opening day Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Despite mixed reviews, it appears Spider-Man 3 is on its way to setting an opening day record at the box office. Reports, including one from Deadline Hollywood, claim the third installment raked in a whopping $59 million on Friday; a number that was helped tremendously by a slew of midnight showings across the country. If those figures hold up, that total soars past the opening day record set last year by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ($55.8 million) and clearly puts the film in a position to regain the weekend record from Dead Man's Chest after that film out-grossed the original Spider-Man in 2006. What does this all mean? Nothing, really -- except I wouldn't be surprised if greedy studio execs are now brainstorming ways to get both Spidey and Captain Jack Sparrow in the same movie.

So, what type of numbers are we looking at come Monday morning? How about $140 million? Yes, folks are estimating Spider-Man 3 to gross between $138 and $145 million when it's all said and done. In three days. Not only that, but box office business is already up 60% from the same weekend last year, setting the stage for what most feel will go down as the highest grossing summer in Hollywood history; reports indicate the end result could fall somewhere in the $4.5 billion range. Ridiculous, I say. But now that puts the pressure on Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End. The fun thing is that we don't have to wait another year to see if one franchise beats the other; heck, both films are debuting only a few weeks apart. However, from a critical standpoint, the praise was a lot higher for Spider-Man 2 than it was for Dead Man's Chest. Add on to that the fact that there's been more time in between Spidey sequels, allowing fans to really build some hype. Though it's quite obvious that both franchises are critic proof, one does have to wonder whether that statistic will have an affect on Pirates 3 opening weekend. What do you think?

Holy macaroni, movie geeks! I know I told you that Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest was a huge ball of summertime fun -- but I didn't expect you all to run out and see it on opening day! The long-awaited and VERY entertaining Pirates2 managed to absolutely smash the holy hell of out of the previous opening day record ... and it did so by about five million bucks!

According to the always reliable BOM, the previous one-day record-holder was a black & white Croatian indie flick entitled Revenge of the Sith, which made $50 million on May 19th, 2005. Today we have a new record holder; Gore Verbinski's piratical follow-up made an estimated $55.5 million on opening day ... and that's a whole lotta treasure, folks. (I guess it's too late to get a good HSX deal for next May's Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.)

I share this news mainly because it's always interesting when a new record is demolished, but also because I saw the sequel for a second time last night, and my affection for the flick has grown even stronger. (People actually applauded when the movie was over, and that sort of thing just doesn't usually happen in Philadelphia. We're all cynical and stuff.) Anyway, the record for biggest Friday - Sunday opening weekend is held by the first Spider-Man entry with $114 million; I suspect our favorite webslinger might end up in second place by the end of the weekend.

So after 30-plus years of "pirates movies not being profitable," the worm has turned. With a vengeance. (And all mostly because of Johnny Depp.)

In other news, Superman Returns' ten-day total is about $127 million.