Castor @ Anomalous Material has done it again! He created yet another addictive but fun (well of course it’s fun or it wouldn’t be addictive, right?) game for movie lovers call the Movie Fantasy League. It’s like Fantasy Football, but instead of being a “general manager” of a fantasy baseball team, you are the head of a Fantasy Movie Studio. Instead of drafting sports players or actors in the case of the Hollywood Fantasy Draft, we get to nominate and bid movies (which has to be released in the US between March 1 and December 31, 2011). So basically I got to be someone like Brian Grazer for a day, who’ve produced hits such as Apollo 13, Cinderella Man, A Beautiful Mind, The Inside Man, Frost/Nixon, and the upcoming sure-fire blockbuster Cowboys & Aliens.
Here are some of the basic rules just to give you an idea:
- Each movie studio head will start with exactly $150 million which they can use as they see fit to finance 10 movies.
- A bid automatically starts at $1 million
- You cannot bid more money than you need to finish filling your roster of 10 movies (You need at least $1 million per movie)
- The time limit to bid for each movie is 1 hour
- You can co-finance a movie with another studio but the box office gross will be divided by two
- Each studio MUST have 10 movies at the end of the draft
My studio name is Magdalena Features, named after my mother’s middle name. Well, the event was so popular Castor had to split the studios into two groups and my studio ends up in the Green Division. The auction started at 11AM CST on Saturday, February 12, and sure enough, it sucked up my whole afternoon (darn you Castor! :)) as the bidding war kept heating up. The auction continued the next day in the same time span, and I had to do the bidding on my mobile phone right after church which was quite tough. But by around 6pm CST, I managed to acquire 10 movies. In fact, I didn’t realize that I had hit the maximum number as I kept nominating new movies, the last three that were canceled were The Change Up, Arthur Christmas 3D and The Conspirator.
So here’s the list of the ten movies (in order of time of purchase) I acquired with my $150 million — obviously would never happen in real life, ha.ha.. I mean, seriously, what a bargain! 😀
- X-Men: First Class ($51 mil)
- Cowboys & Aliens ($22 mil – co-producing w/ Castor (Bad Castor studio))
- Thor ($30 mil)
- The Beaver ($5 mil)
- The Debt* ($6 mil)
- Contagion* ($7 mil)
- The Three Musketeers 3D ($7 mil)
- Hanna ($10 mil)
- Immortals* ($3 mil)
- Real Steel* ($5 mil)
* These movies were nominated by me
Well, what do you think of my picks? Any of these on your must-see list, and most importantly, do you think I have a chance of winning this game? 😀
FLIXCHATTER FILM BLOG 
That sounds like a lot of fun. I do something similar over at the Hollywood Stock Exchange:
http://www.hsx.com/
Ha! I actually have an account there too from a long time ago. I think Castor invited me. But I haven’t done anything to it since.
OOOH…
Thanks for the heads up. If only work would get a bit quieter so I could get on with some actual blogtastic movie waffle!!
How rude.
Thanks RTM
🙂
What’s a blogtastic movie waffle?? Sounds delicious 😀
‘scuse my weird british diction…..I speak not of nutritional waffle but the verbal variety. No way near as satisfying, but equally as wholesome
Hey, nice gravatar Custard! He..he.. well thanks for the explanation 😀
Where in Britain do you live btw?
Down on the south coast. A wee city called Brighton. Look it up, its very seedy 🙂
Yeah, I thought it was time that I became an actual person!!
Oh yeah, I know where Brighton is. I actually was working on a novel before I started this blog that’s partly set in the UK, and my protagonist’s best friend lives in Brighton 😀
I’ve been meaning to check out the film Brighton Rock which is set in your city, right? Looks pretty intense.
Did you ever finish the novel?
No, it’s probably about 60% finished when I abandoned it about a year and a half ago, but I still might pick it up again one day. It’s just impossible to do that AND run this blog. Thanks for asking Julian.
Yeah it is set here but mostly film up the road in eastbourne.
Quadrophenia is a great flick film in brighton!! Highly recommended.
A novel? blimey no wonder your skillz at writing are so good!!
🙂
Oh you are just too kind, Custard… if I were good I’d have finished that darn novel, ahah. It’s like the more I re-read it the more doubtful I am about going forward w/ it 😦
I think we really got a huge bargain with Cowboys & Aliens. It could be the biggest hit of the year!
Yep, I think so too, Castor. We’ll be filthy rich then 😀
I thought about joining that, but i figured i would get confused rather quickly. And i don’t have a lot of free time
Oh you’ll be fine. I have never done it before and was so confused at first, but once it got going it was actually fun to do bidding. It’s really a matter of who’s faster w/ the computer mouse, ha..ha.. of course in real life it’s a heck of a lot more complicated.
Interesting game but I don’t think I’ll be good at it since I suck at Fantasy Football too. Good luck!
Oh I’m sure you’ll be better than me, Ted. I’ve never done a thing like this before. I’m pretty happy with my picks though I had hoped to get Tintin 😦
I believe, I myself, deserve the ownership over IMMORTALS having in mind the years of blood, sweat and tears I’ve put into promoting that epic film and writing about it around the net 🙂 Tarsem really ought to hire me as his top assistant 🙂
Ahah, as he should Dezzy! Tarsem would be so lucky to have you as his assistant or agent.
I feel the same way about Coriolanus. If only Mr. Ralph Fiennes would hire me in marketing the film as I pretty much have been doing that already, he..he..
ah, you and me too! I remember promoting CORIOLANUS day and night last year during the shooting of it in my country only through nice memories since it brought me so many new readers and followers, I remember I had thousands of visits per day during my daily reports on Gerards adventures around Belgrade 🙂
Ha..ha.. yes I remember those. I was so jealous of you as you had a chance of running into Gerry Berry or Ralph! 😀
I actually discovered the Debt through the fantasy draft. Would have loved to have it as a art house title on my rooster.
I think your best bargain is your co-production of Aliens and Cowboys with Castor. He is onto something it might be the underdog blockbluster of the year.
Why hi Joel! Well glad you learned about The Debt, are you saying the fantasy draft or the league? If it’s the latter, then I’m extra glad as I nominated that one 😀
Have you seen the trailer yet? It looks pretty intense: http://wp.me/pxXPC-1Ny
Yeah, A&C will be huge this year. Not sure it ever was considered an underdog though.
You know, I really don’t understand this game as I never play that football manager game. Some students of mine used to play it and I don’t get it.
I don’t know what’s fantasy football is like but this league game actually wasn’t as hard as I thought, you just have to be fast w/ typing and clicking away w/ your mouse 😀