Box Office Blitz Week 8

Week 7 was notable for my screw-up that got everyone who played 100 points, but otherwise Tony Laplume is still in command while Andrew Leon has snuck into second place.  Incidentally, you can buy Tony's book Project Mayhem for Kindle and in print.  It includes a very short story by ME about the Newtown massacre.

Before we begin today, just a little Oscar recap.  I didn't actually watch it as I didn't even get home until 9:45 that night and then I had to unpack and do laundry and so on and so forth and then just collapsed on my bed.  If you read my picks about a month ago I did get the Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress right, so woo hoo.

From the sound of it, Seth MacFarlane did pretty much what I thought he'd do, a lot of musical numbers and such.  I mean if you didn't expect that then you haven't paid attention to anything he's ever done.  Of course people wanted to rail about how much he sucked.  I think the real problem is with the Academy themselves.  They never seem to know what direction they want the broadcast to go.  They bring in someone like MacFarlane or Chris Rock who's known for edgier humor but then because it's THE OSCARS they don't really want them to make it TOO edgy, so they try to water it down and then no one is happy because some people still complain it was too edgy while others complain it wasn't edgy enough.  The obvious solution is to just let Billy Crystal do it until he dies.  Or just hire Ryan Seacrest if you just want some talking head to introduce people.  But really just decide what kind of broadcast you want and go in that direction.  You can't have edgy and stodgy; it just doesn't work.  And to a lesser extent the same was true of the Golden Globes when they hired Ricky Gervais; don't hire a guy you know is going to be randy and then complain because he's randy up there.

Anyway, now it's time to get on with the program here.  The object of the game is to pick the top 3 of this weekend's box office.  You get 50 bonus points for each movie you name that gets in the top 3 and 50 more bonus points if that movie is in the correct spot.  The winner gets a 500 point bonus.  If there's a tie then dollar amounts are used as the tiebreaker.

After last week's screw-up I'm not going to take any chances this week!  I'll list every movie playing at my local megaplex, even the old ones that aren't in the top 10.  You never know when "Parental Guidance" might make a comeback, right?  (* indicates a new release)

• Jack the Giant Killer*
• Phantom*
• Quartet*
• Sweeney*
• 21 and Over*
• A Good Day to Die Hard
• Argo
• Beautiful Creatures
• Dark Skies
• Django Unchained
• Escape from Planet Earth
• Hansel & Gretel
• Identity Thief
• Les Miserables
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Mama
• Parental Guidance
• Safe Haven
• Side Effects
• Silver Linings Playbook
• Snitch
• The Impossible
• The Last Exorcism 2*
• Warm Bodies
• Wreck-It Ralph
• Zero Dark 30

As always I'll go first.  A lot of new releases this week and I only know about a couple of them.  (I gotta start reading the trades or something.)  So I'll pick:

• Jack the Giant Slayer $25M
• Last Exorcism 2 $15M
• 21 and Over $12M

Now it's time for a bonus question worth 200 points this week because no one won last week's--or rather no one other than the person who won the round got it right.  This week let's make it one that's guaranteed to have a winner--unless you don't guess.

Last week's #1 Identity Thief took in a paltry $14M.  Will the #1 movie this week make at least twice that amount?  If you're not good at math that means do you think the #1 movie this week will make $28M or more?  Answer YES or NO along with your picks.  Simple enough.

Results should be posted on Sunday afternoon.