movies fantasy league

MCU Drafters Take a Marv-‘L’

Photo-Illustration: Vulture ; Photo: Marvel

This is the latest edition of the Movies Fantasy League newsletter. The drafting window for this season has closed, but you can still sign up to get the newsletter, which provides a weekly recap of box-office performance, awards nominations, and critical chatter on all the buzziest movies.

The forecasts for The Marvels at the box office were bad but not “sub–$50 million opening weekend†bad. Postmortems for what is now the smallest MCU premiere weekend to date (relieving The Incredible Hulk and its $55 million opening of that ignominious distinction) don’t have much bearing on the Fantasy League — unless you’re looking toward next year and feeling bearish about Deadpool 3 — so we’ll stick to what The Marvels’ weak opening means for folks who drafted it and why it might not be quite as bad as you think.

After that: a look at the nationwide expansion for The Holdovers and how it stacks up to the bigger box-office films from last month and a dive into a mini-league that is of great interest to me personally.

Box Office, Part 1: MCU? Not at The Marvels You Didn’t.

The Marvels was the 33rd MCU movie to open theatrically since Iron Man in 2008. All 32 previous movies outgrossed The Marvels domestically on their opening weekends. Even The Incredible Hulk, which is barely an MCU movie, made $55 million on opening. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which was terrible, opened to $106 million. Eternals, which left a giant monster hand sticking out of the ocean, opened to $71 million. Of course, the fact that Quantumania and Eternals left a lot of ticket buyers underwhelmed is part of the reason The Marvels ended up suffering such a drop-off. Regardless, the only thing that matters for the MFL is that the 429 Marvels drafters are not seeing the expected return on that investment, even with the buzz on the movie not being great during the drafting window.

A $20 buy at the draft, The Marvels sits at 67 points accrued (one for each million dollars earned plus 20 bonus points for finishing in first place). More bonus points for winning its second weekend probably won’t happen with Trolls Band Together and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Sequels & Brand Extensions arriving, but still, 20 points is 20 points. The Marvels is also going to get points for passing the $50 million and $100 million thresholds, which, in terms of the VMFL, is as good as it gets. That means it won’t be lagging as far behind the more lucrative movies as it could be.

Now, could the money that you used on The Marvels have been better spent? I don’t need to answer that question but will. For $20, you could have drafted two $10 awards hopefuls such as Poor Things and The Boy and the Heron. Or four $5 movies, including All of Us Strangers (which has earned 50 points already), American Fiction (15), Passages (30), and a little film called Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour. That last one has earned 272 points, a figure that will be very difficult for The Marvels to reach.

But don’t beat yourself up too badly for drafting The Marvels. The $15–$25 tier was fraught with danger, containing an array of movies whose fate is very much up in the air. Is The Color Purple going to pack theaters and rack up awards nominations, or will it completely fizzle? What about Wish and Wonka, two movies aiming for families and hoping to Heaven that demographic responds? The Iron Claw, packed with hotties as it is, is still a big question mark for late December. Will audiences or awards voters respond to Joaquin Phoenix’s unaccented Napoleon? There’s risk everywhere. Picking The Marvels was a calculated — if costly — roll of the dice, and while the result isn’t great news, it could be worse. You could be Kevin Feige wondering how he’s going to make Young Avengers work if nobody saw the movie that teased it.

Box Office, Part 2: Oh, Hold Me Over — I’m All I Wanna Be

The rest of the box-office top five filled out largely as it did last week. Five Nights at Freddy’s continues to pay out tokens to the tune of $127 million domestic and 227 Fantasy League points. Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla added a thousand more screens and has now made $12 million in two weeks. It’s already Coppola’s third-most lucrative movie ever and will pass Marie Antoinette for second place (behind Lost in Translation) within the next couple weeks. Similarly, Killers of the Flower Moon is up to eighth place (and rising) on the all-time Scorsese list.

The weekend’s big expansion was The Holdovers, which added 714 screens and nearly cracked the top five. Right now, the Alexander Payne–directed film is holding at a modest $4 million, but unlike last month’s bigger box-office performers The Exorcist: Believer and PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie (both sitting at 104 points off, around $64 million in tickets) and Saw X (73 points on $53 million), The Holdovers is expected to have real awards-season legs. (If only PAW Patrol had thought to contract Diane Warren for an empowerment ballad for Skye.) It has a good shot at contending in the Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay categories as well as for performances by Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and even Dominic Sessa. Those points will add up fast once awards-precursor season begins. That’s the real win. Whatever The Holdovers pulls in box office–wise will be gravy.

Leaderboard

Cinemawithcj tops the standings for a third straight week, but that lead has closed to a razor-thin margin of two points. Team JLW has roared into second place on account of those sweet Marvels points (a positive Marvels headline!) combined with a solid base of The Eras Tour, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and Killers of the Flower Moon.

Joining them in the top ten courtesy of Carol Danvers, Monica Rambeau, and Kamala Khan’s honestly pretty fun movie are tj23 (who also has Hunger Games points on the way) and Cruz Control (Hunger Games and Trolls points incoming!). It should be pointed out that Cruz Control doesn’t have Ferrari on its roster, showing a distinct lack of faith in its namesake actress.

You can see the full leaderboard here on the main VMFL landing page.

Mini-League Spotlight

You know I couldn’t wait that long to showcase the AllOfUsGarys league, comprising fans of my own podcast, This Had Oscar Buzz. A biased pick? You bet! Do my podcast co-host, Chris Feil, and I call our listeners “Garys†because we love our listeners and the way Keke Palmer says “We love you, Gary†in Hustlers in equal measure? Also yes.

With 618 entries, the Garys group is our largest mini-league, and right now the top team is Mart1655, whose roster is looking balanced as heck:

âž¼ Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour
➼ Five Nights at Freddy’s
âž¼ Killers of the Flower Moon
âž¼ Past Lives
âž¼ Poor Things
âž¼ Anatomy of a Fall
âž¼ The Boy and the Heron
âž¼ Showing Up

That’s a roster with a lot going for it, even without Barbie or Oppenheimer. The box-office movies are earning big, not just taking up roster space. Indie darlings like Past Lives and Showing Up will pop in the smaller precursors; Killers of the Flower Moon, Anatomy of a Fall, and Poor Things for the bigger awards. The Boy and the Heron for the animated categories (and maybe an outside shot at Best Picture?).

Other high-ranking teams include the phenomenally named RogowskiCropTopStan (shout out to Franz Rogowski and his campaign for Midriff of the Year), BrunetteBarbie (who does have Barbie on their roster), and Fingers crossed (who drafted The Little Mermaid, which will almost certainly end up with more Oscar nominations than anyone wants it to, so good job there). All in all, a strong start to the season, Garys!

Looking Ahead

Trolls! Hunger Games! The mid-2010s are back, baby!

Questions? Feedback? Can’t find your team or mini-league on the leaderboard? Drop us a line at [email protected]. 

MCU Drafters Take a Marv-‘L’