Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith opens on May 19th.
Anybody care to predict it’s Thursday - Sunday US box office take? Whoever is closest without going over gets to gloat for a week.
I say:
$150,000,000
That sounds a little high. What is the current record for a 4-day ‘weekend’ opening?
Is Lucas going to do a massive release on 3200+ screens, or will he limit the movie to theaters equipped with what he considers the proper facilities? I suppose News Corp. will have a say in distribution, though I think Lucas has some control in the matter.
WHile youa re doing your predicting, you can enter my contest…
According to Box Office Mojo the record for a 4-day opening (May 15-18, 2003) is The Matrix - Reloaded at $91.7 million. Spider-Man 2 had a 3 day opening (May 3-5, 2002) of $114.8 million.
IIRC, TPM had a decent opening. Also, AotC had a decent opening but it was lower than TPM. Is there good reason to think that ROtS will open bigger than either of its predecessors?
I’ll guess $103 million.
I say $100 million. They’re having a slow summer over in Hollywood, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the actual figure turns out to be below this.
Ep I opened big because of the hype. Ep II did not do as well because of the disappointment of Ep I.
I think Ep III will open huge because of the mostly positive reviews (so far), the promise of a lot of kick ass action, the return of Darth Vader (if only for a few minutes), and it’s the last Star Wars movie we likely ever see.
Of course, I’m liable to be waaaaaayyyyyy off.
Actually, the big question is what box office ranking will Ep.3 have at the end of the year? Clones was the first SW movie not to be #1 of its respective year (it was #3)–what film coming out this year (WotW, Batman, Kong) has the best chance of beating it?
Episode 2 had a better opening than Episode 1 did. But, Episode 1 did make more money overall.
Slight correction. The record for a 4-day opening is The Matrix-Reloaded with $134,282,716. The first Spiderman movie has the biggest opening weekend (3 days) with $114,844,116. Spiderman 2 has the 7th biggest opening weekend with $88,156,227.
I predict Episode 3 will make 93 million during the 3-day weekend.
I’m thinking it’ll beat Spiderman. So I’ll say $125m.
I think $95 million is about right, though I’m not in America and don’t know how much it’s being hyped.
This encourages me to stand by my $150 million prediction.
9400 screens? Holy crap.
On a similar thread that I started and watch tank…I predicted $85 million, but I was under the assumption that it opened Friday at midnight, instead of the Thursday midnight start.
So…kinda late and unfair to change, so I will see if I can find data showing what the three day total is/was when I read www.hollywoodreporter.com on Monday. Sometimes they break down the total from the 4 day opening to the three day gross.
Wish I could have 1/2% of the worldwide, opening weekend gross…that would pay a few bills.
I’d take that percentage just from the two theaters in town showing the movie. Each has it on 2 screens for a total of 12 showings each day per theater.
I heard this on NPR today…
$50 million in the first 24 hours. On a Thursday no less. It’s a new record.
And that’s just through Saturday (the story says Friday - Sunday, but Sunday isn’t over with yet).
Now, where did I put my Gloating Crown. 
I was close for a 3 day, Friday to Sunday run. I bet it will be an average of $43 million (or more) per day for the opening ‘weekend’.
NPR’s “Morning Edition” announced this morning (Monday, May 23) that Ep III made $50m on opening day, and $158.5m from Thursday through Sunday.