The Monty Hall explanation has always flummoxed me. I'm surprised by the answer, then I understand why it's the case, then I forget why it's the case and have to convince myself again. Such is the deceptive power of not believing in the counter-intuitive.

In terms of which movie will be a hit, there are a number of factors which SHOULD tell you what will be a winner (track record of the writer, genre, star power of the cast, etc.).But as William Goldman (one of Hollywood's smartest writers) observed, "Nobody knows anything." You can't be certain that your knowledge of the background of a new release will predict its success, nor should you assume that the odds of a given new release becoming a success (making a substantial profit) are random. We're often confounded when the follow-up to a major hit turns out to be a dud, but we're also surprised when a dark horse becomes a sleeper hit. So studios search for the next Juno or Little Miss Sunshine and lose money just as they did in bankrolling the next Titanic.

It's irrational to assume that an outcome favored by our intuition will have a better shot than one favored by counterintuition, but it's also irrational to assume that a counterintuitively favored outcome will have a better shot.