July 17, 2012 in Editorial, Top
We all think about it several times a day (it’s not just us, right?…right?) How much would it cost to become Batman? In anticipation of the impending release of The Dark Knight Rises, Centives decided to find out.
Batman Begins establishes in painstaking detail what it takes to become a caped crusader. Bruce Wayne first decides that he needs to f Read the rest of this entry →
July 17, 2012 in Editorial, Top
Forbes’ Fictional 15 is the gold standard in determining the net worth of fictional characters. It estimated the 2012 net worth of Bruce Wayne at $6.9 billion making him the 8th richest fictional character. However Forbes’ does not publish its methodology and it takes into account all iterations of Bruce Wayne from the comics to the movies. Centives decided to create its own estimate of the net worth of Bruce Wayne, based only on the Batman movies directed by Christopher Nolan: Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.
In Batman Begins we’re told that Wayne Enterprises helped build the rail system of Gotham City. Therefore the company must have a division focused on con Read the rest of this entry →
July 16, 2012 in Editorial
In Why Nations Fail Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson attempt to explain why certain areas of the world remain under-developed. In Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne becomes Batman in the hopes of bringing stability to Gotham City which has severe economic problems. But the analysis presented in Why Nations Fail suggests that Batman is, in fact, making the problem even worse.
To begin with, there is little doubt that Gotham city has f Read the rest of this entry →
July 16, 2012 in Editorial
In Batman Begins we’re introduced to William Earle, the CEO of Wayne Enterprises. By the end of the movie, Bruce Wayne fires him and appoints Lucius Fox as the new CEO of Wayne Enterprises. It’s a classic story of good triumphing over evil in the corporate world. But did Earle really deserve to lose his job? Centives realized the answer is no.
One of Earle’s most controversial decisions as CEO seems to have been to take the co Read the rest of this entry →
June 20, 2012 in Editorial
Ah, New York City. The Big Apple. We’re not sure what it is about you, but filmmakers just love seeing you destroyed. Perhaps it’s because you’re the home of the United Nations making you the representative of the world. Or perhaps it’s the Empire State Building that draws such hatred. Or maybe all those films are secretly bankrolled by a very bitter Duke of (Old) York. Whatever it is, it happens frighteningly often. The latest director who appears to have been burned by New York City’s absurd real estate prices is Joss Whedon who decided to destroy the city in The Avengers. In fact, according to Wikipedia, New York City has been destroyed on screen Read the rest of this entry →
June 15, 2012 in Editorial
On the heels of the Hollywood Movie Rating Calculator we’ve created a Best Bollywood Movie Rating Website Calculator. As a movie-goer you have several options open to you when choosing which movie to watch. How do you decide which ones are worth your time? You could go to review aggregator websites such as Bollywood Hungama and IMDB, but there’s significant disagreement among them. Take Shahrukh Khan’s CGI enhanced adventure Ra.One for example: on Bollywood Hungama it has an amazing 4.5 star rating (equal to 90 on our scale) whereas IMDB’s users have given it a measly 46.
Centives decided to solve the problem by creating a calculator that asks you for your ratings of individual movies, and then determines which site’s relative rankings are most similar to yours. We surveyed user votes from Bollywood Hungama, IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes User Votes, and the ratings for the standard DVD versions of movies on Amazon.
If you want to go ahead and start using the calculator, then Read the rest of this entry →
June 11, 2012 in Editorial
With movie tickets soon projected to reach $20 (if they haven’t already) deciding which films to spend your precious currency on has become an important investment decision. Into the breach have stepped websites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic to help you find out what critics are saying about the movies. But which website should you trust?
Take the latest Avengers movie. Rotten Tomatoes has given it a stunning 93%, while Metacritic gives it the far less impressive 69. To even further complicate matters, in addition to surveying the responses of critics, each site also invites users to submit their own ratings. Rotten Tomatoes gives Twilight: New Moon an abysmal 28%. Its users on the other hand give it a respectable 78%.
Centives decided to solve the problem by creating a calculator that measures your ratings for individual movies, and then determines which site’s relative rankings for movies best matches yours. We surv Read the rest of this entry →
May 27, 2012 in Editorial, Top
If there’s one thing that the movies have taught us it’s that evil never succeeds. Yet most of the time evil fails for silly reasons. In 1994 Peter Anspach published the 100 things he would do if he ever became an evil overlord. They included such gems as:
But while following such prescripts are likely to lead to evil-overlord levels of success, is it financially viable to do so? Read the rest of this entry →
May 14, 2012 in Editorial, Top
He ran to the end of town, the end of the county, the end of the state, and to the end of the coast. Then he ran back a few times. But how far did Forrest Gump run? And for how long? Centives decided to find out.
We know that he began in his fictional hometown of Greenbow Alabama on October 1, 1979. The date is given away when a newscaster announces that President Carter had collapsed that day due to heat exhaustion as Forrest runs through town.
His first stop is Sa Read the rest of this entry →
May 14, 2012 in Editorial
“I just felt like running.” Forrest Gump responds when questioned about the purpose of his trek across the United States. But how much would that whim really cost him if you wanted to replicate it today? Centives found out.
When he starts running Forrest is living off of a healthy fortune as a result of his entrepreneurial pursuits in the shrimp industry. Shortly before he takes off running Forrest deems himself a “gozillionaire.” When he steps off his porch on October 1, 1979 he brings nothing with him besides the clothes on his back and the baseball cap on his head. In calculating Forrest’s budget we took three factors into consideration: cl Read the rest of this entry →
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