Oh, how the bashing will flow...

[Jedieb]

With only 3,300 theaters and approximately 5,000 screens, it's hard to imagine how AOTC can bring in $100M Fri.-Sat., let alone surpass Spidey's spectacular $114.8M. AOTC could bring in a strong $85-$100M but that won't be enough. Casual, not stupid mind you, observers are only going to see one thing; Spiderman crushed Star Wars!! Some will label AOTC a dissapointment without carefully looking at the numbers. Months from now when AOTC passes Spidey it'll probably be largely ignored. I wouldn't stoop to calling the bashers stupid, just uniformed. Why should they be informed? It's not a big deal to most of these people. They don't spend the time many of us do looking at the numbers. But they're more of them than us, and I'm afraid their views will be more prevelant than ours. Kind of annoying isn't it?

[Jedi Master Carr]

Well if they try to do it here I will inform them :) I would think most of the major papers and magazines know about the screen count and will bring that up, a few articles have already said that it won't do it but AOTC will win the Summer.

[Jedieb]

I can just picture Matt Laurer babbling about a "dissapointing" opening weekend for AOTC. If only Al Roaker would then quickly body slam him. If only...:D

[JonathanLB]

Yeah you are totally right, EB, but I would like to think that if the movie is as well received as it has been so far (haven't read one bad review out of about 25), the media will actually make an effort to point out that it had many less theater screens.

I believe Spider-Man had 7,500 and 3,670 theaters or so, and AOTC has 3,300 and 5,000 screens. So... I think $95 million even IS possible, but... even that would be rather remarkable, no?

I cannot believe there is ANY debate about whether AOTC will crush LOTR and Spider-Man, LOL!!!! Oh my god. Those films are not even close to as big of a deal as a new STAR WARS movie. Come on, we already saw that with TPM, which according to CNN "most people saw as a disappointment." Haha, yeah whatever ;)

Let's put it this way, every studio PRAYS on their knees that their movie has the staying power TPM did. If Spider-Man had that staying power, umm, can you IMAGINE?!?! $114.85 million * 6.5 = $746 MILLION, bye bye Titanic.

The staying power TPM had was remarkable. It would be equivalent of a $15 million opening turning into a $100 million box office success. How often does that happen? Try just about never. BUT it is EASIER for a movie that opens at $15 million to make almost 7 times its opening than a film that opens at MORE THAN four times that much, $64.8 million to be exact.

I would say that we all should not be disappointed if AOTC opens at $73 million or so for the three day weekend. Seriously, don't be having a heart attack because put that in comparison here. You are talking about an amount that, before Spider-Man and Harry Potter, would have crushed The Lost World, the previous record-holder, and surpassed TPM by almost $10 million. So that would be VERY GOOD!!!! In fact it would probably mean that AOTC would be looking at a similar theatrical run to TPM as far as staying power, but larger in gross, so you'd be looking at $475 million probably. If the film opens at $85 to $90 million in three days, who is to say it couldn't hit $550 million? I say it would.

I don't want to speculate too much and start blowing hype, but I have talked to three people so far who didn't see TPM and said they plan to see AOTC and are excited about it. I don't think they intentionally avoided TPM, in fact one said she saw it on DVD three months ago and really liked it, but they just didn't make it out to TPM. Too much hype, they stayed away from theaters, etc. Just didn't want to get involved in it all. Now, they want to see AOTC.

The danger here is that we are going to see "$32.5 million" opening day for Episode II and be like, "THAT IS ALL?!" I had that reaction to TPM's opening day, to be honest, because I heard $35 to $40 million estimates. But when I looked at the facts, i.e. largest day ever and it was a Wednesday, I couldn't help but be impressed when I realized that realistically $35 million was not POSSIBLE for the ticket prices then and the 2,970 theaters. After all, Spider-Man made $43M with 700 more theaters, several thousand extra screens, much higher ticket prices (about 17%), etc. Ticket price inflation has been rather amazing, or am I the only one who realizes that.

The ticket price for 2002 will be determined RETROACTIVELY, as always. So when TPM came out we all thought it was $4.75, but it was retroactively changed to $5.08 in early 2000. Now, it is supposedly $5.75, but will be revised in early 2003, so you are looking at perhaps $5.85 to $6.00. In fact last time it went from like in the $5.30's to $5.75, so... pretty massive. If you predict like $5.90, for instance, you get a 16% increase.

So take TPM * 1.16 = $500.69 million!!!

That is why my prediction of $475-$525 million stands...

That is also why $350 million, i.e. Dutchy, makes no sense. No offense intended, just the facts here. That would mean that Episode II sells about 70% as many tickets as TPM, which would make it absolutely the lowest selling Star Wars movie, including ESB, which did not perform as well as the other films by a long shot.

With the critical reviews as great as they have been so far, even the Atlanta Journal and Constitution chiming in with early good word, I have trouble believing this film will not perform either 90% as well as TPM or perhaps 10% better even, in ticket sales.