Another Record Breaking Weekend

June 4, 2004

If you were to ask a hundred moviegoers at the beginning of the year what their most anticipated film of 2004 was, I'd bet Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban would be in the top three, if not number one. And because of that, it's no surprise that no other studio would try and take on Harry Potter.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban has already broken records opening in 3,855 theatres breaking the previous record of 3,741 set by X2: X-Men United. (While Shrek 2 did play in more theatres its first Friday, its Wednesday opening was much smaller, thus it didn't set the record for the widest opening.) There's not much to say about this film that you don't already know; it is the best reviewed film in the highly successful franchise and should easily become the highest grossing as well. This film should have a monster opening. Will it break records? No. Will it break $100 million? I think it will, but barely.

Another week, another record falls to Shrek 2. This time it's fastest to $300 million. The film will drop a very respectable post holiday 50% landing at $36 million. And it will cross $300 by Sunday, with a slim shot at doing it by Saturday.

The Day After Tomorrow is doomed to be a pump and dump. The post holiday weekend is just too harsh to maintain its box office so a 50% drop is almost inevitable. In fact, with mediocre reviews it could drop much, much more. I'm predicting a drop of nearly 60% to $28 million. However, the film has already made $100 million and with strong international numbers it will make a profit before long.

The fourth and fifth films should both finish somewhere between $6 million and $7 million at the box office with Troy having a slight, (make that very slight) advantage over Raising Helen. A couple of notes about the top ten:

Firstly, only 8 films are playing in 1000 or more theatres and the film that's been playing in more than 1000 theatres the longest is Mean Girls at only six weeks. This is really hurting the legs of the average movie.

Secondly, for the third weekend in a row the documentary, Super Size Me will place in the top 10. But with only a marginal increase in its theatre count, its weekend totals will start to decrease from here on in.


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Filed under: Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, X-Men 2, The Day After Tomorrow, Troy, Mean Girls, Raising Helen, Super Size Me