Top 10 Film Industry Stories of 2006 #1:
Jack Sparrow Plunders Box Office Records
By David Mumpower
January 4, 2007
BoxOfficeProphets.com

You're a saucy little minx...wait, Orlando, is that you again?
On August 23, 1939, John Cobb staked his claim at Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah. He broke the world's land-speed record by over 12 miles per hour. Over the next quarter century, a record that had been broken on average of once a year by different men for the past two decades stood the test of time. Only Cobb himself was able to surpass his own personal best. His land-speed times were unbeatable until September of 1963 when Craig Breedlove covered the same surface in Utah at a speed 14 miles per hour faster than Cobb had ever managed. Movie box office does not work quite the same, but in the current landscape, Spider-Man had covered similar ground to Cobb.

The comic book adaptation's $114.8 million opening weekend in May of 2002 had stood the test of time during a period when almost all other movie exhibition records fell. Contenders such as three Harry Potter sequels, two X-Men sequels, two Star Wars prequels and Mel Gibson's epic, The Passion of the Christ, all took a run at the title. All of them failed to match the performance of Spidey despite the fact that they had ticket price inflation and many more exhibitions going for them. So, BOP cannot underscore the point that Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest's performance is a stunner.

Simply look at the facts. The original Jack Sparrow epic opened to "only" $46.6 million. That's $68 million (i.e. roughly a The Mummy Returns opening) away from Spider-Man, a movie that tops it by a factor of two and a half. This is the box office equivalent of the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing it. There was no reason to believe that no matter how successful the first pirate movie had been, a sequel's opening could be competitive with the biggest opening ever. Hell, Spider-Man 2 (!) couldn't even be competitive with the opening of Spider-Man. How could a pirate movie compete with that?

But we all know how this one played out.

On July 7, 2006, everyone in North America went to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Okay, that's an exaggeration but only a slight one. The movie's Friday debut garnered $55.8 million in receipts, shattering the record day for single day box office by roughly 12%. Day Two saw the Johnny Depp movie set a John Cobb type of record by becoming the fastest movie to ever break the $100 million barrier. This is a record that may only be tied for at least the next ten years. In addition, Dead Man's Chest had followed up the biggest box office day in history with the fifth largest day in history. Spider-Man's record was a foregone conclusion at that point. By the end of Sunday, the Pirates sequel had earned $135.6 million, not just breaking but in fact shattering Spider-Man's opening weekend by $20.8 million.

Dead Man's Chest didn't stop there, either. In addition to being the fastest movie to $100 million, it also became the fastest to $200 million as well as $300 million. It followed up the biggest opening weekend of all-time with the third largest second weekend as well as the fourth largest third weekend of all-time. In an era where box office legs are hard to come by, this movie earned an additional $288 million after its epic debut, accumulating a grand total of $423.4 million in domestic receipts.

In a year where no other title has earned $250 million, Dead Man's Chest has become the sixth largest of all-time, finishing under $8 million shy of the top five. And the news is even better worldwide. An additional $637 million was earned abroad, making it the fourth largest international performer of all-time. When the numbers are all piled together, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is the third largest movie of all time in terms of revenue with $1.06 billion. In a relatively quiet box office year, the Disney pirate movie offered supernova performance, setting the box office equivalent of land-speed records that may never be broken. It is the nearly unanimous choice of the BOP staff as the biggest movie industry story of 2006.