2009 at the Box Office

The Warner Bros.:   Mr. Nolan, we're going to push your movie to the fall to make room for the new Harry Potter, ok?

Christopher Nolan:   No, no you aren't.

The Warner Bros:  That's what we meant to say, hahahah, how did you get the idea we would do such a thing. Someones getting fired. Would you like something while you're here? A Fresca?

Sounds like you've sat in on a few of these type of meetings.

Zack, that was my first thought as well.  Nolan isn't signed for 3 yet, so I imagine they don't want to piss him off.  That said, he might be perfectly happy to have a few more months for Inception.  I imagine if they do shuffle, he'll be consulted.  About the only thing potentially more important to WB than Harry Potter is Batman 3.
Edited by Chuck Mayer - 7/16/2009 at 11:36 pm GMT

While Batman is WB's second biggest franchise behind Harry Potter, TDK earned more than $1 billion worldwide and won an acting Oscar, both firsts for a superhero movie.  Batman 3 is an extremely high priority for WB and the studio definitely wants to keep Nolan happy.  They gave him upwards of a $200 million buget for "Inception" and total free reign in bringing his vision to life.  As Chuck pointed out, Nolan may be more than happy to have more time to complete the movie if the studio should opt to move it to a fall release for Oscar consideration.  Again, WB may keep things as they are with "Inception" coming out next July and DH1 opening the following November. 

From Reuters...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The latest "Harry Potter" movie cast a $104 million spell over worldwide box offices during its first day in theaters, setting a new record for the boy wizard, distributor Warner Bros Pictures said on Thursday.

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," the sixth in the film series based on the popular books by J.K. Rowling, grossed $58.18 million in North America and $45.85 million overseas on Wednesday, the Time Warner Inc-owned studio said.

The U.S.-Canadian tally, which includes a record $22.2 million from midnight showings, marks the second-biggest Wednesday opening domestically.

Only last month's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" scored a bigger midweek first-day gross, with $62 million in domestic ticket sales on Wednesday June 24, according to Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst for Hollywood.com.

The latest "Harry Potter" also ranks as the fourth-highest single-day gross for a film release in North America, behind No. 1 "Dark Knight" ($67.1 million), No. 2 "Transformers: Revenge," and third-place "Spider-Man 3" ($59.8 million).

"Quite simply, we owe this record-breaking opening to the remarkable fans who have stood by us and who stood in line to be among the first to see 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,'" Warner Bros President and Chief Operating Officer Alan Horn said in a statement.

Said Dergarabedian: "This is a tremendous opening. It's in the box office stratosphere."

The previous "Harry Potter" movie, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," also opened on a Wednesday last year with first-day domestic receipts of $44.2 million. That film went on to gross $937 million worldwide.

The first five films in the franchise, one of the most lucrative in Hollywood history, have so far taken in about $4.5 billion collectively at the global box office.

I wonder how much money HP and the Deathly Hallows the book made it's first day of release. :-p

It's reported to have sold 15 million copies in the first 24 hours after release.  So, at a conservative wholesale price of $12/each, that's at least $180 million dollars in 24 hours.

DH has reportedly sold more than 44 million copies to date ($528 million at $12/each).

That's a serious understatement though.. because DH sold a ton of audiobooks (leading the market for months), and has various different printings.  The revenue off the book alone is monstrous... which brings me to this: I recognize most Americans are familiar with the Jim Dale reading, but I just finished the Stephen Fry reading of the first book; it's such a unique take on it, I enjoyed it a great deal.

Terry, a question about the Reuters article: when we talk about "domestic" gross in this thread, does it always combine the U.S. and Canadian numbers? Or is this something that Warner Bros. is doing just for Half-Blood Prince to make the numbers sound even more impressive?

Thanks, as always, for the great work.

Thank you Adam.

Domestically always stands for the U.S. and Canada.

Good to know. Having never caught on to that before, I'd always thought it strange that the U.S. alone was roughly equal to the entire rest of the globe on most movies. The U.S. + 34 million Canadians against the rest of the world's 6.43 billion people is still pretty impressive.

