What Are The Chances Captain America Civil War Outgrosses Batman V. Superman On Opening Weekend?

Readers of this blog and listeners to our podcast know that I love box office numbers.  I’ve also recently become intrigued by the Good Judgment project after hearing about them on the Freakonomics podcast.  Their website has a number of political, news, and pop culture questions they invite the public to predict and they recently asked what were the chances that Civil War would outgross Batman v. Superman (which brought in an amazing $166M on opening weekend).

I was surprised to see so many people saying Civil War would outgross Batsoup with almost not thought into the matter, so I decided to make my own prediction and analysis.  Jump after the break to read why I think it is unlikely for Civil War to beat Batsoup and let me know your thoughts in the comments.

If DC Wrote Captain America Civil War

  It’d probably go a little something like this exchange after the break. 

Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Heroes Case File #59: Slapstick

Not the guy to call if you are afraid of clowns.

The comedic superhero is a time-honored tradition.  Sometimes its just a hero like Spider-Man who cracks wise during any given fight.  Other times you get a hero like Plastic Man, who may or may not be the straight man in his own adventures but has goofy powers and kooky adventures to compensate.

Then there’s Slapstick.  He didn’t fight crime.  He played cruel jokes on it.

The Secret Wars Power Rankings – Final Standings

Well, it is finally over!  Ok, it was finally over back in the beginning of January, but I’ve finally finished my write ups.  With that done, after the break check out our (well, mostly my) final rankings for all the Secret Wars series.

It was a huge event and most will not be insane enough to read it all.  If you are interested in the main story, you can mostly get by with just reading the main series.  Very few of the other series tie into the main event, and those that do are recapped as needed in the lead book.

Outside of that, I’d recommend giving any of the top 15 a shot.  As for the rest, you can likely just pick and choose the series that interest you.  As said, most have no ties to the core book outside of Doom being God and the story taking place in a domain of Battleworld.  And some barely bother with that.

Let us know what’s ranked too high or too low.

Jimmy Attempts To Read All Of Secret Wars 50 (Civil War Edition)

Way back in the middle of July I reviewed Civil War #1.  Six months and 4 issues later I’ll finally look at Civil War #2-5 after the break.  The series was a bit of a mixed bag starting off but unlike many of the Secret Wars series, really finished strong.  It is currently ranked 12th in our nearly completed Secret Wars Power Rankings.

Geek Review: The Hateful Eight

Do Westerns count as Geek Entertainment?  Well, when they’re written and directed by Quentin Tarantino they do.  Tarantino has a gift for swiping the different grind house style movies he loves and combining them into high energy, intense motion pictures.

His latest, The Hateful Eight, is being reviewed with NO SPOILERS after the cut.

Civil War II’s “First Death Will Merely Serve As The Series Marketing Hook”

This time around it’s once again Iron Man vs Cap…tain Marvel?!? And Captain America is on Iron Man’s side!?! This really is All-New and All Different!

At least Marvel is being upfront and honest.  In translation, we know superhero deaths have become mostly meaningless and pretty much everyone makes a return within a year or so.

Civil War II will be released this June, a month after the loose adaptation of the original series hits the big screen in Captain America: Civil War.  The premise to me sounds like a super hero version of Minority Report:

A mysterious new Marvel character comes to the attention of the world, one who has the power to calculate the outcome of future events with a high degree of accuracy. This predictive power divides the Marvel heroes on how best to capitalize on this aggregated information, with Captain Marvel leading the charge to profile future crimes and attacks before they occur, and Iron Man adopting the position that the punishment cannot come before the crime.

So who do you think that death will be?  Marvel has already confirmed it won’t be the Human Torch or Spider-Man.  Vote in our poll after the break.

Bold Predictions: 2016 Edition- Watson’s Rebuttal

I’m totally off the grid these days, but Ryan’s predictions are so bad I had to come in and rip them to shreds and give you the REAL numbers.  His bold predictions about how the 2015 domestic box office would turn out were pretty weak.  He called his performance was mixed–but for him mixed was chocolate plus peanut butter.  In reality, it is a mix of Ex-lax and motor oil.  So I am going to go, one by one, through his 2016 picks and give the real number.  We have a lunch bet on who has the lowest delta between the acutals and their predictions.  NO PRICE IS RIGHT RULES IN EFFECT!

Bold Predictions: 2016 Edition

One year ago I made some bold predictions about how the 2015 domestic box office would turn out.  My performance was mixed–got some, missed some others.  But now it’s time to look ahead to 2016.  Jump after the break to see what I predict will be the top ten grossing films of the year along with 33 other movies I’m making some bold predictions on!

The Secret Wars Power Rankings – November 12, 2015

 

It was a big week for Secret Wars.  Probably the last one, with the release of Secret Wars #7 and the conclusions of Thors, Squadron Sinister and Infinity Gauntlet.  The only books left now I believe are Secret Wars #8 and #9, Hail Hydra #4 and Ultimate End #5, which is long delayed, I’m guessing because it ties into the conclusion of the main series.

I’ve heard rumors that when Secret Wars was expanded to 9 issues, the actual page count remained the same for the series.  That they basically split an issue that was supposed to be oversized in two to give the creative team more time.  It sure felt that way this week as issue 7 felt like half an issue.  The endings of Thors and Squadron Sinister were ok but had their problems.

Infinity Gauntlet finished strong and has a big jump up the rankings.  Moving from #16 to #9.  While it still annoys me that this series doesn’t tie into the main story, as a self-contained work it is quite good and manages to deliver on the ending, which many of the Secret Wars tie-ins have failed to do.

After the break, this weeks rankings…