WEll, I'm starting to wonder about this club now. 310 seems realistic, but everywhere I turn, something seems to tell me that the film is the one true legit box office behemoth this year.

I'm sooo tempted to make a 311-499 club.

Empire decreased. So did Temple. So did Spider-man II. So did BTTF II, Beverly Hills Cop II, the Lost World, MIB2, among others.

Pirates will only follow tradition .

And how about the ones that increased? Austin Powers? Shrek 2? The Bourne Supremacy? The Matrix Reloaded? X2: X-Men United? Rush Hour 2? Meet the Fockers?

Were they sequels to a $300m+ grossing film?

That is a great point and it is one that I haev been trying to make for months now. When films are huge to begin with, they usually go down. There are exceptions of course, like TTT, but when a film finds its audience on DVD, it increases, but when it finds its audience on the big screen already, there isn't much room to increase. Pirates might, but jot by 100 mill. The final tally should be about 290-320.

There's no doubt in my mind that Pirates 2 can outgross Pirates 1. In fact, I think it will. But expecting it to make a $100 million jump is just absurd.

baumer, the same reasoning you used for why The Two Towers increased is the reason Pirates will increase. The massive DVD sales and rentals only expanded the audience.

You are right, but as Dark Shape said, maybe 40 mill increase, sure. ok, maybe, but not 100-200 mill.

Well...somehow Shrek 2 did increase by $180 million over its predecessor.

Yes, and shrek and LOTR are two examples. But most other films do not increase that much over the originals when they made close to 300 or more.

Also, this is clearly a case of the studios lying about the total gross. Shrek 2 clearly made about 280...Dreamworks flubbed the numbers to make their shareholders happy, how else can you explain it?

"Most other films"?

WHAT!?

Pirates is not "most other films" Baumer. Neither was LOTR and Shrek.

Both phenomenons.

Pirates WILL rock everyone.

I am willing to bet my reputation on an opening over $130 mil

Friday- $65.4 mil
Saturday- $58.9 mil
Sunday- $46.2 mil

Could be a possibility... It's not not possible.

No way, its going to pass atleast 320.

I see no reason why it shouldnt. This isnt Superman. Pirates is coming off a movie that was a Favorite with the audience for weeks, DVD sales are HUGE, and awareness is great. it should open huge and of course have worse legs.

I see about 120/380.

I don't know if it has any effect, but just compare the years from which the above-mentioned films come.
Sequels that fell:
Empire (80)
Temple (84)
SM2 (04)
BTTF (89)
BHC2 (87)
JP2 (97)
MIB2 (02)

Sequels that rose:
AP2 (99)
S2 (04)
TBS (04)
MR (03)
X2 (03)
RH2 (02)
MTF (04)

To start off, I think Spider-man should be discounted entirely, as it already had a very large fanbase prior to the release of the first movie. Same with X-Men. But I'll leave them on the list. For that reason I'm also leaving LotR off of the list.

If you ignore MIB2 and SM2, every movie on the first list came form a different era of BO. As for the second list, AP2 is debatable, but if we ignore that, every film on that list is from another era of the BO.

I don't know if I'm even trying to make a point here. It's just something I noticed.

Your point is simple, insomniacdude. Sequels to well-received movies are higher demand in the 21st century than they were before. History shows it clearly.

For the record my original post was a bit of a fun poke at an probably unlikely thing, but I'll go with this anyways.

Grosses of the blockbusters that fell:
Star Wars - 307 mil
Raiders - 242 mil
Beverly Hills Cop - 238 mil
BTTF - 210 mil
Jurassic Park - 357 mil
Spiderman - 403 mil

Uber blockbusters, all of them.

Now lets look at the ones that rose:
Austin Powers - 53 mil
Shrek - 252 mil
The Matrix - 171 mil
Bourne Identity - 121
X-Men - 157
Rush Hour - 141 mil
Meet the Parents - 166 mil

