X-Men 3 Opening Weekend: Gambling on the Box Office

[llabb]

Opens today! Who else is excited to see this? And what does this have to do with the Zoo? Same thing as American Idol, it's Internet Gambling. This forum was quite helpful for wagering successfully on AI, and it could do the same thing for box office wagering.

WSEX, TradeSports, Intertops, and other online wagering sites all offer odds every week on box office wagers. This forum contains the primary target demographic for most summer blockbusters, 15-45 yr old males, so should have a good gauge on what movies look good or not. There is also a good information available to help analyze box office projections.

To start with, another poster started a thread in Sports Betting that might get better reception here. The initial wager was:

X-Men 3 Opening Weekend (3-day):
Over 80 million -115
Under 80 million -115

I posted a bunch of analysis in that thread, the long and short of it being that X2 opened to $85 million, and X3 is on Memorial Day weekend and should open even bigger. Tons of facts to support this.

I liked wagering on it all the way up to -200 and perhaps beyond, as I thought that a movie in this spot with these credentials goes Over 8 times out of 10 (worth -400). You can still bet on this now, on Intertops, TradeSports, and perhaps a few other places.

Anyone have any thoughts on this, or interested in regularly discussing box office wagering? Some exciting movies coming out, Superman Returns, Pirates of the Caribbean 2, Miami Vice, etc., so there will be lots of good opportunities coming up as well.

[playersare]

AI is allowed in the zoo only because of the Granny Mae clause. all other entertainment props would still technically belong only in the Sports Betting forum.

[TylerD]

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technically

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...is right. This forum has for a long time been open to OT posts, and seeing how this is actually is only v. slightly OT I don't see any problems and I'm sure Mike and Jim would agree.

[revots33]

I enjoy betting on non-sports events (primarily Academy Awards and Idol) but for some reason I just can't get into the box-office thing. All I know is that "Cars" is gonna make a s**tload of money.

[Wires]

Box Office Mojo is projecting 101 million and they tend to be very accurate. I'm somewhat surprised considering the skepticism surrounding Ratner's ability to pull this off as well as the lukewarm reviews (58% on Rotten Tomatoes). The DaVinci Code was probably the most anticipated film of the summer and it did 77 million. Based on that I would have projected X3 to open between 70 and 80 million - thus the under.

[llabb]

Yeah, most analysts have it at $100-125 million for the 4-day weekend, which is around $80-100 million for the 3-day. X3 benefits from Memorial Day weekend, the biggest weekend of the year. X3 also had a ton of sold out midnight showings last night. Based on that and the Memorial Day factor alone, if it matches Da Vinci, it'll easily be $85 million+.

[Jurollo]

FWIW every big movie so far this year has dissappointed at the B.O. MI:3 only made $47m, Poseidon made $22m and the Da Vinci Code which fully used the media hype machine for months only made $77m, my inclination would be to go under here llabb.
~Justin

[llabb]

Yeah, I hear you. That and the director switch are the two things I was initially somewhat nervous about. But the MI trailer was weak and people don't like Tom Cruise anymore. Everyone knew Poseidon looked bad, and Da Vinci got absolutely horrible reviews, with people laughing at it in Cannes.

Overall box office is actually up this year, and looks like it'll be one of the biggest May's in the last 5 years. So if overall box office is up, even though the other big movies didn't do so well, I think that X3 will crush at the box office. Do you think X3 does worse than Da Vinci? Seems like a much bigger draw to me, as one of the most anticipated movies this summer, and has the top or 2nd largest built-in fanbase (X3 and Superman).

[llabb]

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I'd bet under. It has to compete with the davinci code.

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For the Under crowd, you can get great deals. On TradeSports, the Over has been bid up to -250, so you can get +250 on the Under.

That said, I wouldn't do it. I'm only taking the Over up to -200, gets too expensive after that, but I think it's worth up to -400.

[Full Metal]

I'd bet under. It has to compete with the davinci code.