not. But if you’re into it the 168 minutes go right by. I plan to go see it again.
But would I anchor my week seven picks on it is the question? Otherwise I know nothing about Happy Death Day, though 2017 seems to be the year of horror… and not just in the movies… and likewise nothing about The Foreigner.
And even with those three as possible anchors, what else looks strong to back that up? Ponies?
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