Box Office Wizard (3.18.11)

Welcome to the NEW Box Office Wizard, Player Affinity’s premiere movie box office prediction competition and your chance every week to feel like a flippin’ genius – nay – wizard. Entering is and always has been simple. You read through this post and leave a comment with, in order, what you think the top five box office finishers will be that weekend. Finish out 2011 on top and you will win something COOL.

WANT FIVE BONUS POINTS??? In your comments, leave your official wizard name. Be creative. See some example names in our Wizarding Leaderboard.

Below you’ll find another recap of the rules, last week’s Top Five, current BOW Standings, a list of new movies getting wide releases this weekend and some details and then finally an explanation of my Top Five predictions to give you a starting point.

This is Week 10. 

How it Works: For every movie you correctly place in the box office top five (say you pick “The Land Before Time XXVI,” to rank second in the box office that weekend and it comes in second), you earn a point. Only if a movie is in its correct place can you earn a point. (You could have all top five movies out of order and get a fat 0, it happens.) Points are cumulative. We will also keep track of the percentage you have correct.

So, let’s say you’ve played for four weeks and missed only four movies. You then have 16 Cumulative Points out of 20 and a prediction percentage of 75%. Not too shabby. Someone else could have 64 CP out of 110 and be ahead of you in CP, but behind you (58%) in percentage. You must, however, have played 8 weeks to be eligible for the Percentage crown. When the year is up, whoever has the most cumulative points and whoever the highest percentage (could be the same person) wins the title of Box Office Wizard 2011.

Official Scoring/The Fine Print:

• Only submissions in the comment section count.
•  Predictions must be in by Noon (the time zone you’re in) the Saturday after the weekly post goes up.
• Only the Weekend Actuals (released Monday afternoons) count as the official totals, not the estimates that most news sources     publish Sunday afternoons.
• On holiday weekends that start early or end late, only the three-day Friday through Sunday totals count.
• Look for Dinah Galley’s box office recap on Mondays for the weekend’s results (not always the actuals, so look closely)

Last Week's Top Five 

1.  Battle: Los Angeles - $36.0M (weekend)…$36.0M (gross)
2.  Rango - $23.0M…$68.6M
3.  Red Riding Hood - $14.1M…$14.1M
4.  The Adjustment Bureau - $11.4M…$38.4M 
5.  Mars Needs Moms - $6.9M…$6.8M

WIZARD LEADERBOARD (Cumulative Pts)

Cinemus the Predictor - 31 (28/45 - 62%)
Herpious Derpious - 27 (21/45 - 47%)
Simonius Saysian - 24 (19/40 - 47%)
Kieran - 20 (20/45 - 44%)
Lord Jamven Serpenthelm - 15 (10/30 - 30%)
Julian - 6 (6/10 - 60%)
Max A - 5 (5/10 - 50%)


BOX OFFICE WIZARD HALL OF FAME

2010 Box Office Wizard: SimonSays - 97 pts in 34 weeks
2010 Box Office Wizard: Steven C - 97 pts in 34 weeks

New Contenders this Weekend

My Box Office Predictions

Get your dice ready ladies and gents, for we have a good old-fashionshed crapshoot. None of the new films this week have an obvious draw that says anything close to $20 million. As such, I think Battle: Los Angeles is as likely a candidate as any to stay in first place. It will likely hit the $16-18 million range which is more of a guarantee than any of the other films coming out.

I’m also going to choose Rango for second although I’m nervous one of the new films could surprise. “Rango” has no competition and glowing reviews, so it’s hard to see it falling below $15 million.

The wildcard of the newcomers is Limitless but I like it’s PG-13 rating and Cooper’s box-office draw could be a pleasant surprise. This film could end up winning the box office even with $18-20 million, but I’m really skeptical with Relativity distributing and its ambiguous marketing. $13 million is my guess.

I want to put Paul higher on my list, but Pegg and Frost are not big draws outside of the movie geek community and so I suspect a small Male-skewing crowd in attendance. $10-12 million is what I’m thinking.

Positive reviews are coming in for The Lincoln Lawyer and crime dramas of this nature generally pull in $8-10 million, so I think this one is safe to fend off Red Riding Hood and The Adjustment Bureau.

1. Battle: Los Angeles
2. Rango
3. Limitless
4. Paul
5. The Lincoln Lawyer