Rules and Regulations
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2023 Summer Movie Pool Rules and Regulations |
Official Summer Movie Pool Rules (Updated: May 2023)
What is the Summer Movie Pool?
This is a contest where players rank the top 10 box-officegrossing films of the summer season, in order. Only those films released during the summer season are eligible, and only the money they gross during the summer season counts.
Important Dates OR When exactly does "summer" begin and end?
When the Summer Movie Pool began back in the early 1990s, the summer movie season started on May 31st. The studios have decided otherwise in the intervening years, and since we follow them like sheep, the summer season creeped up until the first full weekend in May. But then along came the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) which had a habit of releasing their Avenger movies the last weekend in April to avoid the May rush. So now we have been accomodating them and declaring the Summer Movie Pool open in late April when necessary.
For 2023 the Summer Movie Pool films released on May 5th weekend are eligible. If you have a question about a film's eligibility, ask before you submit your picks. All films released domestically from May 5th weekend through to Labor Day weekend are eligible for the contest, and all the money those films make within that period in the North American theatrical market will count.
Info about Entries:
Your goal is to guess which 10 films will make the most money this summer, and rank them in order from the highest to lowest grossing. In addition to your 10 ranked picks, you pick 3 "Dark Horses" - films you think *might* make the top ten, but aren't confident enough to put into the top 10 proper. We'll see how the scoring works in a bit.
Most people only submit one entry, but you are welcome to submit more than one entry under your name or if you like you can use stage names. We once had Dobby the House Elf submit an entry. Only condition is each entry requires an entry fee (See below).
Tagline: Players are encouraged to include a short(ish) movie quote (or some random reference) - "I coulda been a contender!" or random battle cry - "Spoon!" - to accompany your entry. For examples, look at previous year's player entries on the website.
Due Date: Entries are due by 11:59pm on Friday June 2nd, 2023 your local time. This means you can take into account the first few weekends of some films box office, and it means you can go see some of the early releases before you finish your entry (if you want).
Where: You can either email entries in or use this handy dandy Entry Form I have made via Google Forms - 2023 Summer Movie Pool Entry Form. After I receive all the entries I will compile the BIG LIST and send it to everyone.
Info about Entry Fee:
There is a $5 USD fee to join the movie pool. The money gets split among the top three finishers in the pool after the final tally using an arcane formula passed down through the ages. The total amount of the pot depends entirely on how many players sign up.
Money is due by June 16th. Email me for details on how to pay up if you didn't recieve them already. If you haven't made arrangements to pay up by June 16th your entry may be removed from the pool.
The Goal:
The object is to pick the films that you think will be the top-ten grossing films of the summer (See Important Dates above for definition of SUMMER), in order of box-office performance.
In other words films from March or April might still be making money after May 5th but they don't count; films released from May on could start racking up foreign B.O., but that doesn't count; films released from May on could still be making money into September, but that doesn't count either. Box Office numbers are generally available late Monday or Tuesday after the weekend closes. I rely on box office numbers from Box Office Mojo. Substitutions: No substituions once entries have been submitted. Sometimes movies scheduled to be released during the eligible period are pulled by the studios or rescheduled. An example of this was in 2012 when G.I. Joe was bumped from a summer release until a March 2013 release long after people had already submitted picks and the pool was under way. A more recent example was The Hustle in 2018 which was dropped from the release schedule as well and rescheduled for 2019. In the past we have not allow any substitutions to avoid giving someone an advantage.
The Scoring:
The #1 and #10 picks are worth 13 pts if you guess them correctly. All other perfect guesses are worth 10 pts for correct guesses.
The rest of the scoring goes like this:
10 points for numbers 2-9 dead-on
7 points if your pick was only one spot away from where it ended up
5 points if it was two spots away
3 points if your pick is anywhere in the Top 10
1 point for each dark horse pick that makes it into the Top 10
The scoring is tabulated so that you get the SINGLE HIGHEST point value for each pick- that is, if you get number ten right, you don't get 13+3, you only get 13.
Don't worry I keep track of the scoring so you don't have to!
How Do I Get Updates?:
You can visit the website http://www.timetravelreviews.com/smp/ for all the latest and greatest. It's also a good starting place if you want to look at how previous years went down.
Since the demise of Yahoogroups we don't have a forum or official mailing list anymore. I am relying on who has played in previous year and who has sumbitted entries for the current year to compile a mailing list. Please make sure I have your current emails if you are playing. I will send out weekly updates via email.
Updated: 2023-05-12