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2001 International Box Office Leaders... (1 Viewer)

steve jaros

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Global box office totals for films released in 2001 (US dollars):

1) Harry Potter - 957 million

2) Lord of the Rings - 824 million

3) Monsters Inc - 490 million

4) Shrek - 480 million

5) Pearl Harbor - 450 million

Anyone who doubts that the "christmas" season has become as important as the "summer" season for big box office hits should note that the top 3 were winter releases in the US.

Of course, the Christmas release season now starts the week after halloween, and the Summer season now starts in early May. Pretty soon, the Christmas season will start before the Summer season ends, and vice versa...
 

Edwin Pereyra

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Anyone who doubts that the "christmas" season has become as important as the "summer" season for big box office hits should note that the top 3 were winter releases in the US.
I still think that the quality of the film has a lot to do with its success at the box office as far as blockbuster films are concerned regardless of which season they are released.

Having said that, Christmas is definitely an alternative in avoiding a very crowded summer. Expect the usual 50% dropoffs on the film's second weekend that mired most blockbuster films last summer to also happen this summer.

~Edwin
 

steve jaros

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Edwin, that's a good point about the summer crowding. Last summer it did seem like every week we had a new 'blockbuster' release, and it would do $70 million the first weekend, only to get swamped a week later by *that* week's blockbuster.

So we had a bunch of films that did between 140 and 220 million, but only Shrek really had "legs" throughout the summer and topped 250.

I think the "Mummy Returns" really benefitted by being released very early... no way would it have cleared 200 million if it had been released in July. That was the worst 200 million-grossing film ever, IMHO!

In contrast, the "spacing" between Monsters, Harry, and Lord was sufficient to allow each to bank well over 100 million before the next one came along to take over.

So yeah, expect the Scorpion King to do record-breaking BO next week, and it's "record" will last for precisely two weeks, when Spiderman drops, and then of course Spidey will get crushed by the Star Wars film shortly thereafter...
 

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