Box Office Blitz Season 2 Begins!

We've reached the half-point of the year (more or less) and so now it's time to settle in for 26 more weeks of Box Office Blitz!  This is the official start of season 2.  All scores are reset to zero now, which means for a week or two it's anyone's game.  There will be a slight change to the scoring system, but otherwise the rules are pretty much the same.  If you're playing for the first time (or have returned after a long time or just don't remember what this was about) then here's a complete listing of the rules.

The object of the game is to pick the top 3 highest-grossing movies at the box office over a given weekend.  (For holiday weekends the weekend still only includes Friday-Sunday.)  The best way to win is to get the movies in the right order as extra points will be given for those.  I've decided to try a graduated scoring system that works in a top-down fashion, or sort of like a pyramid.

For each movie you guess correctly in the top 3 you get 100 points.  The graduated system affects the bonus you get for putting them in the right order.  It breaks down as follows:

If you guess the #1 movie correctly you get 100 bonus points.
If you guess the #2 movie correctly you get 200 bonus points.
If you guess the #3 movie correctly you get 300 bonus points.

The reason to do it this way is most weeks you can guess the #1 movie pretty easily.  (This is not one of those weeks.)  From what I've observed, it's much more difficult to pick the #3 movie as there are more options for that. 

Even if you don't guess the #1 or #2 movies correctly you'd still get the bonus if you pick the correct #3 movie.

If there's a tie, the winner is determined by closest to actual (over or under) dollar value of the #1 movie.  In the unlikely event there's still a tie then we move to the #2 movie and so on.  And if in some weird twist there's still a tie then I guess I'd flip a coin or something.  The important thing is to remember to put dollar values for your picks because no dollar value means you're guessing $0 and will certainly be outbid.

The winner of the round gets a 300 point bonus.  This is dialed back a little in the hopes of keeping things a little closer and thus to maintain people's interest.
 

Picks should be made by 6am EST on Saturday.  Any picks after that will not be accepted.  The results will be tallied on Sunday afternoon.

The winner of Season 2 gets $25 as a gift card or cash through Paypal or whatever.  Second place receives $15 and third place receives $10.  Participants after that receive a free ebook from my imprint Planet 99 Publishing.  If you don't have an ereader then you just get a hearty thanks for playing.

Is that all clear as mud?  Now let's get playing!  This week it's a tough call.  Pacific Rim?  Grown Ups 2?  Despicable Me 2?  It's going to be tough to decide.  I'd like Pacific Rim to come out on top over Grown Ups 2, but the public's affinity for cheap laughs may prevail.  But then kids movies have a proven track record this summer, so there's a chance Despicable Me 2 beats both new films.

Here's the list of movies from my local megaplex (* denotes a new release)

• Despicable Me 2

• Fast & Furious 6

• Grown Ups 2* (aka Middle-Aged Comedians Need Money!)

• Iron Man 3 
• Kevin Hart:  Let Me Explain
• Killing Season*

• Man of Steel 

• Monster University

• Mud 

• Now You See Me 

• Pacific Rim*

• Star Trek Into Darkness

• The Great Gatsby

• The Heat

• The Internship

• The Lone Ranger

• This is the End

• White House Down

• World War Z

And my picks will be:

1. Despicable Me 2 $60M
2. Pacific Rim $50M
3. Grown Ups 2 $45M

(Though Offutt might get Pacific Rim up to $50M all by himself.  Which got me thinking:  how many screenings do you think you could see in one weekend?  With trailers and commercials and stuff it's got to be close to 3 hours, so I guess 8 screenings a day if the theater were open 24 hours, but since they aren't, maybe 5 or 6?  So maybe 15-18 in one three-day weekend?)

Now it's your turn to make picks in the comments.  If you're confused about anything in the game, let me know.