If Narnia moved back to December, I could very well see the sequel top $350 m, and possibly $80 m + opening weekend. A summer opening is going to be a mess.

It also means the industry need to take us WOKJ more seriously and into account when writing summary articles. I'm sure they will all say "it exceeded even the most optimistic expectations..." or "it blew past by all...", when we have the highest official prediction around and have proven time and time again we're the place to look for discussion and analysis.

xiayun's got a point. I think Yahoo! needs to stop talking to Brandon Gray about what to expect for blockbusters and need to contact xiayun and some others here.

Same with any other media outlet. Try to get in contact with them if possible; in the statistics business, accuracy is more important than flair.

And it's just not because I happen to get this right. KJ as a whole has so many talents around. The accuracy Scott nailed ROTS' daily numbers is simply amazing. The method DP uses, the kind of precision Zing and Lecter's articles have, that's all trademark of us.

i hope so i hate wednesday & thursday openings.

I second that! Xiayun, DP07, Scott, basically...everyone.

As to the question at hand, it means P2 has less to do with it than the original. I think the industry has to take more chances, and micromanage production less. When P1 came out I remember all the articles about how much heat investors were giving Depp for his over the top performance. Had they had more control, Captain Jack would not be the stimulus for the second installment. It also speaks to the need to create heroes (and I will argue the Captain is a newly conceived character) rather than relying on old onces, remakes, or adaptations necessarily. If they do adapt, they need to look to new material.

P2 would not have opened nearly so huge had it not been for the original, which, whether you disliked or liked it, thought it was boring or were deeply engrossed, was a "new" movie. Disney will be able to ride the newness once or twice (P2 and P3) but that's it. Then its back to the drawing boards. If you think of Pirates, and also such surprised as Lost in Translation, it may also be a signal to the industry to allow veteran actors more interpretive license, even at the risk of some movies turning out to be flops. Hollywood needs to take more gambles, basically, even on expensive movies. This will mean alot of action movies that get seriously panned (rather than being generically accepted) but will also lead to alot of gems.

I really think we should try to get our name out there this weekend seeing we had the closest prediction out of any site. Anyways, I think it means P3 making less than 300 is going to be considered a HUGE disappointment (I think it will happen)

The real topic should be what does the performance of SR have on the industry. Warners is in some really deep trouble with the way SR has performed. They will be lucky to get much more than $150m back from WW Box Office on SR which would be a a minimum $200m ($100m of the budget for SR was lost on projects that never got off the ground) loss until DVD and any other ancillary money helps to offset the current losses, coupled with the Poseidon disaster (another $70 million loss at the moment) and Warner's might not be able to bankroll the next Batman movie and other big budget movies outside of HP. I wanted to talk about this last weekend, but I was out of town. I know that studios tend to not save money for rainy days or for the future and they need to keep a constant flow of money coming in from movies in the pipeline. I know they have made at least a billion off HP, but this has got be a cause for concern. Is anyone else concerned about the fate of Warners?

Well, we're currently still trying to get our name out there. We're a site that relies mostly on good wom from those who realize its strengths (whatever you may consider those to be). If you think others should know about the great predicting, your best bet is to take Xia's weekend prediction, via direct linking, and go show at other sites and forums you frequent how spot on it was. We'd (and I speak of the royal we, being me, as I don't know how others feel about this) be much obliged, heh.

What it means?
Well from a economy point of view
-More Sequels
-Those guys behind POTC will get higher paychecks and budgets
what leads to point 3
-Somebody is gonna buy some Ferraris and houses and you know what???Its not somebody from WOKJ

it means july's becoming the new may. in the past 3 years may had more bombs then hits, while julys had tons of big hits. july is where you need to be to "breakout". pirates 1, bourne supremacy, wedding crashers, charlie chocolate factory, now pirates 2, and next year harry potter 5 looking at 100 million opening, i think well start seeing a lot of sequels put there. but pirates as special, the original is just sooo huge. batman 2 will be like this on a smaller level, when itll open bigger then anyone expected. obvi next may has 3 films that are locks for 300 million

I blame Global Warming.


