The numbers for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (POTC) are truly enormous even in an era when studios, theatres, and moviegoers have become used to huge opening weekends. Over at The Hot Blog, David Poland has referred to these big opening weekends and lesser legs as “front loading.” All the comparisons below are against other films that have been impacted by front loading.
• POTC had the largest opening weekend ever with $132 million, beating the four year old record of Spiderman by $18 million.
• POTC had the largest 3-day opening ever beating last May’s release of the final Star Wars film, Revenge of the Sith, by $8 million. Sith opened on a Thursday.
• POTC earned $100 million in just two days, the first film ever to reach that level.
• Friday’s one day haul of $55 million was the largest ever single day, beating the opening of Sith which pulled in $50 million. POTC also had the 5th biggest single day ever on Saturday and the 27th biggest single day on Sunday.
• POTC is just the 6th film to bring in over $100 million in its first three days. The others are Sith, Spiderman, Matrix Reloaded, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and this summer’s X-Men: The Last Stand. Interestingly, four of those movies were released in May (the Potter film opened in November). Compared to other movies opening in the true summer months of June, July, and August, POTC just crushed anything. The largest ever June opening is the third Harry Potter movie, Prisoner of Azkaban with $93 million. The largest ever July opening prior to POTC was Spiderman 2 with $88 million. The largest opening in August belongs to Rush Hour 2 with $67 million. At first I was surprised that May was so dominant for opening weekends, but upon reflection the fact that kids are still in school forces ticket sales to weekends. Also, there are fewer entertainment alternatives in May and less folks on vacation.
Other records on the horizon for POTC could include the 4-day and 10-day records of $158 million and $236 million both held by Sith. Also, keep an eye on the one week record of $192 million held by Spiderman 2. The fastest film ever to $200 million is Spiderman 2 in just 8 days. Sith is the fastest ever to $300 million in 17 days. Six films have made it to $400 million with the record for getting there fastest belonging to Shrek 2 in 43 days.
How high could POTC go? The first film released last summer opened at $46 million but showed amazing legs to stay in the top ten for ten weeks and earn $305 million. There is precedent for sequels outperforming their originals, most notably Shrek 2, which earned $441 million versus $267 million for the original. I think the latest POTC and Shrek 2 have some similarities in that both franchises became much more popular due to the success of their DVDs. Both also have very brad popularity across all key movie going demographics.
Of the five previous films to open to $100 million or more, their total domestic gross ranged from $235 million (X-Men) to $404 million (Spiderman). These five films grossed anywhere from 2.3 to 3.5 times their opening weekend. For POTC, that would lead to a box office of $300 million to $462 million.