Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest Enjoys Massive Opening

When a film takes in a record $132 million in its first three days, it’s fair to say that film stole the show in terms of the weekly box office competition.

It’s only fitting then that a movie about thieving pirates – Johnny Depp’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – would be that film, destroying all comers en route to a truly astounding opening.

Disney’s swashbuckling sequel sailed past the previous all-time best debut, 2002’s Spider-Man, which took in $114.8 million in its first weekend.

Dead Man’s Chest also blew away its original – The Curse of the Black Pearl – which only managed $46.6 million when it opened in 2003.

Amazingly, though not surprisingly, the film also set the single day record with its Friday haul of $55.5 million, beating Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.

The big budget picture, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, was expected to do serious business, but not even the veteran executive’s wishful thinking could have forecasted this.

“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 $100 million, we’d be failures,” said Bruckheimer.

Naturally, the success of Dead Man’s Chest boosted all of Hollywood, with the top 12 films grossing $206.5 million, a 48 per cent boost from the same weekend in 2005 when Fantastic Four was number one.

Perhaps the only loser was the previous week’s champion, Superman Returns, which fell to number two with $21.85 million, a 58 per cent drop.

The sci-fi tale of drug addiction, A Scanner Darkly, debuted well in limited release with $406,000 in 17 theatres. Shot in live action and painted over with digital animation the movie stars Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Robert Downey Jr. in a hallucinatory tale adapted from Philip K. Dick’s novel.

But nothing could touch Depp and his pirates.

“It is straight across the board,” said Chuck Viane, head of distribution for Disney, which based the movies on its Pirates of the Caribbean theme park ride. “Everybody’s coming. Whoever it is, they’re there.”

Even factoring in higher ticket prices since 2002, Dead Man’s Chest still set a record of just under 20 million tickets sold, about 200,000 more than Spider-Man.

“Maybe the only movie that has a chance to beat this record might be the next Pirates movie,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

Here’s the rest of the weekend’s top ten, with all figures estimated according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc.

   1. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, $132 million.

   2. Superman Returns, $21.85 million.

   3. The Devil Wears Prada, $15.6 million.

   4. Click, $12 million.

   5. Cars, $10.3 million.

   6. Nacho Libre, $3.3 million.

   7. The Lake House, $2.8 million.

   8. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, $2.5 million.

   9. Waist Deep, $1.9 million.

   10. The Break-Up, $1.6 million.