Fantasy Acting League – Players Wanted

Christmas has come early. I have actually spent the last year working on a little game for the internet. It was a little idea I had in my head, but wasn’t sure if it would actually work or not. I have spent the last year working on it, seeing if it actually made sense on paper, as well as that crazy head of mine and to everyone’s surprise, it totally did. So, ladies and gentlemen, let me present to you the Fantasy Acting League.

It is essentially the same as a Fantasy Football team (in the UK, at the very least – you Americans have a far more complicated fantasy league system when it comes to sport). Everyone who wants to take part must pick three actors and three actresses that they think will score them the most points in 2015. The beauty of it is that once you’ve picked your six champions, the rest of the work is up to me and you just sit back, drinking cocktails, until you find out if you’ve won or you’ve lost at the end of next year. Obviously the talent is in picking your six champions. You have to try and work out who is going to score the most points. Sure, perhaps Chris Pratt might blow everyone else out of the water with a Five Star Jurassic World movie, but maybe you are better off picking an actor who will be in several movies next year. Even if half of them are awful, you might get more points than Pratt out of sheer numbers.

I have devised the point scoring system below. Just so you know, I am using Empire magazine in the UK as a source for reviews and verdicts. I am not using my own site to judge whether something is three stars or whatever. Remember, Americans: you we get your Hollywood blockbusters much later, so when it hits the end of the month, we might not be able to mark that December movie you were counting on, as it won’t appear for us until January. On the flip side, maybe one of the OSCAR-fuelled movies you have already seen could be a February release for us and therefore actually score some points in this league. This does also mean that a few movies could be missed off the list, namely B Movies. I am afraid I am not going to mark points for anything not mentioned by Empire, because they do cover most films and if anyone is picking a B Movie actor in their league, you are pretty much taking the biggest gamble there is. Also, I cannot guarantee Bane-Locked or the IPC Movie will garner enough profit for a sequel. TV shows do not count in this game. Anyway the point system is as follows:

3 Points for a Lead Role
2 Points for a Supporting Role
1 Point for a Cameo
3 Points for a Five Star review
2 Points for a Four Star review
3 Points for a Three Star review
0 Points for a Two Star review
-1 Points for a One star review
2 Points if Empire Magazine specifically compliments your chosen champion’s performance.
-2 Points if Empire Magazine specifically criticises your chosen champion’s performance.

To give you a general idea of how the tables would look, this is what my team looked like at the end of the year. There is actually one more month of play, but I wanted to give everyone a month to think about their teams, so I am ending this year early, as it was just a test round and was only myself playing. But that does make me the reigning champion.

Matthew McConaughey: 22
Christian Bale: 13
Samuel L. Jackson: 7
Jennifer Lawrence: 21
Eva Green: 11
Scarlett Johannsson: 28
Overall: 102 Points

And it really is that simple. You have until Boxing Day to hand in your teams and scoring begins with the January issue of Empire magazine. Email me your six actors to shl00801@myport.ac.uk. I will update the teams constantly throughout the year, so we can all see who is winning. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments below. I hope this turns into an annual thing and it gathers lot of support.

Lots of love,
Luke ‘There’s Nowhere Else I’d Rather Be’ Abbott