Friday Estimates

#1 "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" $26.8 million ($107.0 million)
#2 "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" $5.4 million ($139.7 million) 36% Friday-to-Friday drop
#3 "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" $4.2 million ($354.3 million) 45% Friday-to-Friday drop
#4 "Bruno" $2.9 million ($44.1 million) 80% Friday-to-Friday drop (Whoa!)
#5 "The Proposal" $2.8 million ($122.5 million) 22% Friday-to-Friday drop
#6 "The Hangover" $2.5 million ($230.1 million) 21% Friday-to-Friday drop
#7 "Public Enemies" $2.3 million ($74.2 million) 46% Friday-to-Friday drop
#8 "I Love You, Beth Cooper" $1.0 million ($8.6 million) 52% Friday-to-Friday drop
#9 "Up" $970K ($277.4 million) 32% Friday-to-Friday drop
#10 "My Sister's Keeper" $900K ($39.6 million) 38% Friday-to-Friday drop
#11 "(500) Days of Summer" $265K

Edited by TerryRL - 8/8/2009 at 10:57 pm GMT

Maybe this indicates that North American audiences, once in awhile, still have a sense of good taste in movies.

kinda sad that you cann't say the same about transformers 2.

Jacob

Once in awhile <----------- Hence, the qualifying words.

Did you actually see Bruno? I wasn't in love with it but I'll gladly take it over most things I've seen in the last two months.

Well, I guess the weekend records are safe.  That seems pretty low for a HP first Friday, even given the Wednesday debut.

'Order of the Phoenix' is the only other Potter flick to debut on a Wednesday and 'Half-Blood Prince' is currently running well ahead of that film's pace.  'Order of the Phoenix' earned $88.4 million during its first three-days (Wednesday-thru-Friday), while 'Half-Blood Prince' has already pulled in $107 million in the same amount of time.  'Order of the Phoenix' earned $25.8 million its first Friday compared to the $26.8 million 'Half-Blood Prince' produced yesterday.  If WB had opted to open the movie on a Friday, the latest Potter adventure would likely have been only the second flick of the franchise to have a $100 million-plus Friday-to-Sunday performance, joining 'Goblet of Fire' ($102.7 million).

Look for a slight increase in business for today (Saturday) and a $19-$22 million performance on Sunday to give the movie a Friday-to-Sunday haul in the neighborhood of $75-$80 million.  The studio seems confident that the movie will show the same amount of staying power as the last two movies of the series did (both of which ended up topping the $290 million domestic mark) and become only the second film of the franchise to top the triple-century mark domestically.  Given how the movie is doing overseas, 'Half-Blood Prince' has a very real shot at ultimately topping the billion-dollar mark globally.

No. All I had to do was watch the trailer and realize that there was no way in hell that I would spend 10 bucks to watch Sacha Baron Cohen's gibberish.  

OK. Based on your previous post, I just assumed that you had seen the movie to have such a definitive opinion of it.

because the lack of movies this summer. this is probably my lowest viewing ever. its so weak that I missed some movies for nearly 2 months. it was the first time in ages if ever that I missed a movie in june. that is how bad it is.

I did see star trek, t4, up, and harry potter. I usually see alot more in the summer then this. this summer is very weak. a choice between transformers 2 and bruno.. I would skipped both of them.. just because there are movies to see.. doesnt mean that I have to catch them. I did see star trek several times and once in imax.

Jacob

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince closes in on $400 million worldwide, with an estimated $396.7 million after five days

Transformers: ROTF stood at $381.7 million worldwide after five days, putting the sixth Harry Potter film on track to take the global box office lead.

'Half-Blood Prince' looks set to become the third movie of the franchise to ultimately end up topping the $900 million plateau worldwide, which is a first for any film series.  The HP franchise will also become the first movie series to top the $5 billion in global box office earnings, making it the most lucrative franchise in history.

Weekend Estimates

#1 "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" $79.5 million ($159.7 million)
#2 "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" $17.7 million ($152.0 million) -36%
#3 "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" $13.8 million ($363.9 million) -43%
#4 "Bruno" $8.4 million ($49.6 million) -73%
#5 "The Hangover" $8.315 million ($235.9 million) -16%
#6 "The Proposal" $8.300 million ($128.1 million) -22%
#7 "Public Enemies" $7.6 million ($79.5 million) -45%
#8 "Up" $3.1 million ($279.6 million) -33%
#9 "My Sister's Keeper" $2.8 million ($41.5 million) -34%
#10 "I Love You, Beth Cooper" $2.7 million ($10.3 million) -46%
#11 "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" $885K ($62.9 million) -43%
#12 "(500) Days of Summer" $838K

The top 12 pulled in a stellar $154 million this weekend as business was down 39% compared to last year (when "The Dark Knight" got off to its record-shattering debut), but was up 6% compared to this frame in '07.  The overall domestic haul for 2009 passed the $6 billion mark in record-breaking time as this year's mammoth year-to-date tally now stands at $6.026 representing an 11% increase over both last year ($5.454 billion) and '07 ($5.451 billion), up 16% compared to '06 ($5.201 billion), and an impressive 23% stronger than '05 ($4.920 billion).

