IMO

Who’s excited for Friday’s release of the Hunger Games movie! Everyone right? Well if it is indeed everyone I could be in some trouble.

Hollywood Stock Exchange is a website that lets you play with fake money (HSX bucks), betting on the box office success (or failure) of all new releases. I have been playing for a while and betting on the Hunger Games just seemed like the thing to do. I guess I’m some sort of capital noble distanced from the realities of the outer territories right? Either way, here is what I put on.

The Hunger Games security, ticker HGAME, will mark out at a value precisely equal to the number of millions of dollars the movie makes at the domestic (US) box office during its first four weeks in theaters. In the last month speculation has driven the value of the asset up to over 331. So people think this movie is going to absolutely kill it in the US in its first four weeks. I think they are right, but 331 sounds a bit high to me.

So I headed over to boxofficemojo.com and pulled up the list of the highest grossing March releases of all time. Alice and Wonderland tops out the list with total domestic gross of 334M, 293M in its first four weeks. Ok, so if The Hunger Games lands 331M in its first four weeks it will almost certainly be the most successful March release of all time. 

Well what if we throw summer and Christmas releases into the mix? Harry Potter 7.2 recently raked it in with 343M through its first four weeks. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen owned summer 2009 with 363M through its first four weeks. In fact scanning the list of all-time highest grossing PG-13 movies it is almost exclusively James Cameron and sequels!

I know The Hunger Games has a huge following (Katie and I have our tickets for Friday night) but 331 million is going to be a tough mountain to climb.

All that being said, tune back in for what will inevitably be a rage filled post when this thing cracks 400M in a blink. Because after all, what the hell do I know.

What do you think? Are you going to see it in the next month? Will it crack 331 million in it’s first four weeks in the US?