Will Matt Belloni beat Lucas Shaw in their 2024 Box Office Draft? (from "The Town" podcast) [75M subsidy]

Question

"The Town" is a Ringer/Puck podcast hosted by Matt Belloni which covers Hollywood news. On January 22nd, Matt and Lucas Shaw held their annual "Box Office Draft". Link here: https://www.theringer.com/2024/1/22/24047151/the-2024-box-office-draft.

This market resolves YES if Matt Belloni is declared the winner over Lucas Shaw, at the end of 2024.

Informal rules summary:

Matt & Lucas each draft 5 movies, and then draft a 6th movie for the other player's team (gifting a "bomb").

At the end of the year, tally the worldwide box office minus the reported budget for each movie.

The team with the largest total (adding up all 6 movies) is declared the winner.

Matt's team:

Deadpool 3

Wicked Part One

Mufasa

Kung Fu Panda 4

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Madame Web (the gifted "bomb")

Lucas' team:

Despicable Me 4

Inside Out 2

Joker: Folie à Deux

Dune: Part Two

If

Horizon: An American Saga 2 (the gifted "bomb")

More details:

"Reported budgets" are hard to define—I will follow whoever is crowned winner by the podcast. (If somehow the podcast ends and they don't crown a winner, I guess only then will I try to calculate it myself).

Here are their picks for the 2023 Box Office Draft (prediction is hard, both "bombs" were actually hits). Matt Belloni was declared the winner.

They're also doing some bonus contest where the producer picks movies that went undrafted and tries to beat both of them. I won't factor that into the binary choice for this market (it only matters that Matt beats Lucas).

If any aspects of resolution are unclear, please ask.

March 19th update: I'll try to keep the list occasionally updated as movies release. Currently, Madame Web is topping out around ~$100M, Dune is past $500M (and seems to be aimed towards ~$650 or so), and KFP4 is a hit but a bit harder to call (maybe ~$500M?). I'll wait to update the list until a few of these have more clear WW totals.

Manifold Markets · Accepted Answer

Yes — resolved on Mar 3, 2025 by Manifold Markets prediction market.