You're comparing Men in Black to Pirates? What a terrible comparison.

PEACE, Mike.

This is wrong on so many levels...

Why? They're both heavily hyped sequels, opened on the same weekend, have the same target audience, etc.

Is there a way to look up previous tracking numbers for past films? I can't seem to
find a way to do that. For example, the tracking for Da Vinci Code a few weeks from it's
release and the week before it's release. It would be nice to have those numbers readily
available to see any trends in tracking.

Not exactly. MIB is sci-fi, which tends to turn a lot of people off. MIB doesn't have the female appeal that Pirates does. Plus, MIB2 looked like absolute crap. Not to mention it was five years after the original, losing some of the hype. And it wasn't the film of the year, which Pirates clearly is.

That, and Pirates 2 is coming off freshly from a film that just had some of the biggest (if not the biggest) legs for a $300 million blockbuster in the new century. There is no comparison to a franchise such as Men in Black, which was nowhere near that word of mouth and no where close to the mass appeal that Pirates has. Men In Black's appeal rested much more in the child population, and both it's appeal and WOM are indicative in it's eventual total gross (both films in the franchise).

The then Will Smith was pretty strong, but Pirates has the tag team of Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp (Depp has insane appeal among women right now), plus the addition of Kiera Knightley.

And while the pirates theme may have initially been a turn off for the first film, the eventual franchise has now proven itself to be an all accessible adventure film with mass appeal to a broad range of ages, something that Men In Black can't claim.

By the way, the Men In Black films DIDN'T open on the same weekend as Pirates. The Men in Black films opened on the July 4th weekend, which is the weekend Superman Returns just opened on.

PEACE, Mike.

Well, I'm sure the fact Pirates was based on a theme park ride turned a lot people off too!

Anyway, maybe my analogy isn't the greatest, but I'd like to turn the table to those who are predicting the movie to open upwards of $100 million (some as high as 160) to explain their logic to me. Seriously, $100 million?...maybe. $120 million? 130? No way.

if you see 100 million as possibile then its all good.


Interesting if the major boxoffice sities are perdicting so high. Coming soon says 117.2 million.
http://www.comingsoon.net/weekendwarrior/2006/jul7.php


10 million to high for my tastes but i see an 100 million weekend.

5 years passed between MIB 1 and 2, only 3 this time. MIB 2 took too long, POTC 2 is coming at exact right time. Also, 2006 is another subdued year, with the possibility of no movies from Jan-Jun passing $240 m. Admissions haven't been that low for the top film from the first half of the year since 1998, with Dr. Dolittle as the top film of the first half of the year ($144 m).

POTC 2 is coming following a number of disappointments or somewhat underperformances (MI3, Just My Luck, Poseidon, Hedge (underperformed comparing inflation wise to DW's other animated films), Cars, Fast and the furious 3 and Garfield 2, Lakehouse, Click, and Superman.

Only Da Vinci Code, Xmen 3, and The Breakup, Nacho, and Prada remotely met expectations, with Break up and Prada going past expectations. 2002 was a MUCH more competitive year (2 $300 m + films coming from May alone).

OK, this is basically to answer redspear's earlier question on why I'm predicting $125m: Shrek 2. I think the similarity between Shrek and Pirates is staggering. Both are films that didn't have built-in fanbase initially, and both turned out to appeal a wide range of audience. Shrek opened with $42.3 million and went on to have a 6.32 multiplier, while Pirates opened to $46.6m and 6.04 multiplier (not counting the first two days since it was released on a Wednesday). Both had incredible DVD sales (with Pirates having the upper hand). The WOM for both are incredibly positive. Both waited three years to release the sequel. And what happened with Shrek 2? It almost broke Spider-Man's record despite being released on Wednesday. Being released on a Friday, I don't see how Pirates 2 can gross less than Shrek 2's $108m 3-day opening even without doing any complex calculation. If we do some calculation, we could see that Shrek 2 basically tripled Shrek's opening since Shrek 2 opened on Wednesday while Shrek opened on Friday (meaning we need to add more to Shrek 2 if we adjust it to 3-day). Pirates is just the opposite, as the first one was on Wednesday, while the second one is on Friday, so if we increase the number to adjust the first one to 3-day and then triple that, we are looking at a $150+ opening as DP is predicting. So yes, I think $125m is actually lowballing it.

