Pirates 2 Ain't Number One

Tuesday, July 11, 2006  -  reddit

Craig Mazin wrote about the Pirates sequel opening to a record first-day take of $55,830,600 dollars, placing it on top of Star Wars: Episode III, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Spider-Man 2. Not only because Mazin is a plugged-in and talented writer, but also because his site is (supposedly) co-written by Ted Elliot, one of the writers of Pirates 2. Congratulations to Ted and everyone who worked on the film, it's one hell of an achievement. The only problem is, it's a cheat.

Pirates 2 made 55.830 million while the second-place Sith only made 50.013 million, but Sith opened in fewer theaters than Pirates 2 did, which mathematically handicapped Sith, and we're not talking about a small margin here. Sith opened in 3,661 theaters while Pirates 2 opened in 4,133. This practically handed Pirates 2 the crown without any effort at all.

Sith averaged $13,611 per theater, best on the top 10 list, while Pirates 2 averaged $13,508. Had Sith opened in as many theaters as Pirates 2 did, Sith wins by $630k. Pirates 2 won by a technicality, but the truth is Sith is still the top dog in one-day openings all-time.

For people wondering just how much Pirates 2 will make, consider the following: the record number of people that went to see the movie on its opening day is going to severely cut into the number of people that will see the movie in the long term, as far as domestic numbers are concerned.

Quick facts:

• Pirates 1 cost $140m to make, and took a profit of $186.9m in the theater on world-wide gross of $653.9m
• Pirates 2 cost $225m, and is -$133.8m in debt after 4 days in release on world-side of $182.2m
• It took 2.8 weeks for Pirates 1 to make $180m, and was dethroned at least twice as the #1 earner only to later retake the lead.
• Pirates 2 competitor for top opener, Revenge of the Sith, cost 50% less to make, which will probably make Sith far more profitable than Pirates 2. Sith cost $116m to make, an outright steal.
• Pirates 2 has made $24m more after 4 days than Sith did.

I said all of this in about one paragraph in the comments of a post on Mazin's site, and it hasn't been approved two days later. It's hard to believe that it simply hasn't been approved, since there has been a new post in between. Smells like sour-grapes censorship to me, but integrity is their problem.