Captain Jack Sinks Spidey, Grounds Superman
Author: Stephen Gerding
July 9th, 2006
Holy crap, Disney must be happy today. There’s no way they could have expected this, but Pirates of the Carribean handily beat the snot out of spider-Man’s opening weekend record, shattering other records right and left along the way. Topping Spidey’s 114 million dollar opener with a 132 million dollar weekend, Johnny Depp just became the biggest star in Hollywood. Superman Returns, meanwhile, plummeted a huge 58% this weekend, which likely has some WB suits freaked out, especially when you consider that Batman Begins opened smaller but slid a lot less during it’s run 2 summers just one summer back.
Pirates pilfered a trove of records, but the key ones, in addition to opening weekend, were biggest single and opening day and fastest to $100 million. On Friday, Dead Man’s Chest raked in $55.5 million (including $9 million’s worth of 2,100 midnight showings), eclipsing Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith’s $50 million and grossing more in one day than its predecessor, The Curse of the Black Pearl, did in its entire opening weekend. Dead Man’s Chest also became the first picture to cross the century mark in two days flat.
Box Office Mojo has the full breakdown.
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9 Responses to “Captain Jack Sinks Spidey, Grounds Superman”
July 10th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Box office mojo is a lot like Fox.
Anyway, Pirates made hoge $$$ this weekend which goes to show that NO ONE cares what critics say (myself included).
X3 dropped off 66% and was still considered a hit. Hate on mojo-Gerd.
Superman is still doing better business than Batman. It hasn’t opened internationally yet. WB is not nervous at all.
July 10th, 2006 at 10:22 am
And Batman was last summer.
July 10th, 2006 at 10:39 am
And Batman was last summer.
My sense of time is shot these days.
Superman is doing bigger grosses, but only in a head on comparison. when you consider that SR had a production/promotional budget of nearly 100 million dollars more than Batman, it’s not doing well at all. Proportionately speaking, Supes is lagging way behind his JLA brother.
You also have to look at the entire marketplace over the weekend. Traditionally, when a movie opens huge like Pirates or Spidey, other movies actually see a bump due to overflow traffic from folks being turned away from the sellout. With the exception of SR, every other top ten movie saw this bump last weekend.
No summer blockbuster ever makes money in Hollywood after the bookkeepers get ahold of them, but you can be damn sure the WB guys were hoping for far better returns from Supes than they’re getting.
July 10th, 2006 at 10:53 am
SR will be huge worldwide, so I doubt Warners has anything to worry about. I’m a little surprised at that much of a domestic percentage drop, though. Then again, maybe it’s just stabilizing.
I’m honestly shocked by Pirates’s opening, though. Where the hell did that come from?
July 10th, 2006 at 11:25 am
It’s WB’s biggest opening. It’s continuing to make money and it hasn’t released internationally. The numbers are probably just stablizing. It hasn’t even been open 2 weeks. You are comparing a weekend attached to the 4th with a weekend against Pirates. Batman was up against Herbie the Love Bug.
Spin all you want, Superman is a cash cow right now. Show me where the WB were hoping for better? The movie is kicking ass. Only horseshit sites like mojo, with their innaccurate numbers say otherwise.
Don’t listen to Fox News.
July 10th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
SR will only be a cash cow when it opens overseas and if the merchandising kicks in. Right now I would guess it’s breaking even. Didn’t they spend north of $300m on this puppy? Still probably doing better than the similarly budgeted King Kong, though.
July 10th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Different places claim different things. Singer says $180 million. Box Office Mojo says $260 M. They probably know better than Singer. It’s already made $140 M and change.
$300 M? I haven’t heard that.
July 10th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
Dude, I liked Superman Returns, and I want it to do well, but it’s not taking the numbers they wanted. The fact that Pirates basically made in a weekend what SR has made in 2 weeks proves this. They were hoping on Spider-Man like box office, they didn’t get it. It’ll probably barely reach $200 million in the US before it fades away, and then make its money on the DVD sales.
July 10th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
Okay, omniscient one. What numbers did they want?