Hello there. It’s me, The Puzzleboy.
A couple of fun facts about me in the form of dating profile prompts. I geek out on: movie trivia! Biggest risk I've taken: writing a puzzle that relies heavily on math. It’s less of my thing! But one can not be The Puzzleboy and ignore numbers!
Luckily, and surprisingly, I only screwed up the movie trivia portion of the puzzle this time. (Not really. But a little bit. It’s fine.)
But many of you mastered both domains and now find your names engraved into The Puzzleboy Pantheon. May your names last long after the fourth Tron legasequel comes out.
Action!
Number One
leads us to:
(Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End + Jurassic Park: The Lost World) x Fast X x The Matrix (1)
(3 + 2) x 10 x 1 = 50
Number Two
which yields:
Back to the Future III + Alien: Resurrection + Top Gun (I) x The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
(3+4+1) x 5 = 40
Number Three
so we’re talking about:
The Man with the Golden Gun + Rocky III + Mission Impossible III + Paddington 2
9+3+3+2 = 17
Number Four
which gets us:
Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi - Halloween III: Season of the Witch - Scream (2022) + The Godfather Part Two
8-3-5+2 = 2
Except, Scream (2022) is not the only possible answer for “Sidney Prescott a decade later.” 2011’s SCRE4M also features the character Sidney Prescott and also came out a decade after 2000’s Scream 3. So maybe….
8-3-4+2 = 3
Uh-oh.
Plug your four answers into the final equation below. The result will be a year.
Name the Steven Spielberg movie released that year.
(Question 1 x Question 2) - (Question 3 + Question 4)
If we went the Scream (2022) route, this leads us to:
(50 × 40) − (17+2) = 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, the beginnings of a major original film franchise.
But if you went with SCRE4M we have:
(50×40) - (17+3) = 1980, a rare year in which Stephen Spielberg movie didn’t come out. The most recently released film would be 1941, which Puzzler Luke S. points out has a numerical movie title, which “makes it a nice touch!” I agree! I totally planned it that way.
I am accepting both of these films, because they are both correct! If you have another path that was correct that did not get credit, please plead your case via email!
Welcome to the Puzzleboy Pantheon!
Alex S.
Eric C.
Helene L.
Jay W.
Jennifer K.
Jesse F.
Kristen K.
Luke S.
Rakedu T.
Sam L.
Tim L.
Tim M.
We’ve done fifteen of these and it’s about time for an old fashioned mystery with clues, theft, and all that stuff. Join us on August 1st for:
