I haven't written about box office totals in a while, frankly because when I get the reports back about my most popular blog posts, well, to put it bluntly, none of you care.
But I'm not going to let that stop me this time...
The first point that I wanted to make is that this weekend's results make it ever more clear that movie reviews, in today's day and age, couldn't be more irrelevant. Mission: Impossible 3 got decent reviews and disappointed at the box office. The Da Vinci Code got absolutely slaughtered by reviewers, and it cleaned up. David Poland once said that opening weekend numbers had nothing to do with the quality of the film - it simply reflected the skill of their marketing campaign. He's right, but it's also clear that opening weekend numbers have nothing to do with what reviews say either.
Marketing and News is beating Reviews every single time.
As for Da Vinci's long term prospects, a bad film, and more importantly, bad word of mouth, is only going to hurt after opening weekend, as it will cut down on the amount of time it spends in theaters, as well as repeat viewers. All of that hits the final gross, but the opening numbers will still look good.
Having said that however, Mr. Poland did some nice analysis on his blog, and The Da Vinci Code is in rarified air already, by posting the 11th best non-holiday Monday ever. I know, I know... the 11th best non-holiday Monday?!?!? Could we get any more arcane?
Think about it though - a movie that pulls in $8.9 million on a workday is BIG. It's Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Matrix big...
They say "The Da Vinci Code" officially now tops the books for the an opening weekend:
CINEMA: DA VINCI HITS £82MILLION RECORD
(AGE) LONDON - The Da Vinci Code broke the world record for box office sales in its opening weekend. The film, starring Tom Hanks, was a worldwide hit scooping a massive £82.2 million from 82 countries, according to figures issued by Sony. Despite being panned by some critics, the sales were £4.3mil-lion more than forecast. Da Vinci also went straight to No 1 in all the box office charts where it was shown. Ticket sales in the UK alone topped £9.1million. The film wiped out the £77mil-lion world record set by Star Wars: Episode III a year ago.
(AGE)
Data: 24/05/06 12:51
Autore: SOD
Posted by: Paul Kekai Manansala, Quests of the Dragon and Bird Clan | May 24, 2006 at 04:37 PM
While potentially true, it's never an apples-to-apples comparison when you're talking worldwide box office.
Did Da Vinci open in all the exact same countries that Episode III did? For domestic numbers, it's easy to make comparisons, but when films are opening in various countries around the world at different times, there's really no way to make a fair study. Not to mention exchange rates over different times in history...
Having said that, it probably did have the biggest single worldwide opening in history.
Posted by: Craig | May 24, 2006 at 04:41 PM
Actually, Episode III still has the number one opening worldwide, Da Vinci came in second.
Posted by: Lukas | May 26, 2006 at 11:00 AM