View Poll Results: Which will be the top films at the boxoffice this winter

Voters
34. You may not vote on this poll
  • Interstellar

    31 91.18%
  • Big Hero 6

    27 79.41%
  • Dumb and Dumber To

    1 2.94%
  • Hunger Games 3

    34 100.00%
  • Penguins of Madagascar

    11 32.35%
  • Horrible Bosses 2

    1 2.94%
  • Exodus: Gods and Kings

    7 20.59%
  • Hobbit 3

    34 100.00%
  • Night at Museum 3

    14 41.18%
  • Annie

    0 0%
  • Into the Woods

    5 14.71%
  • Unbroken

    5 14.71%
  • The Interview

    0 0%
  • Taken 3

    0 0%
  • Other (list in post)

    0 0%
Multiple Choice Poll.
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  1. #1
    Join Date
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    Top 5 Films of Winter 2014

    Yikes, I meant to get this started sooner, but it slipped my mind for a few days.

    You know the rules by now-- we are selecting the films we think will make the most money at the boxoffice over the winter season. We are going to define winter as ticket sales earned between Mon Nov 3 and Sunday Feb 1. The contest will close on Feb 1!!

    You must make your pick in the next week, we will wrap up the voting process by Nov 2. Make sure you fill in the poll to vote for 5 films. If you only pick 4 or 3, you are not really playing the game. 4-for-4 is not better than 4-for-5. Unlike the summer, when we have never had a perfect 5-for-5, I believe we have had a couple 5-for-5 pickers in the winter.

    Anyway, here is the list of contenders, in chronological order:

    • Interstellar - Nov 5
    • Big Hero 6 - Nov 7
    • Dumb and Dumber To - Nov 14
    • Hunger Games 3 - Nov 21
    • Penguins of Madagascar - Nov 26
    • Horrible Bosses 2 - Nov 26
    • Exodus - Dec 12
    • Hobbit 3 - Dec 17
    • Night at Museum 3 - Dec 19
    • Annie - Dec 19
    • Into the Woods - Dec 25
    • Unbroken - Dec 25
    • The Interview - Dec 25
    • Taken 3 - Jan 9


    -Jason "vote early, vote often..." Evans
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  2. #2
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    Winter is always easier than summer. I think there are 4 locks and really only 2 or 3 contenders for the 5th spot, though the awards contenders always throw a wrinkle into things. Sometimes an award-level film can suddenly seize the public consciousness and become a much bigger hit than anticipated.

    -Jason
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  3. #3
    Join Date
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    What has the been the latest date a movie in our past top fives was released? Any Christmas day movies?
    Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by JasonEvans View Post
    This poll will close on 11-01-2014 at 12:57 PM
    Weird deadline. Nothing happens until midnight November 4. I do like the inclusion of Tak3n, though. Keeps us on our toes.

    Here are the Hollywood Stock Exchange numbers for the films in the poll.

    $388.91 The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1
    $237.65 The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, With Six Endings
    $164.52 Interstellar
    $162.25 Big Hero 6
    $141.46 Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
    $112.87 Exodus: Gods and Kings
    $103.23 Into the Woods
    $98.83 The Penguins of Madagascar
    $85.35 Dumb and Dumber To
    $74.49 Tak3n
    $78.80 Horrible Bosses 2
    $60.72 Annie
    $51.09 Unbroken
    $49.92 The Interview

    HSX does not list any films widely released before January 9 that are predicted to do better than The Interview. (It does list American Sniper at $57.55, but that film is currently scheduled to open in limited release on Christmas and wide on January 16.)

    Quote Originally Posted by CameronBornAndBred View Post
    What has the been the latest date a movie in our past top fives was released? Any Christmas day movies?
    This doesn't answer your question exactly, but Box Office Mojo keeps tabs on seasonal box office victors. You can click each year and see the release dates for each Top Five. Generally, films need to be released by mid-December.
    Last edited by brevity; 10-25-2014 at 07:10 PM.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by CameronBornAndBred View Post
    What has the been the latest date a movie in our past top fives was released? Any Christmas day movies?
    Generally, for the winter poll, you are looking for films that will make about $150+, maybe $160+ in total boxoffice. It is pretty rare that a film will do $160+ and not be in our top 5 of Winter.

