HP6 - GROSS - in perspective

[Brian]

After the outstanding results of the first day and night, the results for the first few days, while good, aren't the spectacular success some in this group have wanted to portray.

The important 3 day weekend US takings were $79.5 million an increase of only 3 1/2% on Order of the Phoenix ($77m) two years ago, while overall takings for all movies increased b over 10% in last year alone.

And to quote the New york Times... "It should be noted that many people interested in going to the movies over the weekend didn't have much choice but to see "Half-Blood Prince." A huge number — 4,325 theaters — showed the film, many on multiple screens, and Hollywood got out of Harry Potter's way almost entirely; the only other movie to open over the weekend was the Fox Searchlight romance "(500) Days of Summer," in 27 theaters.

In other words, once the fanatics had all gone in the first 24 hours, giving WB their headlines, the full 3 day weekend results were rather less spectacular even with the advantage of no competition and much greter hype and pre-launch promotion than I remember for any previous HP film.

To be fair to Warner Brothers (why?) their 5 day results showed an increase of around 13-14% compared to OOP two years ago and they lacked the income from IMAX.
But even this hardly warrants the headline "The boy wizard's box office powers are stronger than ever."

Perhaps the boycott by many fans with principles (we AREN'T fair-weather fans as one poster here called us) made an impact after all.

Although Warner Brothers have probably ruined some things in the seventh book by the inept way they adapted the sixth, I really hope that they give us two incredible and spectacular films to finish the series and do justice to the books and their incredible base of loyal fans.

Brian