Is it me or are people here really conservative?

Newbie here... Just looked at a couple threads and noticed a trend...

"Someone said Harry Potter will break $80 million opening weekend, LOL"

After making $250 million: "I don't think it will make the $18 million it needs to beat Shrek." (At $300 million and counting)

Then looking at the LOTR threads:

"I doubt it makes $200 million"
After it's out a couple weeks, "I'm raising my prediction to $230-250 million"

Perhaps these two movies have exceeded expectations, but even after coming out people are still shooting low... perhaps people don't want to seem too enthusiastic, i.e. not part of the hype machine? And you certainly don't want to be like those drooling fans who predict Titanic is going down. javascript:smilie('')

Call me crazy but I wouldn't dismiss $400 million for LOTR just yet, even with the steep dropoff this weekend ($5.7 million on Sunday, oomph.) It'll beat Potter, for sure.javascript:smilie('')

err... I guess I don't have the hang of the smileys. javascript:smilie('')

Don't copy the link location to create the smile: you're just supposed to click on it. Welcome to MovieForums.com, by the way.

Yeah, a lot of the predictions are a bit on the conservative side. Most of mine are, at least...though, not to toot my own horn too much, I do think I'm fairly close most of the time. IMO, it's better than the so-called "analysts" who thought "Potter" had a fairly easy shot at $400 million domestically.

My original prediction, as of over 2 months ago, before Potter or LOTR came out, was Potter just shy of $300 million, and LOTR at a bit under $250 million. When you consider how difficult it is to predict such things, the fact that I'll probably come within $25 million for Potter is pretty good. LOTR remains to be seen.

Anyway, there are some here who are more conservative than most...no doubt. I find some people tend to predict low turnouts for movies they don't like personally. Not always, but it happens.

That's what I do. Predictions are for the birds.

__________________
**** the Lakers!

... SQUAWK! I love predicting the B.O. It started when I took a shot at predicting the opening gross for "Tomb Raider." I went with $47.7...and estimates had it at $47.6. I was too too into as a result of nailing that one to ever stop following it afterwards. Furthermore, to make my gigantic head even larger, when the actuals came in, the total crept up another $.1 million.

I'm just a really bad guesser. I predicted Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back would gross $500 million.

i'm a bad guesser, cuz i have no sense of money in terms of BO and movies, I just know things like "it will be big, bigger than X" or, "it will be small, as piddly as Y"

... so I don't vote at all! :-D

have to admit, I came in here thinking you were talking about an entirely DIFFERENT kind of "conservative"!

>My original prediction, as of over 2 months ago, before Potter or LOTR came out, was Potter just shy of $300 million, and LOTR at a bit under $250 million. When you consider how difficult it is to predict such things, the fact that I'll probably come within $25 million for Potter is pretty good.

We differ again... I'm guessing $340 for Potter

Well, it's much easier to predict a gross when it's around 6 weeks into its domestic run. I'll be a little surprised if it goes as high as $340...it's a long film and it's gonna get bumped from the major theaters before too long. I expect something closer to $325-330 million, but I admit that I'm particularly weak when it comes to taking the later weeks of a film's run into account.

Me too, I was like," Huh?"

You had me rolling on that one ryan.

__________________
"I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music", as if there is any other way you can take it in. You're not special, that's how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work." - Mitch Hedberg