> > > Nothing needs to be said about this. Everybody will see it, even though the backlash against Episode I was harsh. Probably won't out-gross Spiderman, though, which is pretty surprising.
> >
> > Really? I haven't heard the figures for Spider-Man, so I suppose it's possible.
>
> Spiderman is a phenomenon at the box office right now. It was the first film ever to exceed $100 million in its opening weekend, and it has also reached $200 million faster than any other (in ten days, compared to the 13 days it took Phantom Menace). More telling, however, is its percent drop in the second weekend. Most summer blockbusters will drop 45-55% in the second weekend, and this initial drop tends to forecast the performance of the film in the remainder of its theatrical life. When Titanic and There's Something About Mary opened to respectable-but-not-great and disappointing opening numbers, respectively, the expected total box office take said nothing about how well they'd do. But when they dropped by only a single-digit percentage in the second weekend, I'm sure a lot of studio executives were rejoicing.

While I agree the 37% fall is pretty dang good, I wouldn't put too much stock in the movie's huge opening. Remember, Spiderman is playing on more screens than Phantom Menace was (and more than Attack of the Clones will). This is for a few reasons -- 1) Lucas is picky about who can show his movies and 2) Lucas seems to enjoy creating HUGE lines for his movies by purposely under-distributing them.

David Poland, who's written about this a bunch (http://www.thehotbutton.com), points out a similar phenomenon with respect to Harry Potter vs. Fellowship of the Rings. Potter had a much bigger opening than Rings, but they wound up about $10 million apart when all was said and done. The sort of people who are into Star Wars or Lord of the Rings are the people who will see it five times in the theater.

Phantom Menace stuck around all summer 1999 for this same reason (despite a considerable amount of backlash against it). The reviews seem to be saying that Episode II is more or less superior to I, though most reviewers still don't seem too keen on it. (Interesting side-note: Ebert, who liked Episode I, slammed II with a 2-star rating, but that seems largely to have been because he initially saw it projected on film instead of digitally. He's now saying it looks considerably better through digital projection, and it's possible that some of the early negative reviews have been for the same reason.)

I am by no means positive that Ep. II will outgross Spiderman. But I remain fairly confident that it will.

Stephen