Box Office Recap: Pirates Scores Major Booty At World’s End

Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on May 29, 2007

Ah 2007, you have been good to Hollywood thus far. If you take away the first two months of the year, 2007 has been one of the more plentiful financial periods in recent history, with Box Office records falling faster than Lindsay Lohan’s acting career. 300 started off in March by having the largest opening weekend for any March release in history; Spider-Man 3 followed by having the biggest opening weekend of any movie, in any month, ever; and Shrek the Third topped the All-Time Biggest Animated Openings chart. With all of these records smashed, what was really left for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, the follow up to last year’s big record-breaker? How about the biggest Memorial Day weekend record, previously held by X-Men: The Last Stand at $122.9 million? That is a small record. What about smashing Spider-Man 3’s domestic opening weekend record? Not so much for the Pirates crew.

But while the $142 million (3 Day Total) opening weekend didn’t break Spider-Man 3’s $151 million record, it isn’t by any means a sign of failure. To it’s credit, the third installment in the Pirates franchise did become the highest grossing Memorial Weekend opener with $156 million over the 4-Day weekend. As well, it became the largest International opening, grossing just over $245 million overseas. Altogether it sacked over $400 million worth of Box Office booty. The question now is how much staying power it will have over the rest of the summer. Its predecessor, Dead Man’s Chest grossed over $1 billion world wide in 2006 after a $135 million opening weekend. But Dead Man’s Chest was released with far less competition and was able to just steamroll the entire summer. Will the same fate await At World’s End? That is doubtful. With a good start and a strong response from fans, this Pirates installment should do well over the summer and creep toward the $1 billion mark world wide, but it may not catch its predecessor. Heck, with Michael Bay’s Transformers due out in just over a month it may have trouble topping the summer.

Source: Box Office Mojo

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