Saturday
25Jul2009
Box Office - 'G-Force' Forceful, 'Potter' Slumps
Saturday, July 25, 2009 at 11:26AM
There's good news and bad news for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The
good news is that the film crossed the $200 million mark in the U.S. on Friday, the fastest any film in
the series has reached two bills. The bad news is that it might not win this weekend's box office derby.
Reader Comments (5)
One wonders what happens with Potter in about 4 days when all the IMAX theaters switch over to showing it. If what I've heard holds water, IMAX can account for as much as 10% of a film's gross. There's certainly no guarantees that there's a crush of fans waiting to see the flick in IMAX and even if there were 10% is at best a bump and not a king maker in the final tally. If they're smart the ad machine will kick back up a bit at the release to IMAX because advertising has tapered off considerably in under 15 days.
The only other film in the franchise (a.k.a. Sorcerer's Stone) crossed the $300m mark in 8 weeks, which means this flick has a bit to go before it can be counted out of contention.
I don't think the IMAX will have a huge impact. IMAX "can" account for 10% of the gross, but what happens when those movies are released on IMAX three weeks into the run? It's not nearly as important to people who have already seen it.
The difference between the first Potter and the current one, as far as I can see, is that Sorcerer's Stone didn't shed close to half of its audience in the second weekend, much less well over it. Only three movies that have made over $300 million had second weekends with 60% drops, Spidey 3, Pirates 3, and the new Transformers. And all of them made more money through ten days than Half-Blood Prince.
I think its the rest of the film time in theater
Hmmm... Potter closed out week 4 with almost $274 million which places it well ahead of the majority of Potter flicks at the same point (Phoenix was closest having trailed it by about $13 mill). Can it pick up another $26 million in four weeks to hit the $300m like Sorcerer's Stone? I think so unless going forward it sheds theaters at an insane rate.
Only Stone and Goblet had more theaters than Prince by the end of week 4 and by week 8 only Stone and Secrets were still over 2,000 theaters, the latter just barely. There's really little to keep it from eclipsing Stone from its throne aside from dropped theaters and weeks run. Phoenix which finished at $292m had a 22 week run it also dropped over 2100 theaters from week 4 to 8. By comparison Stone only shed 991 theaters in the same timeframe and while Prisoner suffered the biggest drop it wasn't close to being a contender for the $300m crown by week 4 anyway.
So there you have it, Prince will make $300m domestically and stands a good chance to reign atop the Potter pile.
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