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Depp marks the spot
10/07/2006 07:10 - (SA)
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| Johnny Depp in a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. (Walt Disney Pictures/Peter Mountain, AP) |
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Los Angeles - Johnny Depp's boozy, woozy buccaneer Jack Sparrow has plundered the US and Canadian box office, with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest taking in a record $132m in its first three days, according to studio estimates on Sunday.
Disney's swashbuckling sequel sailed past the previous all-time best debut, 2002's Spider-Man, which took in $114.8m in its first weekend.
Dead Man's Chest also did nearly three times the business of its predecessor, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which took in $46.6m over opening weekend in 2003.
The sequel surpassed that total in its first day alone, taking in $55.5m on Friday to beat the previous single-day record of $50m, set last year by Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith.
Despite sky-high projections for the Pirates sequel from industry analysts, producer Jerry Bruckheimer said he had expected Dead Man's Chest to open closer to the $77m debut weekend of The Da Vinci Code.
"When people in the industry predicted these high numbers, I thought they were just trying to be mean. So no matter how good we did, if we did $100m, we'd be failures," Bruckheimer said on Sunday.
"I didn't think we'd get near these numbers."
The movie sent Hollywood's overall business soaring. The top 12 films grossed $206.5m, up 48% from the same weekend last year, when Fantastic Four opened with $56.1m.
Dead Man's Chest raked in nearly double the total of the rest of the top 12 combined. The previous weekend's top film, Superman Returns, fell to No 2 with $21.85m, down 58% from opening weekend.
Superman Returns has grossed $141.7m in 12 days and should fly past the $200m mark, said Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros, which released the film.
- AP
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