POA Box Office Figures (was Re: visual depth)

[huntergreen_3]

Barbara D. Poland-Waters <bd-bear at v...> wrote:

>>this past weekend showed a marked drop in revenue for
POA. From IMDb (www.imdb.com):

"Although it remained at the top of the box office with $34.9 
million, the figure represented a 63 percent decline from last 
weekend's debut."
[snip]
The 2nd weekend numbers for the first two films didn't show nearly as 
much decline. I got these off the Imdb as well.

PS/SS (US figures)
Opening weekend: $90,294,621
2nd weekend: $96,683,892
3rd weekend: $32,691,776

COS (US figures)
Opening weekend: $88,357,488
2nd weekend: $60,001,343
3rd weekend: $51,800,181

POA (US figures)
Opening weekend: $93,687,367
2nd weekend: $34,000,000<<

I was aware that PoA dropped more in its second week than the 
previous two (I read it on ew.com, actually), but my point was just 
that it wasn't doing so bad that it would cancel out plans to make 
future movies. 
Its also rather difficult to compare November and June, since box 
officewise they are different months. I checked the calender for 2001 
and the 2nd weekend of PS/SS fell on Thanksgiving, which makes the 
second weekend numbers completely uncomparable (movies always have a 
spike on a holiday weekend). Thanksgiving fell on the third weekend 
of CoS, but I think your numbers are a little off on that, I just 
checked IMDB and it said CoS' 2nd weekend was 42mil, not 60mil 
(furthermore, it said its 3rd weekend was 32mil, not 51mil), so PoA 
only fell a little more than CoS, and that might have been due to 
more people seeing it during the week (because school's out), or more 
competetion (from Garfield perhaps, which made close to $20mil, CoS 
didn't have any family movie competetion its second week).
I'm guessing to get your numbers you just subtracted the first 
weekend gross from the running total listed on IMDB (is that right?), 
because that includes weekdays. Lower on the page is weekend gross' 
only, which is where I found the 42 & 32 numbers. PoA may have made 
less its second *weekend*, but if you include weekday totals it made 
almost $65mil, which is slightly better than CoS (the daily numbers 
can be found here: http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?
page=daily&id=harrypotter3.htm).
Sorry to go on and on, but for some reason I find box office scores 
to be fascinating. (really, truly and honestly not trying to attack 
you in any way).


>>Personally, I think this is a clear indication that the POA film is 
not as popular and has not been as well received as the first two 
movies. Word of mouth does get out, and if most people truly loved 
POA, I don't think the 2nd weekend numbers would show such a decline. 
Time will tell how the movie does overall and if the trend continues. 
I'll be looking for the 3rd weekend numbers to see if a trend does 
exist.<<

One things for sure: Spiderman is going to squash it, at least as far 
the US numbers go. 
I really was only talking about the money aspect of PoA, but since 
you brought it up...I have to disagree with you. I think June and 
November are different months, and Chamber of Secrets and 
Philospher's / Sorcerer's Stone were helped by less competetion and 
the beginning of the holidays. Not only that, it appears that 
Prisoner of Azkaban has had its money spread out more than the 
previous two simply because school is out and children/teenagers are 
more free to see movies on weekdays. 

-Rebecca