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Right, there has been a discussion going on in the regulars league and Ash proposed that it may be better to divert the topic to the main forum page to get a bigger discussion. The debate we were having was to whether our slates would benefit more from monster blockbusters or a series of mid range movies.

To clarify, Ash has Iron Man on his slate as well as Indy, becs has gone with Narnia and Wall-E, while I have Indy combined with The Incredible Hulk, Get Smart and Zohan. After getting stung on more than one occassion from blockbusters in the past year (combo of Pirates/Spidey 3, Cloverfield, Semi Pro), I have decided that picking mid range movies for the same price offer more breathing space in case of disaster. Ash felt that Iron Man would gain more points and BO and leave him the space on his slate for some cheap picks.

I guess its good that this season has offered so many alternatives compared to previous months, meaning that scores can really be very diverse. What does everyone else think about mid range choices vs blockbuster priced movies?

If you want to win in the big months, take the blockbusters. In small months (when Cloverfield and Semi-Pro came out), anything came happen. Since this is a big month, take blockbusters.

Meanwhile, I took the upcoming Murderers' Row lineup (Indy, Wall-E and Batman) in several lineups and Iron Man in a few others.

Well i thought the same thing last year, Buscemi, and went with Spidey 3 and Pirates 3. I ended up finishing 15th! I just think by going with two monster blockbuster priced movies, it leaves you with options like Henry Poole, The Strangers etc, I would not want them on my slate. The will pick up few (if any PTA), no BO and no top 5s. And will probably have low imdbs. I just think going for mid range movies offer you better options and a more even slate.

A friend of mine operates under the $2 theory (and has been wildly successful against unwitting amateurs). He'll take three big monster films and fill out the rest of his slate with $2 films that are expected to do no more than prevent him from scoring 0's in iMDb. This generally allows him to win box office, be very competitive in top 5 and pta and reasonably successful in iMDb. He generally finishes in the upper table of the league where he plays and is very content to continue doing so. As I mentioned above, this strategy is particularly effective against newer players who who don't know better or those with a pathological need to 'outscore him.' They won't, they don't, they lose. Every time.

That strategy works just fine until he plays more seasoned opposition. Game theory and common sense prevent me from explaining why I think he fails miserably against experienced competitors in both minor and major leagues.

I was curious about this myself so I made 1 actual slate and 2 experimental slates for the March-May season. The first slate I chose a standard pick (according to my judgement). It had Paranoid Park, Horton, Iron Man, Sarah Marshall, Street Kings, etc. This slate is 2nd currently and has a 98% right now.

The 1st Experiment was all midrange movies. Horton, Baby Mama, Leatherheads (bomb), Sarah Marshall, SOP, Vegas, Smart People. Obviously two of these movies underperformed (cough*Smart People*cough) and this slate is 3/50 with an 83%.

The 2nd Experiment was the blockbuster slate with Iron Man AND Indiana Jones plus 23 bucks worth of tiny movies (Mr. Lonely, Street Kings, Sarah Marshal, Shutter, DrillBit Taylor (bomb), and Deception. This slate is currently 10/50 with a 61% but still has a month of IM and 2 weeks of Indy.

Once the final numbers are done at the end of the season I can check my exact numbers for the 4 categories but I think the mixed bag is going to win out. I do not think weighing heavily towards one of the other has any advantages. The blockbusters will kill a slate if they underperform but can rake in the points when they do well. The mid-range provides great flexibility since you do not have 1/3 of your money tied up in one movie. If one bombs (smart People) then you still have 80-90 bucks to make up for it.

good of you to bring it out here SS....

now let me begin by saying that in most summers, i would have done the exact same thing as SS....last year for example (if it hadn't been my first slate ever), i would have gone with bourne, rush hour 3 et al instead of transformers and $40-something amongst 7 other movies....

but this year is different IMO, mainly because the blockbusters seem very reasonably priced to me....i'd pick Iron Man for $39-40 anyday if it opened to $100 mil and carried on to make about $300 mil, 17+ T5, 9+ PTA and an 8.4 UR....on the other hand, SS has gone the mid-range route and picked up Get Smart, Hulk and Zohan, and my argument was that if even one of them bombs (and I think Hulk will) they won't be able to match my Iron Man and my bonus is that I can add 2 more prestige movies that'll pick me up some PTA and give me some more good UR's....

so there.... that's what went through my head....

so to round up, i guess what i want a prediction on is whether the Iron Man +2 prestige picks (at this point, Mr Lonely & Savage Grace/Edge of Heaven) will work better or whether the 3 mid-range picks a la Get Smart, Hulk, Zohan will fare better....

in most summers, i'd be right there beside SS, but i believe this summer could be different (at least this season, with the modest prices on IM and Indy)

PS>> something i neglected completely to mention is that pretty much everyone i know (exaggeration, but not much) has Indy, so that really isn't an advantage any more, but if it opens to the $100-130 mil that i'm hearing from (not industry insiders, but not the least reliable either) sources, then the only difference it'll make is to become a disadvantage to those who don't have it....

In the May 2007 Box Office Leagues, no one with any of the May Monsters even finished in the Top 3.

