It’s all about Potter this weekend as the sixth(!) installment of the series that started way back in 2001 hits theatres this week.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is based on the second-to-last JK Rowling book of the boy wizard series. Each film has opened at the box-office and it won’t be a question of if it will be huge but just how big?
Opening weekends of the Harry Potter films:
| TITLE | OPENING WEEKEND | DATE |
|---|---|---|
| Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone | $90,294,621 | 11/16/2001 |
| Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets | $88,357,488 | 11/15/2002 |
| Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban | $93,687,367 | 6/4/2004 |
| Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire | $102,685,961 | 11/18/2005 |
| Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix | $77,108,414 | 7/11/2007 |
As you can see, the last film released in the series in 2007 had the lowest opening weekend of the five films but the $77M came after two strong days as it opened on a Wednesday. There isn’t any real competition out there for this one and its Wednesday opening should take some of the wind out of its weekend sails too. I’m estimating $100M for its Wednesday and Thursday and $100M for the weekend.
Bruno performed well last weekend grossing $30M but word-of-mouth and controversy should hurt it this weekend. I’m guessing that the fans of Sacha Baron Cohen showed up on the first weekend and there isn’t too much of a crowd left to cater to. I’m estimating a close to 50% drop and a $16M weekend.
The animated feature Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs held up well in its second weekend only falling 34%. Harry Potter should cut into its business but it should only fall no more than 45% for a weekend gross of $16M.
Transformers should be one of the big casualties this weekend as Harry Potter takes over many of the screens the robots were playing on. It fell 43% last week and with Potter out there it should fall 50% to a $14M three-day-gross.
Michael Mann’s Public Enemies fell 42% from its opening weekend. It is one of the only adult dramas out there so I’ll be nice and say it only falls 45% this weekend for a gross of $7.5M.
The surprise of the summer is The Hangover and it showed its staying power last weekend by only dropping a minuscule 12% from the previous weekend. Bruno is suffering from bad word-of-mouth so The Hangover may be the comedy choice for those who haven’t seen it yet and were deciding between the two films. I think a gross of about $7-7.4M is in order.
The Proposal saw a low drop of 18% last weekend. It is going to see competition next week from the Katherine Heigel romantic comedy, The Ugly Truth. Until then, it’s a safe bet for the older crowd. It will probably fall 30% this weekend and make $7M.
I Love You, Beth Cooper had a terrible start last weekend as it made a weak $5M. Things aren’t going to get any better this weekend as Potter takes over as top choice for teenagers. A 50% decline will see this one making $2.5M over the three days.
The final spots in the top ten will go to UP and My Sister’s Keeper which I see making $3M and $2.5M, respectively.
| PLACE | TITLE | EST. WKEND GROSS | %DROP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Harry Potter 6 | $100M | opening |
| 2 | Ice Age 3 | $16M | 45% |
| 3 | Bruno | $16M | 50% |
| 4 | Transformers 2 | $14M | 50% |
| 5 | Public Enemies | $7.5M | 45% |
| 6 | The Hangover | $7.4M | 30% |
| 7 | The Proposal | $7M | 30% |
| 8 | UP | $3M | 35% |
| 9 | I Love You, Beth… | $2.5M | 50% |
| 10 | My Sister’s Keeper | $2.5M | 40% |
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SATURDAY UPDATE:
Potter 6 started out strong Wednesday and looked like it was going to gross $100M this weekend but business was front-loaded by fans and it now looks like an $85M three-day period.
Bruno fell apart on its second weekend and made only $2.7M on Friday which was off an UNREAL 81% from last Friday. It looks to fall 70% to no more than $9M this weekend.