The time has come, the spring Fantasy Movie League season is coming to a close, and the summer season is upon us. It is time to fire up the TAGN League for summer blockbusters.
I actually feel like we’re a week too late. Maybe two weeks too late. Regardless of what the calendar makers say, for me summer runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day in the US. That is certainly when the big summer movies hit the screens and have their runs. A big Memorial Day release can sometimes still be found on budget theater screens at the far end of summer.
For whatever reason, FML ran the spring league for 14 weeks, putting it through Memorial Day and the weekend beyond. That means the summer league doesn’t get to start with big box office draws like Aladdin, which launched last week, and Godzilla: King of Monsters.
Add in John Wick 3 and Avengers: End Game having already launched and you start to wonder if we’ve been robbed of the big weeks one expects during summer.
But we shouldn’t fret. I think we got all of those early because the summer is still full of titles that will no doubt bring in big numbers. Headliners for some of the summer weekends include:
- June 7 – X-Men: Dark Phoenix
- June 14 – Men in Black: International
- June 21 – Toy Story 4
- July 5 – Spider-man: Far from Home
- July 19 – The Lion King
- August 2 – Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
That is a lot of sequels, spin-offs, and remakes. But there are also the smaller titles that could break out and become horribly over-done dynasties of their own some day. And then there are the horror movies that always seem to do much better than I predict. Will they fool me again this summer?
Anyway, my tentative plans for the summer league include the following:
- Thursday night lock so we all have to pick before the preview numbers hit
- No empty screen penalty
- $2 million bonus for the worst performing film
I am sold on the first one, while the other two I am putting out there just to shake things up a bit. If people scream in the comments about either I may put them back the way they were.
Otherwise things will be about the same as the last season I ran, including the main an alternate scoring method.
I had mentioned possibly breaking up the summer into three shorter sprints. However, just because FML gives you a field that shows the duration of a season doesn’t mean that you can edit it. It looks like we are stuck with 13 weeks unless I am missing something.
In the mean time the spring league looks like it might have a surprise winner. Goat had led the whole season, only to be upset last week by Miniature Giant Space Hamsterplex. Goat (and I) bet against Aladdin, which went on to do better than expected, with an exceptionally strong Sunday.
I will post the winners for spring next week in addition to the opening week post for the summer season.
If you are interested in playing, I will post a link to join the TAGN league in the comments on this post and in next week’s post. The links expire after a few days and you will need to create an account at the FML site to play.
I am also considering creating a Discord server for the blog where, among other things, movie discussion could be a channel. Discord is light and, if you already have it, one more server on your list isn’t a big deal. (I actually created one ages ago, I’ve just never invited anybody to it.)
As always, if you have any suggestions for the season let me know in the comments.
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