Welcome to Box Office Wizard, Player Affinity’s Movie Box Office Prediction Contest. Just read through this post and tell us your top five box office predicted finishers for this weekend. Finish out 2011 on top and you will win something COOL.
This is Week 31.
Contest Rules: To qualify, entries must be submitted in the Comments Section. For every movie you correctly place in the box office top five (say you pick “Resident Evil: Afterthought 3D” to rank first in the box office that weekend and it comes in first), you earn one point. The movie selection must be in its correct rank to earn a point. Points are cumulative. We will keep track of your correct percentage. WANT FIVE BONUS POINTS??? Leave your official wizard name in the Comment Section with your entry. Be creative. Example names are in our Wizarding Leaderboard.
How scoring works: 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 has 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 comments section qualify.
-Predictions must be in by Noon (in the time zone you’re in) the Saturday after the weekly post goes up and Noon Friday on Holiday weekends.
-Only the Weekend Actuals (released Monday afternoons) count as the official totals, not the estimates that most news sources publish Sunday afternoons.
-For 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).
Top Five From Last Weekend
1. The Help - $20 M ... $71.3 M
2. Rise of the Planet of the Apes - $16.1 M ... $133.5 M
3. Spy Kids: All the Time in the World - $11.6 M ... $11.6 M
4. Conan the Barbarian - $10 M ... $10 M
5. The Smurfs - $7.8 M ... $117.5 M
Week #30 Wizard(s): Everyone - 1 pt
Current Cumulative Box Office Wizard(s): Cinemus the Predictor (me) - 89 pts
Current Percentage Box Office Wizard(s): Simonious Saysian - 59%
Cinemus the Predictor - 89 (84/150 - 56%)
Herpious Derpious - 88 (83/150 - 55%)
Kieran - 73 (73/145 - 51%)
Simonius Saysian - 70 (65/110 - 59%)
Lord Jamven Serpenthelm - 20 (15/35 - 43%)
MacGumblebug the Third - 9 (4/10) - 40%)
PeeWee the Purple - 8 (3/10 - 30%)
Julian - 7 (7/15 - 48%)
Max A - 5 (5/10 - 50%)
Alex M - 2 (2/10 - 20%)
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
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
Directed by Troy Nixey
Written by Guillermo Del Toro, Matthew Robbins, Nigel McKeand (1976 teleplay)
Starring: Guy Pearce, Katie Holmes, Bailee Madison
Genre: Horror/Fantasy
Distributor: FilmDistrict
Release: 2,760 theaters 
Colombiana
Directed by Olivier Megaton
Written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen
Starring: Zoe Saldana, Michael Vartan, Callum Blue
Genre: Action
Distributor: TriStar
Release: 2,614 theaters 
Our Idiot Brother
Directed by Jesse Peretz
Written by David Schisgall, Evgenia Peretz
Starring: Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Mortimer
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Distributor: The Weinstein Co.
Release: 2,555 theaters
My Box Office Predictions
Outside of two films, August has been an awful month for the box office, so don’t expect the summer to end on a high note. Believe it or not, The Help should continue to draw crowds and finish with another $15 million this weekend. Sadly, that’s good enough for first place; no film looks like it has quite enough to be a sleeper hit a la Takers last year.
The rest of the top-five finishers all project within $8-12 million. With horror generally doing well at the box office in late August and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark looking like legit horror, I think it can manage $12 million. Next, I’m going to make a bolder choice and go with Our Idiot Brother. Paul Rudd has a good rep and the film is already getting a bigger release than expected, so I think $10 million is reasonable. That should be just a tad better than the $9-10 million for Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
With only Zoe Saldana, it’s hard to get too behind Colombiana, but as a revenge flick, it should manage $8 million at the least.
1. The Help
2. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
3. Our Idiot Brother
4. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
5. Colombiana
