The competitive summer movie season got a bit more cutthroat over the weekend as Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest brought the Man of Steel to his knees with the biggest opening ever. The seafaring sequel docked in 4,133 theaters across North America and plundered a staggering $135.6 million, according to final counts. Though reviews have been mixed, the film is on track to outdo its predecessor, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which opened to $46.6 million in 2003 and ended up making $654 million worldwide. The latest installment took in around $55 million on Friday alone, breaking Star Wars: Episode III’Revenge of the Sith‘s single-day record of $50 million.
Featuring vfx work by Industrial Light & Magic, Asylum, The Orphanage, Method Studios, Tippett Studio, Caf’ FX and Proof Inc., Dead Man’s Chest easily beat the effects-laden Superman Returns, which picked up around $21.8 million in its second week to occupy the No. 2 spot. At around $141 million, Warner Bros.’ expensive superhero epic still has a long way to go to recoup its reported $260 million budget.
It seems no superheroes are a match for Captain Jack Sparrow. In addition to sailing past Spider-Man‘s record $114.8 million opening, Pirates dethroned this summer’s reigning box office champ, X-Men: The Last Stand, which raked in $102.7 during its opening weekend and currently stands at $426.9 million worldwide. The performance of Dead Man’s Chest certainly has Disney looking forward to next summer when it releases Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End on May 25.
It was also a banner weekend for Disney/Pixars Cars, which crossed the $200 million mark domestically and managed to stay in the top five with a weekend draw of approximately $10.3 million. Worldwide, the animated comedy has earned around $230 million as it continues to roll into more foreign markets. Finishing ahead of Cars this weekend were 20th Century Fox’s The Devil Wears Prada with an estimated $15.6 million and Sony/Revolution’s Click, which earned around $12 million to put it over the $100 million hump in its third week.
Richard Linklater’s animated adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly did well in limited release, pulling in approximately $406,000 from just 17 theaters. The film’s per-theater average of $23,882 was the second-highest of the weekend behind Pirates‘ $31,944. Scanner opens wider this weekend before getting some animated company in Sony’s Monster House, which opens on Friday, July 21.
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