Okay, I'm proud of myself on this one. Before throwing it open to guesses from readers, I estimated the opening-weekend box office for the new Star Trek movie at $80 million. The final tally? $79.2 million.
But close, under my own rules, means guessing closest without going over. That means one of you won instead. And, since the final numbers included a Thursday-night showing as well, I figured it would only be fair to subtract that Thursday figure and also present an award to the reader closest to THAT figure.
Hey... when the prizes are this tacky and tiny, I can afford to be generous...
Closest to the overall $79.2 million figure, which includes the Thursday tally, was Danny, who guessed $79 million. GREAT guess!
Excluding the Thursday screenings, the opening-weekend Star Trek total box-office was $75.2 million. Poor Lance R, at $75.8 million, just barely overshot. So the winner, according to my Price Is Right rules, is Neil, who offered up a guess of $71 million, the nearest amount that didn't go over. And he was the last of 41 readers to chime in, so, in his case, it paid to wait.
But it didn't pay much -- a note pad here, a key chain there. I'll contact both of you privately to get your home addresses and which prize you're claiming. In case you both want the same thing, Danny gets first pick. My game. My rules. No fighting. I'll pull this website over if I have to.
Thanks to everyone who participated -- this contest drew the highest entries of any of my other TV-to-movie guess-the-gross games. And for the record, here's how I stand on all the predictions to date. (If I could remove The X-Files from the mix, I'd be impressed with myself.)
MADE-FROM-TV MOVIE
MY PREDICTION / ACTUAL OPENING-WEEKEND GROSS
Sex and the City, 2008
$55 million / $56.8 million
Get Smart, 2008
$40 million / $38.7 million
X-Files: I Want to Believe, 2008
$50 million / $10.2 million (whoops)
Star Trek, 2009
$80 million / $79.2 million
So three out of four, I did great.
As for the fourth -- would you believe? Missed it by THAT much.