Notice the difference? If a movie lands in the mid 100s, but has had fantastic WOM to get even there, historically the movies that have had room to grow, have. But if a movie already grosses a mammoth 300 mil in theatres, reaching it's popularity peak packing seats, there isn't as much oppurtunity. I know I've used this before, but if the Matrix had started off as a blockbuster like Pirates in theatres and gained 300 mil during it's run, like the movies in the list above, Reloaded would have still decreased to that 280 mil number. Same with X-Men and Rush Hour, I believe if the originals grossed 230 mil or 270 mil, or if Austin Powers grossed 250 mil, the sequels not have grossed any different than what they got. All of these movies truly did gain a new audience on DVD, something I don't believe Pirates has. I mean, has Pirates actually gained that many new fans since 2003? The DVDs sold well, but as someone pointed out it all came in the first couple weeks, I think it was more people buying the film they loved, rather than "discovering" Pirates of the Caribbean and how awesome it is. Unless you're living under a rock or on a desert island you've heard and likely already saw Pirates. That's why I think there is such a comparison to Star Wars and Indy in this case, the first was such an instant phenomenom, it rocked the entire country, it was such an event that there wasn't much way to miss knowing what it was. I mean it basically is the 3rd incarnation of Star Wars and Indy of this generation, the new big franchise. The household name characters, the icon badass character, the villianous scheme, the whole fun feel to the movie, and so on.

As for Shrek 2, well I don't know about that one and I can't explain it. I don't want to call it a fluke, but I don't think what it did can be pulled off again in the future. I believe there's a big big difference between Shrek and Pirates. The Shreks are more stand alone movies, they're comedies, they're the cream of CGI which is very popular. I think Shrek, like Meet the Parents, did discover much more of an audience on DVD than Pirates did, despite having a very big 267 mil original gross. Shrek wasn't really a super phenomenom, it didn't change culture, it didn't sell nearly as much merchandise as something like Pirates, and so on. Shrek was slightly under the radar, it had a great run, but it didn't create an impact on culture like Pirates or for example Spider-man, a lot of people(such as all the adults) amazingly didn't catch on until later, I believe. The original Shrek doesn't get enough credit for how great of a run it did, the sequel takes it's credit too much, heh. 267 mil is huge for an original CGI film or comedy, without the backing of Pixar which Nemo and The Incredibles had, without any media hype, it was all on it's own. And yet, I believe it had room to grow, as not everybody knew about Shrek, and that's where the jump to 441 mil came from. It did gain a previously unknowing fanbase on DVD, something I don't think Pirates has whatsoever. I actually consider Shrek's run to be VERY similar to Meet the Parents, they both had great original runs, but then gained their comedic fanbase later, and then exploded with their sequels. In fact their increases are almost identical, 1.68x to 1.65x. The only thing seperating them, is that the Shrek was much bigger than Meet the Parents. Shrek is the god of casual viewers, every kid and teenager sees that movie, without relying on hype or particular fans. In a way I count Shrek as the anti-blockbuster, in that it doesn't gain that media as one of the biggest movies of the year, it doesn't need it. It just packs seats. That's why I think Pirates is much more similar to Indiana Jones and Star Wars in my mind, because it was a hype monster, that it is one of the signified blockbusters. I mean, Jack Sparrow = Indy or Han Solo. I don't think anyone can deny that Star Wars, Indy, and Pirates, are all brothers in bloody arms. They're basically the 3 fun franchises of movies, action/adventure and original to their films.

Anyways, I'm rambling. That was fun.

like i said before. 115 million or under opening weekend, and this film wont get 300 million in the united states.

edit my statement was dumb

(throng of people from Airplane are standing behind me waiting to take turns to slap Chipmunky in the face)...WAKE UP CHIPPY (slaps him in the face as he sleeps and dreams recklessly) WAKE UP CHIPPY........

Chippy wakes from wonderful dream with bikini clad women feeding him grapes and handing him dailies that mentione above numbers.....

45 OD..most.

Agreewith everything you just said.

Well, all I can say is that sometimes box-office goes unpredictable ways...but something like DP07 suggests is pretty much unprecedented. No movie ever rose from a $300+ million gross by another $100+ million.

I am still wondering why Jurassic Park: The Lost World failed to even approach the original. I am very sure the original had very good WoM. Also, what about MiB?

In fact, if i am not mistaken, the only films to gross 300 mill and then make another 300 mill in the sequel, is TTT and Spidey 2, I think.

MIB 2 was unwanted. It came out 5 years after the original. It was too long a time, and too different a market place. Ie imo 90% of the gross of MIB came from the ID4 bump up, as well as the MIB song.

The original was still well-liked and 5 years is not much.

And if you look at JP2, again, massive opening, but wOM killed it. If POTC lacks and is missing that lightning in the bottle that the first had, it might go the way of Temple of Doom, AOTC and JP2 and BTTF2.