June 4, 2010: Get Him to the Greek, Killers, Marmaduke, Splice

We have a bumper crop of mildly interesting movies this weekend, but I don't have a lot of time, so I am going to bang through these fast.

Get Him to the Greek (GHGRK). I have zero interest in this film. It's tanking, currently at H$53, down from H$75. A $20 million opening is possible, although the strike price is H$25, with the call about H$1, and the put above H$4. CX derivative is H$60 and dropping. Reviews, however, are very good, with a 74% rating on RT. OK, I'm a little more interested.

Stock: Long

Call: Short

Put: Long

CX: Short

Killers could be a great bad movie, but I'm not sure it could be a good movie. I love Katherine Heigl, I think she's incredibly gorgeous, but I'm not completely sold on her as an actress. And I am really not sold on Ashton Kutcher as an actor. But this looks like it could be fun. Stock (5KILR) is H$48, down from H$68, but up H$4 today, so it probably bottomed out. Strike price is the same at Greek, H$25, with the same results: call is dropping, below H$1, and the put is, again, above H$4. CX is also tanking. There are no reviews on RT, which means that it didn't screen for critics.

Stock: Short

Call: Short

Put: Long

CX: Short

I am utterly void of interest in Marmaduke (MARMA). From H$74 to H$45 - another slide. Another H$25 strike price, with the call barely above a quarter (H$0.31) and the put, again, above H$4. CX following same trajectory: H$74 to H$50. Only 3 reviews, so, also again, no critics' screening.

Stock: Short

Call: Short

Put: Long

CX: Short

Splice (SPLIC) is the one movie this weekend with some potential to break out. Stock is at H$26, but that's near the high of H$30. Strike price is H$10, with the call aiming at H$3, and the put just barely above IPO. No CX derivative. We could have a winner here.

Stock: Long

Call: Long

Put: Short

Update Friday morning: There are now enough reviews on RT to make a judgment about Marmaduke, and boy, it ain't pretty. 10%. That's right around complete bomb territory. Everything is down this morning, so maintaining the shorts on the dog movie and Killers looks easy. Splice is also down, although just a bit. It's had such a great run up, I'm not surprised that it's taken a hit. $10 million feels high for that movie, but it's going out on 2,400 screens, so I am going to take the risk that we will be pleasantly surprised. I'm also nervous about GHGRK, but the reviews are holding up. Maintaining all positions.

A middling weekend for a bunch of middling movies. My optimism for GHGRK was slightly misplaced; it opened at $17.4 million, adjust down just H$2, to H$47. Still, I was wrong on the stock. Killers opened below that, as expected, with $16.1 million. It actually adjusted up, albeit just barely, from H$42 to H$43. However, that's below where it was when I called shorting the stock, so I am going to give myself credit for that one. Marmaduke opened with $11 million, way, way below that H$25 strike price. Called that one perfectly. My nervousness about Splice turned out to be justified, it opened with $7.45 million. I got 11 out of 15 right, actually quite a nice record for the weekend, although I botched Splice. A large part of the reason for that record was the unfortunate strike prices, which made it easy to predict the options for 3 of the 4. My mistake on Greek and Splice was giving a little too much credit to some very insubstantial buzz. The average of the user reviews on Yahoo! for Splice is C+. OK, that sucks. The others are B to B+. Shorting all to delist.