If you're anything like me, every year in July or August you get nostalgic for going to the movies when you were a kid. I remember seeing commercials for the original Transformers or Pirates of the Caribbean and waiting in anticipation for months to watch these.
I can’t tell if movies have gotten worse or I’m just a curmudgeon, but these days I barely have any idea what's coming out nor do I care.
But recently I’ve gotten a bit of my spark back. I forced myself to head to my local AMC and watched a movie in a theater. It was epic. I was slamming popcorn, getting a sugar high on a 40 oz coke, and was remembering why I used to love it. So on that note, let's talk about movies.
For informational purposes only. Not trading advice. See full disclaimer below. Kalshi is not affiliated with Universal Pictures or The Odyssey.
The Odyssey:
It's summertime blockbuster season, and The Odyssey is clearly on track to be the biggest movie of the year. It hasn't been without its share of controversies though. People on twitter love to complain. And these same people who undoubtedly never even read the epic novel it's based on were bitching about rumored casting decisions.
But those concerns seem to be mostly put to bed as we approach the official release date. The Odyssey's current Rotten Tomatoes score is sitting at 96% with our markets predicting a score of around 95% once things settle down.
Even for Nolan this would be a monster score if it holds up. For those of you who have forgotten, he's also directed The Dark Knight, Inception, Interstellar, and Oppenheimer just to name a few. These were all fantastic movies, but even they haven't held a score above 94%.
The coming weeks will be very telling in seeing if it can maintain such a stellar score, but if it does we wouldn't be surprised to see a couple of Oscar nominations to come from this.
Oscar Predictions:
Based on the stellar reception for The Odyssey, our markets currently price it as the favorite to win an Oscar for Best Picture. It won't be without competition though as the highly anticipated third movie in the Dune series is slated to release in December. The fact that these two films are in competition for Best Picture is pretty interesting, though.
These are massive blockbuster movies with huge budgets. The Odyssey is rumored to have cost $250M and Dune Part 3 will likely break $200M. It may seem counterintuitive, but over the last two decades smaller budget movies have primarily dominated at the Oscars.
If you take a look at our prediction market for the Best Picture Nominees, you'll see that it's primarily made up of small budget films. Obsession for example, absolutely cooked this year. The indie horror movie only had a budget of $750k and grossed a mind-blowing $428M at the box office. You would have needed to buy Bitcoin at 115 bucks to get a return that good.
This movie is a prime example of the fact that sometimes, less is more. When you don't have absolutely massive movie budgets, you have to focus on the basics that make a movie truly great. This is likely the reason that smaller budget films have performed better in the Oscars in recent times.
But with the market showing The Odyssey and Dune Part 3 in the running for Best Picture, we may finally be getting back to the good ole days of big budget movies also kicking ass. Let's hope that they hold up and continue to remember how to make good movies. But even if they don't you can entertain yourself by checking out our other movie prediction markets here.
Follow Jack Kuveke at Jabroni Capital
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