Blockbuster Returns
Blockbuster Returns Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Object
To be the first team to collect two movie cards from each of the four genres. The genres are "From Another Planet", "Remakes and Reboots", "Heart Warmers" and "Not For Kids".
Setup
Split into teams and place the board, Movie Cards and Head-to-Head Cards in the middle of the table. Then grab your phone, head to the app store and download the free Big Potato Buzzer app (available on iPhone and Android).
Components shown in the setup picture: the phone running the Buzzer app, the Head-to-Head Cards, the Big Potato Buzzer, and the Parking Lot Board — this is where you park your movie cards when ready, with squares marked One Word, Quote It and Act It.
Play
Select the "Head-to-Head" mode on the Big Potato Buzzer and hand it to the two players. They sit opposite each other and place the phone between them, with their fingers at the ready.
The Head-to-Head Round
Count down from three, then flip over a Head-to-Head Card. This will reveal a random category, such as "Movies with boats".
The first player to think of a movie with a boat in it shouts out the name of the movie and presses the buzzer button to start the 15-second countdown. Their opponent must now shout out another movie featuring a boat and hit the timer before the 15 seconds are up. Now it's back to the first player.
Players keep going back and forth, like a round of movie title ping pong, until someone runs out of time. The winner now takes an advantage into the Movie Round.
The Movie Round
The player who won the Head-to-Head Round draws six Movie Cards from the deck and secretly looks at them.
They give the "hardest" three to their opponent from the Head-to-Head Round (who keeps them secret from their team) and take the 'easiest' three for themselves. Both players must now decide which cards to place face down on each of their category squares on the board.
One Word Only
Describe the movie to your team using one carefully chosen word. Feel free to repeat until you're blue in the face. For example, for Thor: "Hammer!"
Quote it
Describe the movie to your team by shouting out a quote. If you don't know one, make it up. For example, here's Up: "Aah, my house is covered with balloons!"
Act it
Channel your inner De Niro and act out the movie to your team. No talking allowed. For example, here's Jurassic World.
When everyone's ready, the player who won the Head-to-Head Round starts. Select the "Triple Charades" mode on the Big Potato Buzzer and press the button to start the 30-second timer.
On their turn, players can tackle their three cards in any order they want, and can always come back to one later if their team gets stuck. Once a movie has been correctly guessed, flip the card over. If a player flips over all three of their Movie Cards and still has some time to spare, they can try to steal their opponent's cards by looking at them and describing them in the same way. When the time's up, they add all the Movie Cards they've won to their collection.
Now it's the other team's turn. The player who lost the Head-to-Head Round tries to describe them to their team in the same way as before. They can also steal any remaining Movie Cards left by their opponents, but they have to get theirs first.
Go Again
Choose two new players to go head-to-head and start the process all over again.
Stealing Movies
Sometimes, in order to win, you have to fight dirty. Once both teams have finished the Movie Round, they can discard three movies of the same genre and choose a movie to steal from their opponent's collection. Each team can only do this once per round.
Winning
The first team to successfully collect two movies from each of the four genres wins the game!
Extra Rules
No Sequels
In the Head-to-Head Round, if a player says a movie that's part of a series, all other movies from the same series are off the table. For example, if a player said The Avengers, you can't say Infinity War or End Game. If you do, you lose the battle.
Challenge an Answer
If you suspect a player of saying the wrong movie in the Head-to-Head Round, you can shout out "Challenge", which ends the round immediately. Look up the movie to determine who's right. If the answer was wrong, the challenger wins that round and gets the advantage. If they were right, they win the round.
New Words Only
During the Quote It and One Word Only categories, players can't say words that appear in the title of the film. For example, for Pete's Dragon, they can't say, "Hey everyone, look at this massive dragon I found".
Playing with the Original
Add all the Movie Cards and Head-to-Head cards together, then get going. The rules are still the same, except teams are racing to collect 12 cards in total (one from each genre). Good luck!