    Last year's top 5 were: Hunger Games 2, Frozen, Hobbit 2, Thor 2, and American Hustle. Hobbit and Hustle were released the latest, 12/13. But, Anchorman 2 (12/18) and Wolf of Wall Street (12/25) were late Dec releases that came in 6th and 7th.

    In 2012 the top 5 were, Skyfall, Hobbit, Twilight 5, Wreck-it-Ralph, and Lincoln. Hobbit on 12/14 was the latest release of those but Django was released on 12/25 and it made $162 million, which would have been good enough to be in the top 5 most any year except 2012.

    In 2011, the winners were Twilight 4, MI:4, Sherlock Holmes 2, Alvin and the Chipmunks 3, and Girl With Dragon Tattoo. Other than Twilight, the other 4 were all released on 12/16 or later.

    2010 saw Harry Potter 8 (or something like that), Tangled, Tron 2, True Grit 2, and Little Fockers win the contest. Tron came out on 12/17 while both Fockers and True Grit were 12/22 releases.

    2009 was the best winter in Hollywood history with Avatar, Twilight 2, The Blind Side, Alvin 2, and Sherlock Holmes all making more than $200 million. Alvin came out on 12/23 while Sherlock hit theaters on 12/25.

    Bottom line in regards to the timing question is that plenty of late December films make out list... but a January release has never made it. That said, the Taken franchise is pretty strong ($145 mil for #1, $139 mil for #2) and it is not impossible to think that Taken 3 (assuming it is high quality and can generate some buzz) could be a player in the contest. I'll bet anyone that it won't come in last among the films on our list of contenders, that's for sure.

    -Jason "I'll be picking at least one or two films that come out within a week of Christmas, that's for sure" Evans
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by brevity View Post
    Weird deadline. Nothing happens until midnight November 4. I do like the inclusion of Tak3n, though. Keeps us on our toes.

    Here are the Hollywood Stock Exchange numbers for the films in the poll.

    $388.91 The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1
    $237.65 The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, With Six Endings
    $164.52 Interstellar
    $162.25 Big Hero 6
    $141.46 Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
    $112.87 Exodus: Gods and Kings
    $103.23 Into the Woods
    $98.83 The Penguins of Madagascar
    $85.35 Dumb and Dumber To
    $74.49 Tak3n
    $78.80 Horrible Bosses 2
    $60.72 Annie
    $51.09 Unbroken
    $49.92 The Interview

    HSX does not list any films widely released before January 9 that are predicted to do better than The Interview. (It does list American Sniper at $57.55, but that film is currently scheduled to open in limited release on Christmas and wide on January 16.)



    This doesn't answer your question exactly, but Box Office Mojo keeps tabs on seasonal box office victors. You can click each year and see the release dates for each Top Five. Generally, films need to be released by mid-December.
    I do get confused, Hunger Games is part 1 of book 3 or part 3 of book 2?

    Hobbit is part 3 of a prequel book + miscellany?

    Big Hero must be good to be on the 5th sequel, but sequels sell (I missed the 1st 5 parts)

    As horrible as Horrible Bosses may be, Jennifer Anniston is back.

    Into the Woods is an adaptation of a Sondheim Broadway musical. By Disney. Should be Pitch Perfect with Anna Kendrick as Cinderella. But Meryl Streeps' last musical? Mama Mia

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by brevity View Post
    Weird deadline. Nothing happens until midnight November 4.
    I don't like to do it right up until the release date of the first film in the poll as there are all kinds of tracking services that will be able to predict (with some degree of accuracy) the opening boxoffice of a film once you get within a couple days of release. Also, the media/promo screenings of Interstellar are Nov 3 and I did not think it would be fair for me (or others here who get to go to screenings) to get to see the film before voting in the poll.

    Quote Originally Posted by brevity View Post
    Here are the Hollywood Stock Exchange numbers for the films in the poll.
    It is worth noting that HSX does a lousy job of predicting films that "have legs" because HSX is only concerned with the first few weeks of release. So, a film that starts in limited release and then expands gets greatly undervalued by HSX. Similarly, an Oscar contender that does big business for a while due to older audiences not needing to see the film opening weekend can greatly outperform its HSX number.

    Of course, HSX is really just a bunch of folks making guesses, the same way we are. For example from just this summer HSX had Maleficent at about $120-135 before it opened and had Amazing Spider-man 2 around $230 prior to its opening. Put another way, HSX was just as wrong as we all were when it came to the summer movies this year.

