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Transformers 2 earned $62.0 million on its first day on its way to a shaky – and let's be honest here – disingenuous $200 million over five days. The studio's story was that late Puerto Rican reports led to an initially inaccurate Wednesday/Thursday estimate. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. But I digress. The point is that $200.1 million over five days is a 3.23 multiplier from a $62.0 million day one. Were Potter 6 to perform similarly, we would be talking about a five-day tally of $188.0 million. Let's call that Plan A.

For a more complex take on what should happen next, let's go back to Order of the Phoenix for a moment. The previous Potter film had a similar release trajectory, earning $139.7 million over five days after its $44.2 million debut. That's a multiplier of 3.16 we won't be using. Stay with me for a moment here. What we know is that after $12 million in immediate demand revenue from midnight sneaks, this title brought in another $32.2 million on the rest of its first Wednesday. If we take the $12 million off of the five-day as well, it's a $127.7 million result, a multiplier of almost exactly four against the $32.2 million. If Half-Blood Prince behaves similarly, we are talking about a factor of four more than its $36 million yesterday ($144 million) plus the $22.2 million in immediate demand met by midnight sneaks. That would be $166.2 million over five days, an improvement of just under 20% from the prior Potter title. We'll call that Plan B.

We should have a good feel for which plan is closer to the truth after Thursday numbers are posted. The key will be how big a decline we see. Revenge of the Fallen fell 53% in terms of Wednesday/Thursday but once we take out the midnight sneaks, its actual decline was 37%. The Dark Knight is even more impressive in this regard, stunning really. It fell 29% from Wednesday to Thursday but once we take out midnight sneaks, we are comparing a $47.7 million Thursday to a $49.2 million Wednesday, an absurd depreciation of only 3%. Order of the Phoenix, the best comparison here, fell 58% on Thursday. Once we take out midnight sneaks, the actual decline was 43%. That makes $20.5 million the line of demarcation for Half-Blood Prince. That's what a 43% drop from $36.0 million is. In reality, I would like to see it do a bit better than that to prove that it's not extraordinarily frontloaded, but as long as it makes $20 million or more, it's holding at least as well as its immediate predecessor in the franchise.

As an aside, that $10 million of additional midnight sneaks from the previous Potter film may prove to be crucial as it is the difference between a $290 million title and a much more celebrated $300 million title. People love their $100 million round numbers.

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