In other news, I'm a little bit tipsy right now :-P

-1 billion+ domestic past 5 years(and thats saying somethign cause with the exception of batman, all their big movies usually do a lot more overseas then in us.
-harry potter movies consistently punching out 800 million+ worldwide
-potter movies consistantly punching out 400 million in dvd sales worldwide
-warner brothers records=BIGGEST record company in wold
-happy feet looking at huge worldwide total
-lady in water looks to break out
-enormous merchandise sales for superman
-enormous dvd sales for superman
-enormous rentals for superman
-enormous dvd sales for batman begins. 10 million copies sold by april in us alone
-big rentals from batman

-WARNERS MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO BANKROL OTHER BIG BUDGET MOVIES?!?!?!?!?! Kid they had 3 150 million dollar movies last year. most studios have 1 or 2 in their entire history. they havea 160 million n 200 million movies this year. in 2003 they had 2 150 million movies and 1 175 million movie. They spend so much cause they can AFFORD to. potter is the greatest investment any movie studio has ever made. it generates sooo much cash! Warner's has potter 5 coming up the pipline for next summer as well as smaller hits like oceans 13 and 10,000 b.c. Warner movies-outside of batman-tend to do LOADS of over sea business. just look at these overseas grosses. potter 4-600 million. charlie and the chocolate factory-268 million. Troy-367 million. potter 3-540 million. matrix reloaded-457 million.

just because almost all of their movies dissappoint in the us due to shitty advertising doesnt mean their losingmoney. poseidons going to break even with overseas. superman will gain profit with overseas.

Uh,no im not worred. it was already announced today bryan singer is attending comic con to inform fans of "what is next' in the superman franchise. I dont think they would send him there to say "yeah the franchise is over thats whats next".



warners problem is with all the potential they have they should be grossing 1.5 million domestic every year. Potter. Superman. Batman. Terminator. Matrix. all those franchises belong to warners brothers yet they are not the bigget studio by far. they are the biggest-maybe not any more with disneys pirates franchise looking huge-but with 5 of the "huge fanbase" franchises, they should be mauling every year.

What's with teenagers and 20 somethings calling their elders kid? Poseidon's production cost was $160m. It will top off around $60m domestic which is about $35m back to Warners. It has made $96m overseas, and opened in most major markets. Best case scenerio it makes $150m overseas (I don't think that is even possible) and gets Warner another $65-70m, so they have $105m total and a loss at this point of $55m, not counting domestic and world wide marketing costs which should cost them at least $30m if not much more.

Superman Returns is not going to make much more overseas than it will domestic. BB didn't make more overseas, and I wouldn't be surprised if Superman follows the same pattern. It might make more but if SR ends up at $190m US and $210 overseas then it would net Warner around $200m from w.w. box office, again not counting marketing. These movies are a drain on studios if they don't turn a profit during theater runs. When they happen back to back to back things start drying up and funding gets pulled. There have been many times studios have been flush with cash have gotten stuck with a couple of big buget movies that didn't panout and then they have to scale back or go bankrupt.

did you even read that list?

Yes he did, and found it fairly inane. By your list, barely anything must ever flop. Why not everybody start studios, it sounds like a gold rush out there! If Pirates opened with $52m and someone talks the way you do about Superman, you would label him insane.

It's funny that you think Superman will have enormous DVD sales.

Exactly, cause it's a download.

I second that one! They also had a hand in Aladdin (not "story", but did do screenplay), and wrote Mask of Zorro, too (story & screenplay)(and I, personally, love Road to El Dorado and enjoyed Treasure Planet--two of their other movies). These guys consistently and constantly surprise and excite me with their writing. As an aspiring screenwriter, these two are the people I look up to as idols.

Joy

http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,1210545_1_0_,00.html

I also read another article, not sure if it was EW, Variety, etc. (unfortunately I can't locate it) that stated if SR didn't pull a profit from its theaterical run, it would put a serious crimp on many Warner projects. Batman Begins didn't turn a profit until it went to DVD. Warners' has sunk a over a half billion dollars to get two franchises running and don't have much to show for them at this point. Compounding it is the fact they have had almost no luck with their movies since HP4. I think the next Batman will do great and should make a good profit, but I am not so sure Superman can continue. However, even Batman will be a problem, because the first one cost over $200m to market (sequels always cost more) and after SR disappointing run, studios get skittish on "sure things" when they cost that much to get to market.

Don't forget studios use their profits to fund projects that never go into production, projects that go into production but never get finished, other movies that go straight to video or never get released, and upgrading their company. I may be overstating the impact of SR box office on Warner Bros., but I don't think many of us understand its impact could be much more than just one non-profitable movie.

Nothing wrong with opening on Wednesday and Thursday, it's just that you won't claim that Opening Weekend record and not make opening record headlines.

Still, to each his own, Reloaded/ROTK/Passion/Shrek2/SM2/ROTS show that you could still open huge by spreading your gross through 5-Days.

In fact, even if POTC2 grosses $135m opening Weekend it will still be behind ROTS ($173m), Spiderman 2 ($152m), Reloaded ($134m) heading into the mid-weeks...

So at the end of the day, it's the final number that really matters.

$145M weekend and $30M on Monday and Tuesday = $175M in 5 days.