    -Jason "that said, pretty hard to look at that $388 for Mockingjay and not vote for that flick. Anyone who omits Mockingjay from their Top 5 is intentionally throwing the contest, IMO" Evans
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by JasonEvans View Post
    It is worth noting that HSX does a lousy job of predicting films that "have legs" because HSX is only concerned with the first few weeks of release. So, a film that starts in limited release and then expands gets greatly undervalued by HSX. Similarly, an Oscar contender that does big business for a while due to older audiences not needing to see the film opening weekend can greatly outperform its HSX number.

    Of course, HSX is really just a bunch of folks making guesses, the same way we are. For example from just this summer HSX had Maleficent at about $120-135 before it opened and had Amazing Spider-man 2 around $230 prior to its opening. Put another way, HSX was just as wrong as we all were when it came to the summer movies this year.
    I agree with most of this. I posted the HSX numbers in the summer contest thread and wrote "I don't know how the following numbers translate into box office, but at least they provide comparative value."

    Much like Roy Williams, HSX is just a tool.

  9. #9
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    Nashville, TN
    The Locks?:

    Interstellar
    Hobbit 3
    Hunger Games 3
    Big Hero 6

    The Award Bump?:
    Unbroken

    I think Interstellar, Hobbit 3, and Hunger Games 3 are 100% locks. I will take Big Hero 6 over the Penguins because while the Madagascar Penguins are great I think they are better in small doses.

    If American Sniper was getting a wide release on Christmas that would have been my 5th pick.

  10. #10
    I had a lot of trouble with my fifth pick, mostly because I don't want to believe people will go see another Night at the Museum movie. But the other picks that seemed likely to grab screens and dollars looked pretty awful -- Exodus looks about as promising as Robin Hood.

  11. #11
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    Boston, MA
    So there are two absolute stone cold locks: Hunger Games and the Hobbit. Those are in.

    That leaves 3 slots. You know that one of them will be a kids movie. I think the one that beats the other is Big Hero 6. It comes out first, it's getting great reviews. My kid(s) all want to go see it.

    So I'm putting it there as well.

    That leaves spaces for 2 more. I think those 2 come out of these movies: Interstellar, Penguins of Madagascar, Exodus, Night at the Museum.

    I know Night has done well...but the 2nd one was awful and the previews for this one look even worse. I'm pulling it out.

    I think Penguins will sneak in just because parents like to take their kids to see silly movies, and the young, young ones won't want to see Big Hero 6 because it's too scary/violent.

    For my last one, I went with....Exodus. I thought the preview looked good, and it will get the biblical crowd (big time). I'm interested in Interstellar, but the early buzz is mixed. It's long (nearly 3 hours) and some say it kind of plods along at times. I don't see too many repeat customers, and maybe not that good of word of mouth.

    So my 5 are: Hunger, Hobbit, Big Hero, Exodus and Penguins.

    Udaman

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Udaman View Post
    So there are two absolute stone cold locks: Hunger Games and the Hobbit. Those are in.

    That leaves 3 slots. You know that one of them will be a kids movie. I think the one that beats the other is Big Hero 6. It comes out first, it's getting great reviews. My kid(s) all want to go see it.

    So I'm putting it there as well.

    That leaves spaces for 2 more. I think those 2 come out of these movies: Interstellar, Penguins of Madagascar, Exodus, Night at the Museum.

    I know Night has done well...but the 2nd one was awful and the previews for this one look even worse. I'm pulling it out.

    I think Penguins will sneak in just because parents like to take their kids to see silly movies, and the young, young ones won't want to see Big Hero 6 because it's too scary/violent.

    For my last one, I went with....Exodus. I thought the preview looked good, and it will get the biblical crowd (big time). I'm interested in Interstellar, but the early buzz is mixed. It's long (nearly 3 hours) and some say it kind of plods along at times. I don't see too many repeat customers, and maybe not that good of word of mouth.

    So my 5 are: Hunger, Hobbit, Big Hero, Exodus and Penguins.

    Udaman
    Biblical crowd will stay away if it turns out to be more like Noah. Christian Bale is saying some interesting things about the movie too that may make it DOA.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by NashvilleDevil View Post
    Biblical crowd will stay away if it turns out to be more like Noah. Christian Bale is saying some interesting things about the movie too that may make it DOA.
    Neither Moses nor God part the Red Sea. An earthquake does.

