How to Run a Movie Box Office Draft, Simpsons Style
Curran-Payne Movie Classic champion banners hang from the ceiling in one of The Simpsons writers rooms. Photo courtesy of Nick Dahan.
If you’re a Simpsons fan and a movie geek, like we are at the Springfield Googolplex podcast, you might have heard of the Curran-Payne Movie Classic.
Every year in late April, The Simpsons writers room has come together for a movie box office draft, where they compete to put together a roster of the highest grossing movies of the summer. Inspired by the increasingly mainstream hobby of fantasy sports in the 2000s, the annual tradition was started by writer and co-executive producer Brian Kelley in 2009, and was later named after two Simpsons writers and early champs of the draft, Kevin Curran, who passed away in 2016, and Don Payne, who passed away in 2013.
In the past, the writers have shared their unique recipe for this movie draft with other writers rooms, including at Robot Chicken and Jeopardy. But as part of our recent interview with Matt Selman, Matt and his team were kind enough to let us share their full instructions publicly for the first time!
Read on to learn how to run your very own summer movie box office draft, Simpsons style.
Instructions
Instructions courtesy of Simpsons writer Nick Dahan, whose recent credits include season 36’s "Homer and Her Sisters. Edited for clarity.
1. Set the Auction Date and End Date.
The auction takes place around mid-to-late April. The films included in the auction should be released in the summer of that year (so only films that are released after the auction and before Labor Day.). However, now that way fewer movies are getting released in theaters, we sometimes push the end date to mid-September.
2. Pick the Official Slate of Movies.
To get a sense of what a completed auction board looks like, here’s a digitized version of the whiteboard we used during covid. (Jeff Westbrook won this year with The Forever Purge, 1/3 of Black Widow, and 1/3 of Shang-Chi.)
For our group of 15-20, the ideal number of lots for the summer box office auction is 65-70.
We use the box office stock trading website Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX) to determine the release dates of films and which are deserving to make the cut to become an official lot in the auction. (For example, a movie this year called Grand Prix of Europe is listed as a summer release on HSX for $1.89—that’s practically nothing! It’s not enough to deserve a spot in the auction.)
Splitting Movies: An important aspect of creating the list of movies for the summer is “splitting” the bigger films based on their HSX values. For example, Avengers: Infinity War had the potential of a box office hit, so in the auction it was split into 4 separate lots meaning in the auction it would be listed as:
LOT 1: 1/4 Avengers: Infinity War
LOT 2: 1/4 Avengers: Infinity War
LOT 3: 1/4 Avengers: Infinity War
LOT 4: 1/4 Avengers: Infinity War
We find that movies listed above $100 on HSX are big enough to split. As a rule of thumb, if it’s above $200, it can be “triple split”, if it’s above $300, it has the potential to be “quadruple split.” No movie has ever been “quintuply split.”
Putting Together Packages: Movies that are listed on HSX between $2 and $15 are good candidates to be included in “packages”! This is an example of a package from this year’s auction, which Mike Price (a two-time champ) purchased for $15 in Box Office Dollars:
LOT 60. THE HORROR PACKAGE:
The Surfer: 10.00
Clown in a Cornfield: 2.00
The Ruse: 5.00
Dangerous Animals: 2.00
The Ritual: 2.00
I Don't Understand You: 2.00
Mike will receive the total summer domestic box office for all of those films combined.
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We add one extra lot that acts as a stand-in for the top-grossing movie that isn’t included in the auction. For example, that movie Sound of Freedom wasn’t part of the auction in 2023 and made $184 million for the owner of The Slot Of Mystery. We also have a “Runner-Up Slot of Mystery” as a lot for the movie that isn’t on the list but grosses the second most in the summer.
3. Run the Auction.
Each participant in the auction starts with $100 in fake Box Office Dollars or B.O. Bucks. If you want to have a cash prize for the winners, ask for a buy-in from all players. In 2025, The Simpsons writers room had a buy-in of $80 in real money.
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In some years, we have included the concept of “blind bidding” where each participant submits a bid for one big film that has already been released before the auction. To do this, before the film is released in theaters, the player writes down a bid with their name on it, folds it up, and places it in an envelope that is then sealed. At the start of the auction, the blind bids are all opened, we reveal the highest bidder for each movie, and deduct the bid from their starting amount.
It’s essential that the auction has an auctioneer. Since 2009 (the first Simpsons box office auction ever), Eliza Hooper has been our auctioneer.
The box office draft auction in action, with auctioneer Eliza Hooper at the white board. Photo courtesy of Nick Dahan (seen in standing in the middle here selecting a lot from the bingo ball cage alongside writer and co-executive producer Ryan Koh).
Using a bingo ball cage, a random number is selected, which commences bidding on that film. Like a classic auction, everyone shouts out their bids until Eliza says, “going once, going twice, sold.” The whiteboard is then changed to show who won that lot, and how much money they have left in the auction.
The bidding process is chaotic with the auctioneer deciding who she hears a bid from first. (Usually, there are no ties on bids said at the same time—just angry, shouting chaos until people stop bidding and a winner of a lot is determined.)
Fellow Canadian, Simpsons writer, and consulting producer Tim Long grasps his money maniacally during the auction. Photo courtesy of Nick Dahan.
At the end of the auction, sometimes there’s only two or three participants with money remaining and then it’s a delicate, strategic dance, with those players choosing where to spend and how much, hoping to get the best movies at the best prices. At the end of the auction, you don’t want to leave any B.O Bucks left on the table.
If only one lot remains in the auction, and two or three participants have the same exact amount of B.O. Bucks left (while also having the most amount of money left within the collective group), the coin flip rule is enacted. In this scenario, there would be no verbal bidding, just an automatic coin flip to determine the winner of the lot.
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This is all generally speaking, but the most conventional strategy is to aim for every B.O. Buck spent to earn you at least 3x that amount in actual box office gross. So if you purchased Paw Patrol: The Movie for 48 B.O. Bucks in the auction, then your hope would be that it gross more than $144 million. (It only made $40 million...)
4. Award the Champion!
Fellow Canadian and Simpsons writer Joel H. Cohen, the 2019 box office champion, receives a sign for his parking spot from writer, co-executive producer, and 2018 champ Ryan Koh. Photo courtesy of Nick Dahan.
After the end of the summer movie season, add up the total box office take for each player. (Don’t forget to divide the totals for any split lots first.)
At The Simpsons, the top three players all win part of the pot as well as other prizes. It’s sort of random how we come up with the prize amounts each year—whatever makes the math easy because the buy-in and amount of people always varies and we’re super lazy.
In 2021, these were the top prize amounts (adding up to $1,000 with enough money leftover from the buy-ins for material costs and a bonus prize):
1st Place: $660, plus a banner in the writers room and a sign on your parking spot
2nd Place: $240
3rd Place: $100
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We do have one random extra prize. The “biggest non-opener” goes to the movie that receives the highest bid during the auction but ends up not opening in theaters that summer. Lots of movies get shelved or pushed—I think the Playmobil movie was featured on three different auctions before finally getting a release date the third time. In 2021, this prize received $70 from the pot.
The Simpsons Writers Room Winners Circle
At the time of this article, here is the full list of past Curran-Payne Movie Classic Champions:
2024: Al Jean
2023: Stewart Burns
2022: Mike Price
2021: Jeff Westbrook
2019: Joel Cohen
2018: Ryan Koh
2017: Rob Lazebnik
2016: Rob Lazebnik
2015: Mike Scully
2014: Tim Long
2013: Brian Kelley
2012: Kevin Curran
2011: Mike Price
2010: Joel Cohen
2009: Don Payne
