REVISED THURSDAY ESTIMATE: 'Harry Potter' with only an estimated $18.6M.
by Steve Mason
FRIDAY MORNING: Last night, I went online with a $25.65 million Thursday projection for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Warner Bros.). I also wrote a disclaimer about how tricky it is to make a projection for the second full day of release for a movie with a mid-week opening when there are midnight shows. It's time to use the disclaimer. Harry Potter was down 42 percent as I wrote last night, but they were actually down 42 percent from $32 million ($44 million less $12 million in midnight business). So, my revised estimate for Order of the Phoenix on Thursday is $18.6 million.
I could pull off the update that I wrote last night, but that's not my style. I always leave my stories and predictions up whether they turn out to be right or wrong. Given that Thursday was considerably softer than I thought it would be, I'll be interested to see how front-loaded the picture is. We'll get a very good idea when I release Friday projections tonight.
THURSDAY NIGHT: After opening with the all-time biggest Wednesday, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Warner Bros.) appears to have delivered the all-time fourth-best Thursday. HP5 took in an estimated $25.65 million on Thursday, bringing its two-day cume to $69.8 million. The only movies in modern history with bigger Thursdays are Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith ($50 million), The Matrix Reloaded ($37.5 million) and Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones ($30.1 million).
Please note: Whenever there is a midnight opening for a major release, it's tricky to call the second full day performance for that title. It's difficult to figure how much of the midnight take is accurately represented in the Day 1 gross. I know this Harry Potter number is close, but the margin of error may be a little higher than usual:
EXCLUSIVE FANTASY MOGULS EARLY THURSDAY ESTIMATES
1. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Warner Bros.) -- $25.65 million, down 42 percent [$69.8 million cume]
2. Transformers (Dreamworks/Paramount) -- $6.23 million, down 11 percent [$186.8 million cume]
3. Ratatouille (Buena Vista) – $3.22 million, down 18 percent [$124.8 million cume]
4. Live Free or Die Hard (Fox) -- $1.55 million, down 11 percent [$91.9 million cume]
5. License to Wed (Warner Bros.) -- $1.15 million, down 9 percent [$23 million cume]
6. Evan Almighty (Universal) -- $808,000, down 17 percent [$82.8 million cume]
7. 1408 (MGM/Weinstein) -- $709,000, down 10 percent [$57.1 million cume]
8. Knocked Up (Universal) -- $508,000, down 10 percent [$134.5 million cume]
9. Sicko (Lionsgate/Weinstein) -- $394,000, down 12 percent [$13.2 million cume]
10. Evening (Focus) -- $325,000, down 8 percent [$7 million cume]
11. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (Fox) -- $289,000, down 7 percent [$125.2 million cume]
12. Ocean's Thirteen (Warner Bros.) -- $276,000, down 7 percent [$110.5 million cume]
13. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Buena Vista) -- $232,000, down 11 percent [$303 millioncume]
14. Shrek the Third (Dreamworks/Paramount) -- $97,800, down 18 percent [$317.3 million cume]
15. Nancy Drew (Warner Bros.) -- $95,800, down 8 percent [$23.8 million cume]
THURSDAY MORNING: As I forecast last night, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Warner Bros.) is the new all-time Wednesday box office champion, topping Spider-Man 2's $40.4 million. The opening-day estimate, however, sailed past my target range of $39 million-$42 million. HP5 is in the stratosphere with a breathtaking estimated $44.3 million to start its domestic run.
Harry's record-breaking day started off Tuesday night/Wednesday morning at 12:01 a.m. (All U.S. time zones) with a staggering $12 million. That's double the take midnight take for 2005's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Then it was sellouts and near-capacity houses all day long. Here are the Top 5 Wednesdays in modern box office history.
ALL-TIME TOP 5 WEDNESDAY BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCES
1. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, $44.3 million (estimate)
2. Spider-Man 2, $40.4 million
3. Transformers, $29 million
4. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, $28.5 million
5. The Passion of the Christ, $26.5 million
ALL-TIME TOP 5 HARRY POTTER DAYS
1. July 11, 2007 -- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, $44.3 million (estimate)
2. Dec. 18, 2005 -- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, $40.1 million
3. June 4, 2004 -- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, $38.2 million
4. Dec. 19, 2005 -- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, $36.7 million
5. Nov. 15, 2002 -- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, $34.2 million
I'll be continuously updating during Harry Potter's opening week and right through the weekend.
