Monday, July 10, 2006

Hi, I'm Joe and I'm and ex-Box Office Prognosticator (Nerd)

I used to be a huge box office nerd. I spent my days calculating prospective box office, based on screen numbers and per screen average. Stuff the average movie fan couldn't care less about. I played an online game in grade school and high school. I'd cut class to check these movie "stocks." It was called the HSX, the Hollywood Stock Exchange. I was top 100 all time when I retired out of a couple hundred thousand.

Why is this all important? Well, it's not. But there are 3 major box office records, all-time box office leader (Titanic, $600,788,188), one day gross ($50 million by Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith and #1 3-Day Weekend of All Time ($114 million by Spiderman 2. It's interesting to note that those last two were both held by sequels, because both, according to studio estimates have been crushed. This staggering event is attributed to not Superman Returns or X3 but by... drumroll please... Pirates of The Carribean: Dead Man's Chest.

Honestly, I find this shocking. I didn't know the deamnd was like this. I knew people wanted to see this movie but the new records $55 million for a day and according to Yahoo! Movies
$132 million for Pirates this weekend. That's a $18 hop. That's big. Very big. That's bigger than Aquaman on "Entourage," even an imaginary dream weekend can't beat Pirates of the Carribean. I find that amazing. Who would have thunk a movie based on a ride at Disneyland could be the number one opener of all time? Jerry Bruekheimer. Probably not when the first was made.

What does Porates have going for it?
1) A great original installment
2) Dual Hunk Factor - Depp and Bloom
3) Hottie Factor - Knightley
4) Great action
5) Hip factor from Depp and his Captain Jack
5) Good trailer
6) No bad buzz

It's really a magical setup for a huge weekend. And it delivered. All this talk, all these numbers. The huge numbers. And I saw it last night and thought it was average at best. Go figure. To get those kind of figures, you need amazing word of mouth.

The movie was 2.5 hours which was another hurdle it overcame. Less screenings available during th day because of the length. The movie stumbled in the beginning. Went into swashbuckling hyperspeed for the middle third. Then tailed off, with not enough Depp and too much Bloom. What good is Bloom? I was hoping the giant sea creature was just gonna swallow him whole. But there is a nice suprise, as set up for next year's third installment. I think the third one could be even better. Unlike The Matrix which just blew it, Pirates
gave me a little hope.

Cinematical - Captain Jack Obliterates Box Office

And now I will watch Subterranean on MTV2. The all videos network only reamining video hour I believe.

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