Everyone has the right to their predictions for a movie, that's a given. It seems every year there's those one or two films that everyone thinks will break records or come close. This year it seems to be POTC2. Its one thing to make an educated guess even to the extreme end. Take opening weekend for this film. The first one open to 46mil, so there is your start point. Box office trends for these tentpole pics suggest a huge opening but what's huge? 60mil? 70? Anyone predicting over 92mil is out of their mind. Come on, that's double the originals. I think a smart solid guess would be 70-75mil. I don't even want to get into why. And what's with some of these finals??? The 350-370mil guess are the absolute max if everything goes right. Anything more is just loonicy. Anyone guessing over 400mil is pulling at straws. As Dr Malcome has stated only 4 films have done that figure on their first try. Its a stupendous milestone that only 4,,,,FOUR,,,movies ever reached.

Why, why would it do so good? Why didn't the first one do that good? It had legs, everyone loved it, correct? Why didn't it make more? Who bought the dvd? Was it a whole new group of people that didn't see it in theaters? No. I'd guess 90% of the sales are from the same people who saw it in theaters. It doesn't add up well to say its going to have this massive increase. Really, for every reason why someone says it would make more, theres 10 reasons why it wouldnt.

I'm not saying that at all. You're pushing the 400mil which SM got to. You're saying POTC will very very possible get to the 400mil mark, which means it must be as popular as SM. If that were true, why didn't the first do as well, it had all the opportunity

As for your 300/400 scenario, you're wrong. Odds say it would preform below the first then above.

Now, all said, I could be wrong. Shit, this could pull in 500mil. It could happen no matter how unlikely.

Ok, lets agree to disagree ... I'm feeling pretty tired so I'm going to go crash.

I wont agree to that you coward.

7 times in box office history though, have films made $380 m or more. Yes, it hasn't been done often. But adjusted for 2006 $'s, 7 films of the past 5 years would have reached that level. That has to say something about the fact that $400 m isnt so out of reach to make such huge predictions unmerited. If potentially 7 films of just the past 5 years would have sold that many admissions to reach those types of levels this year.

Between now, and 4 years ago, the top 13 films of all time only have 5 films in common, the other 8 are just from the past 4 years. This huge change to the all time charts isn't just due to inflation, as ticket prices haven't increased as fast as the rate that some of the all time film grosses have.

So essentially my overall point, are $370 m + predictions really crazy, when that level would have been done 7 times in just the past 5 years adjusted to 2006 levels?

Also, no way do I think that $300 m or $400 m + is an absolute lock for POTC 2, as it depends on the quality of the film. But I do think a huge, huge opening is expected, and close to a lock, and even though the first one did $47 m opening weekend, I could see this one having a $100 m + opening. The first one's opening is a bit misleading too. It opened to $47 m, but it did $71 m in its first 5 days, or close to $80 m in today's numbers. That's why I don't see a $100 m opening so out of reach for it, as its a sequel to a well received movie so could get an inflated opening, and two has a 3day opening and not a 5day, hence building up demand for it. So if it could do close to $80 m worth of tickets in its first 5 days from the original, I don't think $100 m opening weekend is so much of a stretch for it. But that's just me.