WEDNESDAY NIGHT: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Warner Bros) followed up its $12 million in Tuesday midnight shows with a huge first day. Opening days are always tricky. Studio execs are exceedingly coy about numbers as they roll in, and midweek openings are even more dicey. Throw in a midnight start, and there is additional room for error.
I feel very safe putting Harry Potter 5's opening day in the $39 million-$42 million range. That does include the Tuesday midnight shows. It's very likely that the latest summer sequel has delivered the all-time biggest day for any Harry Potter movie, besting HP4's opening day of $40.1 million. There's also a strong probability that Order of the Phoenix will become the all-time Wednesday box office champ, surpassing Spider-Man 2's $40.4 million.
WEDNESDAY MORNING: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Warner Bros.) debuts today (Wednesday, July 11), and there is no question that HP5 will be a box office monster ... but will it follow this summer's sequel formula?
Let's look at the five major 2007 summer sequels to calculate a formula to predict the success of the latest Potter picture. Please note that I'm not including Live Free or Die Hard (20th Century Fox) in this mix because it's been 12 years since the last Die Hard movie, and Live Free really isn't playing like a sequel, especially with the Under 25 crowd.
Spider-Man (Sony)
Spider-Man 2 -- $88.1 million opening, $373 million cume
Spider-Man 3 -- $151 million opening, $334 million cume
Opening Weekend, up 42 percent; Total Domestic, down 11 percent
Shrek (Dreamworks/Paramount)
Shrek 2 -- $108 million opening, $441.2 million cume
Shrek the Third -- $121.6 million opening, $316.1 million cume
Opening Weekend, up 11 percent; Total Domestic, down 28 percent
Pirates of the Caribbean (Buena Vista)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest -- $135.6 million opening, $423.3 million cume
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End -- $114.7 million opening, $302.1 million cume
Opening Weekend, down 15 percent; Total Domestic, down 29 percent
Ocean's (Warner Bros.)
Ocean's Twelve -- $39.1 million opening, $125.5 million cume
Ocean's Thirteen -- $36.1 million opening, $109.5 million cume
Opening Weekend, down 8 percent; Total Domestic, down 13 percent
Fantastic Four (Fox)
Fantastic Four -- $56 million opening, $154.6 million cume
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer -- $58 million opening, $124.4 million cume
Opening Weekend, up 4 percent; Total Domestic, down 20 percent
There's a clear pattern here. Three of the five sequels opened bigger than the previous installment, and the other two were down only slightly. Meanwhile, the cume is down drastically for all five. In fact, on average, this summer's sequels have opening weekends 7 percent higher than the previous films in the franchise, but their total domestic take is down an average of 20 percent.
If we plug in those percentages for the first five days of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, it translates to an opening weekend of $128 million and $255 million total domestic. These numbers look about right to me. Here's how I see HP5 performing on its opening five days:
Wednesday (July 11): $32.5 million (including Tuesday midnight shows)
Thursday (July 12): $19.5 million
Friday (July 13): $26.2 million
Saturday (July 14): $27.9 million
Sunday (July 15): $21.9 million
Opening 5-Day Gross: $128 million
Friday thru Sunday: $76M
Those would be fantastic numbers, and this would easily become the best opening five days of any of the movies in the HP franchise.
5-Day Grosses of the Harry Potter films
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) -- $104.5 million opening, $317.5 million cume
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) -- $98.4 million opening, $261.9 million cume
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) -- $109.3 million opening, $249.5 million cume
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) -- $119.7 million opening, $290 million cume
I'll have early returns for opening day of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by 11 p.m. (Pacific).
Just thought Id let you know you have 21.6 mil for shrek the thirds opening number instead of 121.
Posted by: Tye Copeland | July 11, 2007 at 03:59 PM
Also, it has been 12 years since the last Die Hard movie, not 7. "Die Hard: With a Vengeance" came out in 1995.
Posted by: J.R. | July 11, 2007 at 05:21 PM
One question Steve, why are you so unintelligent? You keep making careless mistakes, have lots of terrifying projections, and are so smug about your Friday night projections and how close they are to the real thing, which are obviously going to be close because you alreadt got friday nights numbers! you said 395 mil for pirates 3, 48.5 mil for nancy drew or easily double but that's it, now your saying 255 mil for Harry 5, but before you said 350 mil! Harry will get around 300 mil, I could go on all day, but frankly it would take to long to name half of all the errors I've seen you made, good day sir!