    Should I have said spoiler alert?

    Anyway, it may not strike a chord with the "biblical crowd"

    I find it amusing that Bale is trying to "get into character" in playing Moses, opining that he was barbaric and schizophrenic. Maybe he should have read the source material the screenplay was adapted from, might find different motivation for the character. Of course, barbaric had a different meaning back then.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by cato View Post
    I had a lot of trouble with my fifth pick, mostly because I don't want to believe people will go see another Night at the Museum movie.
    Keep in mind that it is, if not Robin Williams' last movie, the most high-profile of his last movies. Also, the first made $250M in winter and the second made $177M in summer.

    Then again, I don't know if people are going to Mockingjay solely for Philip Seymour Hoffman.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by brevity View Post
    Keep in mind that it is, if not Robin Williams' last movie, the most high-profile of his last movies. Also, the first made $250M in winter and the second made $177M in summer.

    Then again, I don't know if people are going to Mockingjay solely for Philip Seymour Hoffman.
    I read Mockingjay, definitely a letdown from The Hunger Games. The series got progressively worse, luckily it was only a trilogy. She is single again all my gossip news feeds tell me. I need to be more careful what I click on.

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by NashvilleDevil View Post
    Biblical crowd will stay away if it turns out to be more like Noah. Christian Bale is saying some interesting things about the movie too that may make it DOA.
    Quote Originally Posted by BD80 View Post
    Neither Moses nor God part the Red Sea. An earthquake does.

    Should I have said spoiler alert?

    Anyway, it may not strike a chord with the "biblical crowd"

    I find it amusing that Bale is trying to "get into character" in playing Moses, opining that he was barbaric and schizophrenic. Maybe he should have read the source material the screenplay was adapted from, might find different motivation for the character. Of course, barbaric had a different meaning back then.
    It will be interested to see how this plays out, as I believe word of mouth around churches will have a strong impact on evangelical attendance. No one there wants to see some sort of Bultmannian demythologization hashed out on the big screen. If it sticks to the source material and provides stunning visuals, it could do really well. However, even attempting to split the line between full out naturalism and the text (or even deliberately leaving it vague), and/or giving some new interpretation out of left field could have a backlash effect.

    I personally have only seen one trailer and haven't read anything else (besides this thread) so I'll have to wait and see.

  17. #17
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    One ring to rule them all, one movie to smoke the competition. Hobbit 3 takes first place and it won't even be close.
    Hunger Games 3, will take the second spot. It doesn't matter what the reviews are, this movie has its fan base just like the Twilight flicks did.
    Big Hero 6, this will be the winter flick kids want to see.

    Things get tougher with the last two picks. I'll say lightning strikes twice and the winter version of Maleficent will be Into the Woods.
    My fifth and final pick will be Interstellar. This movie will either be a big hit or a big dud, no middle ground.

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by ncexnyc View Post
    One ring to rule them all, one movie to smoke the competition. Hobbit 3 takes first place and it won't even be close.
    Hunger Games 3, will take the second spot. It doesn't matter what the reviews are, this movie has its fan base just like the Twilight flicks did.
    Big Hero 6, this will be the winter flick kids want to see.

    Things get tougher with the last two picks. I'll say lightning strikes twice and the winter version of Maleficent will be Into the Woods.
    My fifth and final pick will be Interstellar. This movie will either be a big hit or a big dud, no middle ground.
    Hunger Games will finish first. Hobbit movies haven't come close to the numbers of the Hunger Games

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by NashvilleDevil View Post
    Hunger Games will finish first. Hobbit movies haven't come close to the numbers of the Hunger Games
    Might it matter that the Hobbit movie is the conclusion of (and much of the content of) the original book, whereas the Hunger Games is just part one of a two-part movie that won't conclude until next November?

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by BD80 View Post
    Might it matter that the Hobbit movie is the conclusion of (and much of the content of) the original book, whereas the Hunger Games is just part one of a two-part movie that won't conclude until next November?
    Nope. It won't matter. Hunger Games will smoke Hobbit 3. If anything, the somewhat underwhelming nature of the first two Hobbit films has lessened some of the fervor over film #3. The opposite is the case for Hunger Games.

    Hobbit has an outside chance to make $300 mil. Hunger Games is a near-mortal lock to make $400 mil.

    -Jason
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

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