*All historical figures are adjusted to today’s dollars.
To the surprise of no one, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” was the number one movie at the box office this weekend with $79.5 million. The film made an additional $80.1 million on Wednesday and Thursday, so Daniel Radcliffe and company have just under $160 million in the bank after five days. Comparisons to other Potter flicks are pointless except the previous entry since it was the only other film to debut on a Wednesday in the summer.
“Order of the Phoenix” opened in 2007 to $80.5 million over three days and $146 million for five. This latest installment already seems a bit more front-loaded, so I think we might be looking at a total gross in the same ballpark as the $288 million for “The Prisoner of Azkaban,” which is currently the lowest earner of the franchise. But with worldwide sales, DVD and merchandise, every film in this 8-part series is worth about a billion dollars each to Warner Bros., so any scrutiny on the numbers is irrelevant.
“Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” holds on to second place for the third week in a row by dropping 36% to $17.7 million. A fourth film is already in the works where the three prehistoric friends get frozen and then thawed out in modern times for a museum exhibit. So, basically, it’s “Star Trek IV” with woolly mammoths. Where do I start the line?
“Bruno” dropped a brutal 73% to fourth place and $8.4 million. In terms of major wide releases, only “Gigli,” “Friday the 13th,” “Star Trek: Nemesis” and George A. Romero’s “Land of the Dead” have lost more of their opening weekend audience. As I mentioned in last week’s piece, though, this was not unexpected and won’t keep Universal from making a tidy profit on their investment.