Futures Market, Part 2

First, a quick recap:

As we anticipate seeing no fewer than 3D4 movies this summer, even a modest roll will surely tax our wallets. Given such a predicament, we found ourselves needing a metric to determine which movies would receive our money.

Since economics got us into this problem, we reasoned it should bare the burden of getting us out. As such, we've used the Futures Market as a model to build our own system of determining which films we would see.
Based on our initial interest, we've assigned each movie a minimum grade it will need on Rotten Tomatoes before we will consider handing over our hard earned funds. In a perfect world, of course, we would assign all movies the same minimum level. But the world is far from fair: like the first-level fighter whose highest attribute is fifteen, we must all accept the rolls fate has given us.

Without further ado, let us return to work. There are many more films than what we've covered thus far.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (May 16, 2008)
Minimum Tomatometer: 55%
Our feelings about Narnia are complex. While fantasy is a genre we love as much as superheroes, that love does not necessarily extend to C.S. Lewis. We were underwhelmed by The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, though we enjoyed parts of it. So why is our bar set so low? Because this movie contains talking mice with swords. What's more, the leader of said swordsmice is voiced by Eddie Izzard (iD&Di: .49). This may be a deliberate attempt to win us over, dear reader: it will most likely succeed.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (July 11, 2008)
Minimum Tomatometer: 20%
It was recently confirmed that Guillermo del Toro (iD&Di: .63) will be directing The Hobbit. That alone is reason enough to head to the theater. On top of that, we love the comics, the last movie, and every other film we've seen by this director. Is it conceivable we'll miss this? With the number of movies coming this summer, anything is possible. But it is far from likely.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (May 22, 2008)
Minimum Tomatometer: 70%
Yes, you've read that right. We fully expect to see this movie, but only because we expect it to live up to expectations. If that isn't the case, we may need to stay home.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (Aug. 8, 2008)
Minimum Tomatometer: 50% - 80% (see below)
Some things are not so clear-cut. We in The Middle Room are a rare breed: the type who enjoy The Mummy, its sequel, and even The Scorpion King. We realize, however, that few share our opinions on this matter. Because of this, we expect the Tomatometer may not accurately gage this film's appeal to us. Why this movie receives negative reviews will be more important than the reviews themselves. We'll be weighing word of mouth and a few choice critics above anything else. Should the movie be received positively... that's a bridge will just have to approach when the time comes.

WALL*E (June 27, 2008)
Minimum Tomatometer: NA
We are going to see this movie.

Well, we hope that was educational and that you, too will be able to utilize economics in your own day-to-day decisions. Our look at this summer's movies is now at - wait... there's more. How can there be more? That's almost a dozen films considered already: summer is only four months long.

Oh, well. More on the way. I'm going to need a second job....