Initial rush? Rentals aren't that frontloaded. With $19 million in rentals in the first week, $60-70 million sounds a lot more reasonable than $39 million, which sounds impossible. I've never seen a film that frontloaded in rentals, especially around December. videobusiness's number sounds unrealistic.

And, let's not forget that it kinda sold 11 million units in its first week. DVD sales are usually very frontloaded, but not rentals. Still, 11 million is outstanding for a first week figure.

Oh, and IMDB rental charts aren't user-updated. They get their information from Home Media Retailing.

I find it interesting that POTC is leading the summer most anticipated poll at BOM. Now, I wouldn't consider a BOM to be such a great indicator given the way the audience can skew in certain ways. However, X3 has the clear advantage there with over 80% males and a lack of little kids. Yet, Pirates leads by about 40%. heh. It's also interesting that The Da Vinci Code is nearly even with X3 although X3 again has home field advantage.

I really think we are going to see a hyped blockbuster the likes of which we have not seen since at least TPM. I think over 525m is possible which would make it the most impressive hyped blockbuster in at least 2 decades IMO.

Notr that it means much, but there was a Germany-wide poll held about the most anticipated movie of the summer and the candidates were M:I-3, The Da Vinci Code, X-Men 3, POTC2 and I think something else.

Anyway, M:I-3 got like 2% (heh), POTC2 about 12-15% while X-men 3 owned with about 50%, even though POTC has beaten X2 in Germany by over 150%.

Were there CNN stories about the teaser trailer hitting theaters?

It's a bit OT, but I would say ROTS was more hyped than TPM anyway.

No. Maybe in Germany, but not here.

Yeah, I don't think ROTS's hype compared to that of TPM.

I wasn't into box-office back then, hut did TPM also sell out every single midnight showing it had at pretty much any theatre and beat the previous opening day record by over 20%?

Well, it was pretty much the first big film to have midnight showings due to demand, and it beat the previous opening day record by 32.1%.

TPM was the most hyped movie almost of all time behind the very first Batman and yes there were alot of soldout shows even back then. Think about it, that was like the first SWs film in 16 years. There even was a website that did livefeed everyday from TPM set, that one of course had alot of hits

Fair enough.

I don't know how ROTS and TPM can even be compared in terms of hype. TPM is above and beyond anything the industry has ever seen before.

ROTS had plenty of hype but TPM had hype beyond comprehension.

Here is a special rare preview edition of BoxOffice Guru:

http://www.boxofficeguru.com/phantompreview.htm

Im an outsider on this one but I just cant seen POTC2 making much more than the first film. Its just wont happen. In fact I dont see any film in 06 opening to a 3 day $100m.

You know, I think it's possible X3 could have an opening higher than Pirates...the latter is going to make more money, no doubt about it. Remember, X2's opening was twice that of Pirates's. I think we can expect, the nature of the business, X2 to grab another 10 million to its opening at least. If there's one thing we can expect from a Marvel comics film, it's a strong opening (with the exception of the vigilante trinity in 2004) So we're looking at something that could skirt around 100 million. Dead Man's Chest would have to do twice Black Pearl's numbers to even catch up.

Granted, it's not impossible for Pirates to do that--Matrix Reloaded improved more than three times on its predecessor, and Austin powers, The Spy Who Shagged Me five time upon its...but both films also saw drastic improvements in overall gross...and both predecessors were released off-season. (while their sequels were placed in the summer) Like I said, it's not impossible...like The Matrix and Austin Powers[/b, [b]Pirates just has that cache where it's beyond simply being a hit, but I think it'll still come in behind X3 even though the demand is probably stronger.

One must remember, however, the difference between the first PotC and the second: the first one had everyone weary because it was a movie based on a Disney ride, and the last time that happened, we got Country Bears... *shudders*

So there wasn't exactly a swarm of people looking to go see PotC. So it got fairly good opening, but not spectacular. But then the WOM got out and that's how the legs built.

With Dead Man's Chest, on the other hand, it now has a built-in audience that grows every day. Much of that audience didn't catch the first movie in its opening weekend; many actually didn't see it 'til it came out on DVD. But now they're fans and they're eager for the sequel and therefore they're all going to be clamoring to see it opening weekend.

So, I think DMC will definitely have a great opening weekend and there will definitely be no repeat of an X-Men movie making double PotC on opening weekend. Won't happen here.

Joy

if your talking hypemachines,batman was huge, but iactually realized the Biggest still is INDEPENDENCE DAY.

When it debuted the openig weekend record was 50.4 set by batman forever in 1995. id4 opened to 50.1

the dif? id4 opened ona wednesday and an absurd for1996 95 million dollar 5day(inflated about 140 million)-or what would been roughly 70-80 million 3 day. either way it would of broken the record by minimum 40%, with 50 and 60% probable. by comparison, the biggest in the last 20 years is batman which broke it 37%, obliterating spideys 22%....

the one big thing in pirates way is superman which should be at atleast 35/40 million that weekend,and with good wom from its super frontloaded week it could be at over 50.

If it's "super frontloaded," it won't matter about WOM. It'll drop.

1 POTC 2 $120 m
2 X3 $114 m ($93 m 3day)
3 Superman $78 m (3day)
4 MI3 $70 m
5 Ice Age 2: The Meltdown $68 m *
6 Da Vinci Code $61 m
7 Cars $60 m
8 Over The Hedge $46 m
9 Click $41 m
10 Scary Movie 4 $40 m *
11 Fast and the Furious 3 $39 m
12 Happy Feet $38 m
13 Casino Royale $37 m
14 Snakes $35 m
15 Saw III $34 m
16 The Break Up $33 m
17 Chainsaw Prequel $32 m
18 Santa Clause 3 $31 m
19 Eragon $31 m
20 Lady In The Water $30 m
21 Madea $30 m *

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - $120 million
2. X3 - $90 million
3. Mission: Impossible 3 - $75 million
4. Ice Age: The Meltdown - $68 million
5. Cars - $65 million
6. The Da Vinci Code - $65 million
7. Superman Returns - $60 million
8. Poseidon - $50 million
9. Click - $45 million
10. Over the Hedge - $45 million

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: $100m
The DaVinci Code: $78.7m
X3: $76.4m
Cars: $72.3m
Ice Age 2: The Meltdown: $68m
Casino Royale: $56m
Superman Returns: $56m
Over the Hedge: $53m
MI3: $51.3m
Poseidon: $50m

Updated...

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - $110 million
X-Men: The Last Stand - $90 million
Mission: Impossible 3 - $76 million
Ice Age: The Meltdown - $68 million
Cars - $65 million
The Da Vinci Code - $65 million
Superman Returns - $60 million
Poseidon - $55 million
Happy Feet - $50 million
Over the Hedge - $50 million

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - $125.7M
2. X-Men: The Last Truth - $92.2M
3. The Da Vinci Code - $77.9M
4. Superman Returns - $69.2M
5. Ice Age: The Meltdown - $68.0M
6. Cars - $66.1M
7. Mission: Impossible 3 - $63.6M
8. Posiedon - $53.5M
9. Happy Feet - $49.5M
10. Eragon - $43.5M