A Chest Full of Gold

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest opening weekend is one for the record books!

I saw it for the second time today and loved it all the more.

According to BoxOfficeMojo:

Yo ho, yo ho. A pirate's life for… everyone.

Or so it seems after Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest plundered the record books with an estimated $132 million opening weekend, swatting Spider-Man's long standing $114.8 million milestone atop the all time chart.

Buena Vista's swarthy sequel marauded over 8,500 screens at 4,133 sites—the third widest debut ever—compared to Spider-Man's 7,500 screens at 3,615 sites, though Pirates' estimated 20 million admissions out-paced Spidey by only a hair.

"Yo ho, yo ho" is right!

And more gold:

Pirates pilfered a trove of records, but the key ones, in addition to opening weekend, were biggest single and opening day and fastest to $100 million. On Friday, Dead Man's Chest raked in $55.5 million (including $9 million's worth of 2,100 midnight showings), eclipsing Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith's $50 million and grossing more in one day than its predecessor, The Curse of the Black Pearl, did in its entire opening weekend. Dead Man's Chest also became the first picture to cross the century mark in two days flat.

How exciting! I do hope it continues to do very well.

In order to reach record heights Dead Man's Chest appealed across all demographic groups, including an equal gender split. "There wasn't a category that stood out," Viane noted. "It was just a total blend." The studio's exit polling indicated that the audience's assessment was on par with the original with 92 percent rating Dead Man's Chest "excellent" or "very good," and pollster CinemaScore backed that up with an "A-" rating.

I quite agree: it was excellent. Once again, I laughed throughout. Go see it! Repeatedly! :)

More:

Official site is here.

The weekend estimates are here.

Premiere photos are here.

A comparison of POTC: DMC vs. other big movies is here.

Reuters: Depp dazzles again in 2nd "Pirates" escapade

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