THE RULES
STARTING YOUR LEAGUE
First thing's first…
Every BOxRT Movie Draft starts with putting together your league! Invite your friends, family, or lifelong rivals to join the fun! Or, if you're so inclined, you can fly solo and track your progress against others on Instagram or Reddit.
Right now, BOxRT can accommodate anywhere from one (1) to six (6) players, or Studio Heads. Each Studio Head creates their own Studio (i.e. a slate of films).
We recommend that each league appoint a Studio Manager: someone to take notes, write down draft picks, and update the draft over the course of the year.
Once your league is set but before your draft begins, the Studio Manager should make sure they've signed up and gotten access to their Google Sheets Draft Sheet. You'll want to fill this out during the draft.
You'll also want to make sure you and your team have had a chance to review The Marquee, where all the available movies for the year are listed, so everyone can strategize their picks!
Finally, get in touch with your team and pick a day to meet—either in-person or virtually—before the draft period starts. Then let your draft begin!
MAKING YOUR PICKS
ONCE your league is assembled, it's time to draft!
Draft order is decided at random. (We recommend something like 100 Yard Rush to automate it, but you can decide however you like).
Movie picks follow a typical "snake draft" order—i.e., once each player has made their first pick, the draft order is reversed for the next round, and so on.
Each player picks five (5) theatrical movies from The Marquee, the titles of which make up that player's Studio.
Movies not listed on The Marquee are ineligible for drafting.
Once a movie has been picked, no one else may pick that movie.
If at any point during the year a movie gets pushed out of the 2025 window or out of a wide theatrical release (e.g., a limited release or straight-to-video), the player may pick a new, not-yet-released, not-yet-reviewed movie from the remaining titles on The Marquee.
To ensure that December movie picks fully leverage their theatrical runs—particularly in a case where one of those picks could affect the overall standing—we advise keeping the draft's end date flexible, so those movies can finish their runs.
Once everyone has made all their picks, it's the Studio Manager's job to track and update your draft document, via Google Sheets.
SCORING
The BOxRT Movie Draft is measured by 3 metrics:
1) BOX OFFICE TAKE
Box office totals are determined by worldwide lifetime grosses.
Since box office totals tend to grow over weeks and months, we encourage you to update your numbers at least every quarter throughout the year. (You can also update totals at your leisure.)
For simplicity's sake, movie production and marketing budgets do not count against box office take—i.e., box office totals are taken at face value.
Box office totals are documented in millions (e.g. $157M, $25M, $1.385B etc.) and rounded half up to the nearest integer (e.g. $157.5M becomes $158M, $27.3M becomes $27M, etc.).
Box Office Mojo is our preferred source of truth for numbers.
2) ROTTEN TOMATOES
Rotten Tomatoes scores are determined by critic scores only. Audience scores have no bearing on the draft.
Since RT percentages vary slightly over time, we encourage you to double-check your numbers at least every quarter throughout the year. (You can also update percentages at your leisure.)
Rotten Tomatoes is (obviously) our source of truth for scores.
3) BO×RT SCORE
The most important score! This combined, overall metric is the deciding factor for who wins the draft.
The BO×RT score is determined by this formula:
(film's worldwide box office take) × (film's Rotten Tomatoes percentage) = film's sum total in US dollars
For example, if a film makes $100M at the box office and scores 83% on Rotten Tomatoes, then that player's Studio gets $83M added to their total score.
As with box office take, BOxRT scores are documented in millions (e.g. $157M, $25M, $1.385B etc.) and rounded half up to the nearest integer (e.g. $157.5M becomes $158M, $27.3M becomes $27M, etc.).
At the end of the year, your league will tally each player's total combined dollar sum. The player with the highest combined BO×RT score WINS!
THE SLEEPER HIT
But wait, there's more!
In addition to each player's five movie picks, they will also choose one (1) streaming-only title (TV show or movie) to be released in 2025 as a Sleeper Hit for their Studio.
Sleeper Hits are automatically valued at $50M box office and tallied against its Rotten Tomatoes score for bonus points. (NOTE: This $50M contributes to all three metrics.)
Sleeper hits must be non-Marquee titles without wide theatrical releases. Limited releases are fine, but they should primarily be streaming (2022's Glass Onion would be an example of this).
Same as before: Once a streaming title has been picked, no one else may pick that title.
Also same as before: If, at any point during the year, a streaming title gets pushed out of the 2025 window, the player may pick a new, not-yet-released, not-yet-reviewed title.
AND THE STAKES?
Officially, there are no prizes for winning the BOxRT Movie Draft—that is unless you count the symbolic and not-at-all-real Golden 3D Glasses, which are BOxRT's way of visually denoting standings. Consider them your bragging rights!
That said, your league is more than welcome to come up with your own internal Grand Prize! Perhaps a gift card to your local movie theater? A 4K Blu-ray box set? Or maybe even a movie-themed LEGO set? The possibilities are endless!
Additionally, you may choose to give out smaller prizes to the player(s) with the highest combined box office take (The Blockbuster Buster) and Rotten Tomatoes scores (The Critical Darling), respectively—assuming those players are different from the overall winner—or any other prizes you can dream up!