I never took the time to explain my prediction (to anyone but Brian) as you jsut did, I congrat you

I calculated it all out long ago to make my predictions and fully stand by 150m+ 550m+

And, remember, the last time the opening weekend record was broken (Sorcerer's Stone to Spider-Man), the increase was 27.1%. And that's with just a one-year difference for ticket prices. If we apply the same percentage to Spider-Man, the new record would be $145.9 million. I certainly don't think it's going to make even close to this, but it's not impossible, really. I just can't find a reason to go higher than $130 million.

xiayun's analysis is good, though.

The audiences for Shrek 2 and PoTC are different though. PoTC draws a larger number of females to the theater and less families. Shrek 2 was riding on the top of the CGI wave that saw Nemo shoot up to the top as well.. Shrek 2 was not a fluke it had good timing and the Shrek DVD sold very consistently for a while. PoTC had a modest opening and good word of mouth which led to amazing legs but its DVD sales were fairly frontloaded in the first month so basically the people who liked it.

I can see PoTC being much more frontloaded but by that I mean a multiplier of around 3.2 mostly because it will have a bigger opening weekend and behave more like a sequel.

I would go more like this

PoTC opened for 46 million with 24 million before that on wed and thurs. I think it would be safe to that if it opened on a ffirday it may have gotten roughly 65 million because there would be some loss due to naiscent WoM and repeat viewings by the people who really enjoyed. 65 x1.05 for inflation would be reoughly 69 million. Now I would give that 69 million roughly a 30% increase similiar to the bump that TTT got after FoTR 47 to 62.

so 69x1.31=89.7 then I would add rooughly 4-5 million for some new people who will go into see the movie based off of advertising or


93-96 million opening weekend.

Other reasons I don't buy the shrek argument

Shrek is 2 is always used almost as a standard for any blockbuster few live up to actualy none have. Shrek 2 is better for Wed releases that have had their release date changed a month before from a firday. Shreak although made a similiar amount adjusted for inflation had more room to travel upwards and because of consistent sales had more time to build up an audience on DVD. PoTC sold many of its DVD's within a short time of its release, therefor I think that audience growth would be limited.

I was orignialy going to go for a 70 million opening weekedn but I would have to overlook the wed oepning for PoTC.

Um, thing is...

POTC does attract tons of families.

Pirates appeals to all and it is family friendly. I will attract a lot of famlies.

Pirates will attract some kids, but many millions of teenagers (male and female), then young adults and some older people.

Teens and Young Adults rush out to see a film so that would give a big opening weekend.

With older people watching it and repeat viewings by teens the film will have decent legs and strong weekdays.

comingsoon.net's weekend warrior has it at $117M. Now that's not the most reliable box office site, but it does show that this is expected to beat Spider-Man.

Personally, I don't think POTC has the appeal that Spider Man had. It's brand isn't as well established.

if all the other site say yes it will beat the record, i think pirates has a very good chance then.

However i think all of them will play it safe at around 105 million, however the tracking is hard to ignore.

I see this is my 5 week break down of the film

Opening: 106 million
Fri: 39 million
Sat: 38 million -2.5%
Sun: 29 million -24%
Weekdays: 45 million from 4 weekdays

Weekend 2: -53%-49.82 million (200.82 million in 11 days)
weekdays: 22 million from 4 weekdays

weekend 3: -45%-27.4 million (250.2 million in 18 days)
weekdays:12 million from 4 weekdays

weekend 4: -42%-15.9 million (278.1 million in 25 days)
weekdays: 7.5 million from 4 weekdays

weekend 5: -40%-9.54 million (295.14 million in in 32 days)
weekdays: 4.5 million from 4 weekdays

(300 million in 36 days)

+ 25-30 million more.

I think my legs are way to strong.

4 more reviews added and pirates is 13/17 so 77%

Its wierd BBC says it full of action but there is too much action?? 2/5

ign gives 4/5 stars

Hollywood.com gives 3.5/4

this movie will stay fresh and above 70%.

superman will get around 29 due to soooooooo many pirate sellouts.

That's why there are so many screens.

either way theyll all sell out. 140 million+.

1.Pirats 2 - 137.1m
2.Sups - 20.45m -61%
3.Prada - 15.4m -43%
4.Click - 10.6m -47%
5.Cars - 8.3m -43%