What you will learn:

I will be teaching you how to understand movie box office. It's a topic that captures the attention of innumerable people every week.  Which movie will open up at #1 this Friday?  How big will it open?  How can you tell a movie will flop?  Why did The Dark Knight Rises not break Avengers opening weekend? The context I will be providing will help answer those questions.

I will be utilizing a mixture of games, movie trivia, and a slideshow to guide us through the most important topics necessary for covering this somewhat unwieldy topic.  You’ll have to email me the week before the class with predictions for how that weekend’s opening slate of films will perform, and we’ll finish the class by taking a more educated stab at the next weekend’s films.

Who should take this class?

The class is for anyone that thinks that the numbers surrounding movies have the potential to be fun.  Just as countless Americans obsess over statistics for their fantasy football leagues, so too do movie fanatics.  Understanding the box office allows people to route for a new winner every week.  You can pull for the underdog romantic comedy to successfully counter-program against the action-packed blockbuster.  Or you can prove everyone wrong when you correctly predict that Twilight Breaking Dawn Part II will, indeed, be the second biggest movie of the year.  Anyone who enjoys a good competition will enjoy the thrill of the box office. 

Why you should take this course?

Quite simply – this subject is 100% entertaining and fun. You should take it so you can revel in a weekly competition that you probably didn’t know was taking place.  You can also take it so that you can accurately predict which movies will likely be sold out if you don’t get to the box office early.  You should take this course so that you finally understand why the second half of August is such a desolate wasteland of terrible movies. You should take this course so that you can join or start a fantasy-box-office-league and win money from all of your friends.