Posted by: Broekelschen | July 11, 2007 at 06:27 PM
P.S. You said 51 mil opening for oceans 13 friday afternoon, it ended up getting 36.1 mil, that's almost 50 percent off, and you said 77 mil for grindhouse, it got less than a third of that, and you said disturbia and perfect stranger were neck to neck, disturbia ended up doubling it.
Posted by: Broekelschen | July 11, 2007 at 06:46 PM
Give Steve a break Broekelschen. No one knows anything.
Posted by: tuan69 | July 11, 2007 at 06:52 PM
Hi all,
There's a difference between predictions and projections.
My predictions are no better or worse than anybody else's. Anybody who reads this site has the same chance of being right as I do. As Tuan69 writes, "Nobody knows anything."
The predictions that I make are based on industry tracking and conversations with industry execs etc., but I think people like Brandon Gray at Box Office Mojo and Gitesh Pandya and David Mumpower and Kim Hollis at Box Office Prophets and Edward Douglas at Coming Soon are all excellent, and are often times better at the prediction game than me. That's why I put The Scorecard together with everybody's predictions every Friday.
Projections are always based on actual data. I take pride in publishing the earliest and most accurate box office results, but, of course, my intention is never to come off as smug.
Thanks for pointing out the factul errors. Obviously, I always want correct info, but there are occasional typos and mistakes. Ultimately, I'm just a guy with a blog.
Thanks for taking the time to write.
Mase
Posted by: Steve Mason | July 11, 2007 at 08:35 PM
Lay off on the attacks against Steve Mason. At least hes providing us with early numbers. Dont mind the negative remarks, Steve. You are doing a great job and most of us at BOM and WOKJ often link your early numbers toward those website. Keep up the good work
Posted by: jay K | July 11, 2007 at 10:41 PM
I am a big Mason fan, but some of your summer predictions/projections have been more than a little curious. I think HPotter will outgross Transformers. I know hearing that makes you want to cry Mase. Because I know, I know you were on a REELZ tv show way back in May and had the nerve to predict Transformers #1. I think you are going to be wrong.
Posted by: Lester Hayes | July 12, 2007 at 07:59 AM
Let's tackle him and burn 'em at the stake! Argh!!! Wrong predictions make me crazy!
Posted by: friskytiger81 | July 12, 2007 at 08:12 AM
Sry Mase for starting this frenzy against you. I sincerely apologize for starting all the attacks on you although I really was not attacking you just pointing out a mistake. Just curious what you think but after day two of transformers I began to think that it was going to be a very front loaded movie and I was wondering if you saw any indication of it slowing down fairly rapidly after this week.
Posted by: Tye Copeland | July 12, 2007 at 10:20 AM
Give this guy some credibility folks.I agree sometimes he is off and also sometimes he makes mistakes/errors in his calculations.But he reports the numbers waaayyyyy early.So,sometimes off doesn't mean much.Good job Steve.Keep it up.You can see your estimates are now discussed on so many pages even on BOM and WOKJ.Just avoid the errors.
Posted by: glouch | July 12, 2007 at 11:21 AM
Hey all,
No need to apologize. Remember, my primary job in life is as a sports talk show host on radio. After doing morning drive in New York City and booth morning and afternoon drive in LA, I've got pretty thick skin.
I'll rely on you guys to be my ombudsmen, and point out typos and mistakes. I'll always go back and correct stuff.
As for TRANSFORMERS,there's no question that it has been frontloaded, and with HARRY POTTER entering the marketplace, it will have a big weekend drop. I think it may hold up a bit better than the big sequels...maybe 50%-55% intead of 60%-65%.
Thanks everybody for taking the time to write.
For the record, I still say that TRANSFORMERS will outgross HP5, but your guess could be as good as mine.
Mase
Posted by: Steve Mason | July 12, 2007 at 12:14 PM
Hey Mase,
Good job on the radio show in LA. I heard you yesterday with Demarco Farr and it was good. Maybe a little too much hocking of merchandise, but still pretty solid. Transformers is going to lose to HP5. I'll bet you a lunch anywhere in Los Angeles. I am sure you'd like to hear some stories about my days with the Raiders in the 1970's. And I'd love to talk to you about the fall movie season and upcoming oscar buzz. So do we have a bet?