The winning slate looked like this:

Transformers ($33)
Knocked Up ($17)
Ocean's 13 ($18]
Chuck & Larry ($12)
Die Hard 4 ($10)
1408 (an inexplicable $2)
Mr. Brooks ($3)
28 Weeks Later ($4)

In this league, Ratatouille ($33), Harry Potter ($28], and Simpsons ($6) were also bargains, even though they all came out in the third month.

I was convinced you couldn't win without the May Monsters, which were priced thus:

Spider Man 3 - $57
Shrek the Third - $63
Pirates 3 - $64

Which is just so patently ridiculous, in hindsight. However, this summer's blockbusters are priced much more reasonably (except Speed Racer), which makes things much more interesting.

IMO ash hits the nail on the head a couple of times when he writes of (a) one of the mid-rangers bombing and (b) adding "prestige" movies to a blockbuster. There are normally a few $2-$4 jewels that have a not so appealing IMDb rating on FM, but if you investigate a little, you'll hear a different song being sung by the IMDb raters. As far as bombs go, a potential blockbuster can bomb just as easily as a mid-range film, although the "blockbuster" variety can usually be sniffed out a little easier. The more mid-range hits you put on your slates, the more chances you have of being burned.

I like the blockbuster route. Sure it can burn ya, but as has been previously stated, if all goes well in the blockbuster state, then the door is open for highly touted PTA prospects.

Now for Box Office, it's all about money so getting as much money for as little money as possible is the best bet. That's what made Step Up 2 and Hannah vault me up so highly in round 2 even though I took a catnap in March.

thanks synestro, we see eye-to-eye it seems....

however, there is no right or wrong here and things might turn out not-so-rosy for me if Hulk, Smart and Zohan all take off....i guess IMO this summer's blockbusters, as Shryke pointed out, are just priced much more reasonably, which makes them great buys....

speaking of Shryke, what's your opinion bud?? get off the fence and tell us which way you're leaning....i'd just take a look at your slates, but i'm too lazy....

I wasn't around for the insanely priced movies of last summer but I can see why they would not allow much leeway. Especially with movies like 1408 being 2 bucks.

This summer seems much more reasonable in price/performance.

ashkul88 wrote:

thanks synestro
speaking of Shryke, what's your opinion bud?? get off the fence and tell us which way you're leaning....i'd just take a look at your slates, but i'm too lazy....

(Grumble)

Fine, ash.

Truth is, my strategy often changes from season to season. There are seasons when almost everything seems overpriced, and there are seasons when most everything look like a bargain.

My most recent strategy is this: in Box Office, assign every film a score based on a millions of dollars per dollar spent ratio. This season, there are a few movies that might earn a score of 10, including Indiana Jones, What Happens in Vegas and Hellboy 2. These are just based on estimates, of course, but then I go down my list and figure out how to fit the films with the highest "scores" on my slate. In the May season, a good score would be 8 or higher, meaning that $800 million is probably what it will take to win. In past season, however, a score of 4 or 5 would be good.

In Ultimate, of course, there's a lot more to consider, but I try to use a similar scoring system, breaking them down into Blockbusters, Mid-Rangers and Arthouse.

interesting....analytical as always.

so where does your strategy point you this season?

and in relation to some earlier comments by (was it??) Donte or SS, who said they'd had the misfortune of picking Semi-pro, Cloverfield etc. the only blockbusters i've ever gone with are Transformers and HP5 (in only one slate), I Am Legend and now Iron Man....so you'll forgive me if i'm not as paranoid about being screwed over by 'monsters' as some of you guys are....the blockbusters have been good to me (relatively) and as long as i keep picking winners (which doesn't seem to be that hard with blockbusters), and as long as they are reasonably priced, i don't mind a little free-spending on a big movie.

for example, i knew about a week before beowulf, and also cloverfield, that these movies were class-A untouchable material....with Semi-Pro, i just got lucky....i returned from a trip at around 1:00 am the day that Semi-Pro released and couldn't add it onto my slates....but hey, i'll take a little luck

....who wouldn't??

my strategy changes from season to seaason i also a couple of experimental slates i dont know how they are faring right now i should check that out.

I'm not very good at this game, and play Ultimates almost exclusively. But in my opinion, this game is, and always will be, about value. Some people have brought this up when talking about how overpriced some blockbusters have been in the past, but haven't really come out and said it. In each season there's a certain expectation that comes from each fantasy dollar you spend to build your slate. The vast majority of us, myself included, probably don't have the slightest clue what that expectation is, but it's there: we expect Iron Man to achieve a certain level of success for its price, while we expect Speed Racer to achieve a lower level of success for its similar price.

When something like Alvin and the Chipmunks explodes onto the scene, it completely demolishes its expected value. This allows you to get tons of utility out of the money you spent on that film, and you get to use your dollars for other movies.

Of course, if you picked all mid range movies, you'd probably not spend all your fantasy dollars because you can only choose 8 films. Sometimes, you're forced to spend on more expensive picks simply to get rid of cash (not that this is always the best play).

Blockbusters rarely have surprising returns: they can underperform, but they're rarely pleasant surprises. In smaller leagues, or leagues where your goal may not necessarily be to place first, picking blockbusters is fairly safe: you know what you're going to get for the price, and can adjust your strategy accordingly. As leagues get larger, and you want to win, you have to "gamble" more on mid-range picks and hope some of them bust out at the box office in order to win.

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