Sports Interaction betting analyst Frank Doyle goes outside his comfort zone when he looks at the market for the highest grossing movie of the summer. Will it be Harry Potter, The Wolverine, Star Trek or maybe even Pixar's Up? Yes, you can bet on the summer's biggest blockbuster films (based on gross receipts).
Sports Interaction has posted a fun market on what will be the biggest blockbuster movie in the United States this year. It's a fun market in the sense that it's not sports, and sharpies and tough guys won't respect you for taking the points on Harry Potter.
But you shouldn't forget the studios spend an awful amount of money in making and marketing these things so the rules are just as reliable as they are for handicapping professional sports. It's always a good exercise to step away from what you're used to and see if they same gambling rules apply, rules about doing your research properly, understanding how prices are set and spotting the difference between public perception and actual reality that can let you pick a winner. So let's look at the runners and riders and see if we can make some money.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen are the joint favorites, both priced at -125 with Sports Interaction to have the highest US box office domestic gross in 2009. The reason why is because they're both sequels in very successful franchises, and the studios need them to be successful because they will pay back on so many other fronts. Harry Potter is the more established brand of the two, but Transformers is the more accessible. It has the greater appeal through demographics. And the fact that Megan is a Fox doesn't hurt either.
The Wolverine movie is a disappointing +300 with Sports Interaction to be the highest grossing movie and that seems about right. X-Men has seen the law of diminishing returns apply since the first movie and, although Hugh Jackman is doing his best to sell it as hard as he can - who cares, really?
It's surprising to see the Star Trek remake as long a price as it is, +250 with Sports Interaction. The fan boys will go in their droves of course, but can the movie cross over to the general public who don't give a rooty-toot-toot about Starfleet and the Prime Directive? It doesn't look a good bet to me.
The best chance of making a little money on the highest grossing blockbuster in the US domestic market for 2009 might be to back the Pixar release Up. Pixar is consistently excellent at what it does and it looks like it's made another winner with Up, a movie that looks like its most - well, charming, goddammit - production since Toy Story. The advantages that Up has is that is has broad pan-demographic appeal and it's good for repeat business - the sort of phenomenon that did such business for the first Bridget Jones movie. Movies like Transformers will spike early and then fade quickly. People might be going to see Up all summer, and that makes it well worth a fun bet at +175 with Sports Interaction.
Frank Doyle, Gambling911.com
