My name is Chris, and for the last few years I’ve been the day-to-day manager of Fantasy Box Office. We're heading into 2026, which is the first full calendar year on the website, so I wanted to finally pull back the curtain to talk about where the game came from, what it’s become, and where it’s going.
Fantasy Box Office has been a passion of mine for years. In 2022, right as theaters were reopening, I joined up with three friends from film school to make a game out of our movie obsession.
We went around in a circle and picked movies we each thought would do well in the burgeoning post-pandemic market. Every few weeks, we’d look up the latest box office numbers and plug them into a messy spreadsheet, and track which of us had drafted the most successful movies by the end of the year. We got excited to root for movies we’d championed, and bemoaned when our picks didn’t work.
Although it was simple, it was shockingly fun. (I won, thanks to a combination of Avatar 2, Top Gun: Maverick, and Elvis - and to celebrate, I created this video to cement my victory.)
More and more of our friends wanted to get in on the action, so I started figuring out how to automate it so that anybody could sign up and start their own league. Using tools I’d developed in my day job in film post-production, I pioneered a complex spreadsheet system built with Google Forms, Google Sheets, and Google Apps Script.
It was messy, but it worked. I must have broken some records for the most complicated, spiraling network of interlocking spreadsheets ever created.
We put up a couple posts on Reddit and got… a lukewarm response. People were excited by the idea of a fantasy game based around movies, but most couldn’t figure out how the heck to play a game that lived inside my Google Drive. The user experience was terrible. I probably broke some records for the worst game design ever created, too.
But a few determined players pushed through the pain, and their enthusiasm inspired us to do more. People kept telling us the game gave them an excuse to reconnect with friends they hadn’t talked to in a while, or simply to have a reason to talk about movies again. It opened a lot of people up to a new way of caring about their favorite hobby.
We realized there might be something here if we could lower the barrier to entry, spruce up the design, and make it look professional. That’s when I started developing this website, FantasyBoxOfficeGame.com. After a year in development, I'm quite proud with how it looks.
While we have a good foundation, we're most excited for some of the things we're planning on rolling out over the next few months. Big things are coming! We have a long list of bells and whistles to improve quality of life and gameplay experience, and we'll soon create apps for the Apple and Android app stores. Longer term, we’re planning to introduce alternate game options and modes, including a global-league version of the game so individual players can join without needing to round up friends for a private league.
We’re still at the beginning of this journey, but it’s been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever worked on. The response from players has been incredibly moving, and we're really excited for what's ahead.