WB's "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" easily dominated the landscape this weekend as it pulled in a five-day haul of just under $160 million, representing the second best Wednesday-to-Sunday opening in history behind the 'Transformers' sequel.  For the weekend, the movie pulled in $79.5 million, earning a stellar per-theater average of $18,376 from its ultra-wide 4,325 locations.  The studio expects this one to end up earning in the area of $300 million domestically (it would be the first Potter flick since the original movie to do this) and possibly become the first Potter adventure to top the $1 billion mark in global box office earnings.

Fox's "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" passed the $150 million plateau this weekend.  DreamWorks/Paramount's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" has so far earned an impressive $364 million domestically and nearly $750 million worldwide thus far.  Universal's "Bruno" crashed and burned this weekend as it took a disastrous 73% hit.  This one is dying fast and will probably end up topping out in the area of $65 million.  WB's "The Hangover" ($235.9 million) is now the most successful R rated comedy in history as it passed the $234.8 million domestic haul of "Beverly Hills Cop".  Disney's "The Proposal" has so far pocketed just over $128 million.  Universal's "Public Enemies" is currently sitting on a domestic mark of $79.5 million, which now makes it the second most successful film ever for director Michael Mann.  "Collateral" ($101.0 million) remains his biggest box office success as "Public Enemies" came in just ahead of "The Last of the Mohicans" ($75.5 million) to snag the #2 slot. 

Pixar/Disney's "Up" has so far tallied close to $280 million.  WB's "My Sister's Keeper" has now earned $41.5 million.  Fox's I Love You, Beth Cooper" has only managed a little over $10 million since opening last week.  Sony's "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" is sitting on a domestic mark of close to $63 million.  Fox Searchlight's "(500) Days of Summer" got off to a solid start as it took in $838K from only 27 theaers, giving it an average of $31,037, which was far and away the best of the top 12.

Next weekend will see Disney's "G-Force", Sony's "The Ugly Truth", and WB's "The Orphan" all hit theaters.  All three movies should get off to good starts, but 'Half-Blood Prince' is expected to easily hold on to the top spot.

Edited by TerryRL - 7/19/2009 at 07:47 pm GMT
Edited by TerryRL - 8/8/2009 at 10:58 pm GMT

Terry, When does Harry Potter start its Imax showings? I understand there is a contractual delay with Transformers. Is the loss of Imax Revenue considered significant to stateside boxoffice. Thanks for all of your information.

Not a problem.

HP6 won't start the bulk of its IMAX showings until TF2 concludes its run.  From what I understand, there was some sort of contractual "issue" with Paramount being pretty stern about keeping as many IMAX screens as they can hold on to.  Look for HP6 to expand its IMAX showings during the next few weeks.  The movie debuting in a number of IMAX theaters would've inflated its numbers a bit this weekend to be sure, but IMAX fans will still be able to see the movie in that format, just not as soon as they had hoped.

Thanks, Terry

You're welcome.

From the Box Office Guru site...

"Making Half-Blood Prince's debut impressive was the fact that IMAX grosses nearly vanished this time around since most of those screens are still playing the Transformers sequel until July 28. Phoenix's opening weekend included higher-priced ticket sales from 91 IMAX sites while Prince is currently in just three locations with the rest beginning their runs on July 29."

Friday Estimates

#1 "G-Force" $11.5 million
#2 "The Ugly Truth" $10.8 million
#3 "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" $9.3 million ($201.1 million) 65% Friday-to-Friday drop
#4 "Orphan" $4.9 million
#5 "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" $2.6 million ($165.7 million) 52% Friday-to-Friday drop
#6 "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" $2.4 million ($373.5 million) 42% Friday-to-Friday drop
#7 "The Proposal" $2.1 million ($135.8 million) 21% Friday-to-Friday drop
#8 "The Hangover" $2.0 million ($242.6 million) 23% Friday-to-Friday drop
#9 "Public Enemies" $1.2 million ($85.2 million) 48% Friday-to-Friday drop
#10 "Bruno" $919K ($54.7 million) 68% Friday-to-Friday drop
#11 "Up" $520K ($282.5 million) 47% Friday-to-Friday drop
#12 "(500) Days of Summer" $505K ($1.9 million) 92% Friday-to-Friday increase

Edited by TerryRL - 8/8/2009 at 10:59 pm GMT

That's a pretty brutal drop for Harry Potter considering that the film opened on Wednesday.