The 2015 Summer Movie Wager was quite a surprise. So many films surprised us. So many films bombed, unexpectedly. We can hope these results will give Hollywood the proper direction to improve, but this hardly ever happens. The fact is, money in Hollywood speaks the loudest. That is the purpose in itself, not to make films... much less good ones.
For example, I found Jurassic World to be a less than stellar film. Not much there of any real value to chew on. Just nostalgic flim flam. Much of the world was intoduced to two new stars... Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. And some new CG creations. Not much else to see here.
However, because this film blew away box office records, nothing any of us predicted, Hollywood may assume that we want to see big CGI dinosaurs and ever more reboots, rehashes, sequels, etc. At least the 'rebootitis' that Hollywood has acquired (transforming into 'franchisitis') seems to be working for them. But the belief that we want to see more dinosaurs may be misguided.
So, every year I participate in the Summer Movie Wager to see if my predictions can get close to the reality. I think I did much better last year. But, first lets look at my predictions.
My 2015 Summer Movie Wager
1. Avengers: Age of Ultron
2. Minions
3. Jurassic World
4. Ant-Man
5. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
6. Mad Max: Fury Road
7. Ted 2
8. Magic Mike XXL
9. Inside Out
10. Tomorrowland
Dark horses:
Terminator Genisys
Fantastic Four
Man from UNCLE
Dark Horses are for the purpose of hedging your bets. Hoping at least that one of these films may make it if your predictions didnt quite pan out. None of my Dark Horses made ANY progress. Surprisingly, All Dark Horses did badly in the USA, but at least Terminator did well internationally. But the Fantastic Four is one of the biggest upsets this year. And I have been surprised at how poorly Man from UNCLE has performed. It was a really fun film!
So, lets look at the REAL results of what occurred this summer. Here are the top ten films by domestic box office for May-Early Sept (Labor day weekend) 2015:
Domestic Box Office May-Early Sept 2015:
1. Jurassic World
2. Avengers: Age of Ultron
3. Inside Out
4. Minions
5. Pitch Perfect 2
6. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
7. Ant-Man
8. San Andreas
9. Mad Max: Fury Road
10. Straight Outta Compton
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Other films of note (in order of DBO performance):
11. Spy
12. Trainwreck
13. Tomorrowland
14. Terminator Genisys
15. Ted 2
16. Pixels
17. Magic Mike XXL
18. Vacation
19. Fantastic Four
20. Man From U.N.C.L.E.
I was, of course, surprised by Jurassic World's performance, as well as Inside Out, Pitch Perfect 2, San Andreas, Straight Outta Compton. Movies I was dissapointed by include: Tomorrowland, Terminator Genisys, Ted 2, Fantastic Four, Man From U.N.C.L.E..
Here's how they score the wager:
- Getting number 1 or number 10 dead-on gets you 13 points (each).
The rest of the scoring goes like this:
- 10 points for numbers 2-9 dead-on
- 7 points if your pick was only one spot away from where it ended up
- 5 points if it was two spots away
- 3 points if your pick is anywhere in the Top 10
- 1 point for each dark horse that makes it into the Top 10
The scoring is tabulated so that you get the SINGLE HIGHEST point value for each pick- that is, if you get number ten right, you don’t get 13+3, you only get 13.
So, dissappointingly, this gave me these points...
7 points each for Avengers and for Mission Impossible (1 place away)=14
5 points each for Jurassic World and for Minions (2 places away)=10
3 points each for Inside Out, Ant-Man, and Mad Max: Fury Road (on the list)=9
14+10+9=33 points. This is HALF the score I made last year. Ooooops! ;)
5 points each for Jurassic World and for Minions (2 places away)=10
3 points each for Inside Out, Ant-Man, and Mad Max: Fury Road (on the list)=9
14+10+9=33 points. This is HALF the score I made last year. Ooooops! ;)
I guess the results this year were NOT as easily predicted as I thought. There were so many wildcards like Pitch Perfect and Ted 2 and Magic Mike. Not to mention, no one expected "Straight Outta Compton" or films like "Spy" to do so well!
Did you participate? What were YOUR results??