Posted by: Lester Hayes | July 12, 2007 at 12:43 PM
If you want real estimates, don't read steve mason prediction/projections, since Mase had the whoppingly off 32.5 mil opening day for Harry 5, have a feast upon your eyes with my delightful prediction/projections. Opening day Harry is 44.3 mil, im guessing thursday will be high 20's or early 30's mil, and the weekend will prob be around 85 mil, making the opening 5 day total to be around 150-160 mil, and it will most likely outdo Transformers, sorry Mase, and Harry will get over 300 mil, and prob be the third highest grossing movie of the summer. P.S. read my comments for more accurate prediction/projections.
Posted by: Broekelschen | July 12, 2007 at 06:57 PM
Again steve,i am not bashing you or anything but do check your article after you post.You have written Star Wars: Episode II – Revenge of the Clones ,but its Attack of the Clones not Revenge of the Clones.And re-check your articles for such mistakes before posting them.Else it takes a lot of credibility from you.Anyways thanks again for these numbers.
Posted by: glouch | July 13, 2007 at 12:10 AM
Hi Broekelschen,
Thanks for taking the time to write. I hope everyone will start offering their predictions. That's definitely the purpose of the site.
For the record, projections are different from predictions. My predictions are just guesses based on industry tracking, conversations with distribution execs and hunches. Projections are based on actual data. If you look at the HP blog above, you'll see that my projection for opening day (released Wednesday night) was for $39M-$42M, and I revised to $44.3M early Wednesday morning long before BOM published its Wednesday estimate for HP5.
I'll put The Scorecard online early Friday. In addition to my Potter prediction ($72M) and Broekelschen's ($85M), here are the 3-day Fri thru Sun Potter predictions of some of the other so-called "experts":
World of KJ - $72M
Box Office Mojo Derby Averages - $88.4M
Lee's Movie Info - $70.3M
Edward Douglas, Coming Soon - $83.2M
Reagen Sulewski, Box Office Prophets - $96M
Anybody can get it right. A prediction is just another word for guess.
Good luck everybody. Here's hoping that HP5 can make it to Broekelschen's 5-day number of $160M.
Posted by: Steve Mason | July 13, 2007 at 12:22 AM
Hi Glouch,
Correction made. Thanks!
My goal is always to be error/typo free. Because I'm just a guy with a blog, and I'm posting 5-7 major pieces per week (many of them posted very late at night), they'll probably never go away completely, but thanks for catching that!
Mase
Posted by: Steve Mason | July 13, 2007 at 12:31 AM
Revenge of the Clones. haha good one Steve!
Posted by: tuan69 | July 13, 2007 at 01:55 AM
Another type error steve,you have mentioned Knocked Out.Its Knocked Up :P
Posted by: glouch | July 13, 2007 at 02:34 AM
Mase,
The last person that ignored a lunch invitation from me was ex-Cincy Bengal QB Ken Anderson. Do you know what happened to him? I picked him off twice in one game. One of them I brought back to the house. Once I was ignored by ex-Jet Ken O'Brien. You know what happened to him. I came weak side on a corner blitz and knocked him out of the game with a blind side hit.
"THE AUTUMN WIND IS A RAIDER"
Posted by: Lester Hayes | July 13, 2007 at 07:54 AM
I think Harry Potter will gross about $300-$310M, and Transformers will probably be in the $250-275M range.
Keep up the good work, Steve!
Posted by: J.I. | July 13, 2007 at 08:21 AM
Im thinking that with competition so fierce this summer that no single movie has been able to shine through as the one hit movie of the summer. Getting Spidey 3 out two weeks ahead of everything else might have been the best decision of the summer. At this point I think HP5 and Transformers will end up at the same gross and itll be close to 300 mil or a little over.
Posted by: Tye Copeland | July 13, 2007 at 09:05 AM
Hi Lester,
You're on for the lunch bet.
Tye makes a great point. I think that SM3 wins the summer because of the head start. First in...biggest cume.
Mase
Posted by: Steve Mason | July 13, 2007 at 09:30 AM
Steve,Thursday numbers are $18.365M according to media by numbers.This is one of the biggest "off" prediction i have ever seen.Around 38% off.
http://mediabynumbers.com/
Posted by: glouch | July 13, 2007 at 09:49 AM
Hi Glouch,
Believe me, I know it was a monster miss. You see what happened right? The percentage - down 42% was right - but I used down 42% from Wednesday's $44. Instead, it's really down 42% from $32M ($44M less $12M from Tuesday midnight shows).
Thanks for the input as always. Still waiting for SBD and BOM to post.
-Mase
Posted by: Steve Mason | July 13, 2007 at 10:42 AM