With May kicking off the official summer blockbuster season we will encounter our first huge box office bout set to take place this year. Who are the first two contenders? Both fighters will open this May as their third theatrical release. With both supposedly a conclusion to a trilogy, the action is bound to be fierce and top-budget.
Spider-Man 3 so far has the upper hand as the film gets to open first. With a May 4th bow, the film will be given three weeks before it must face off with its prime competitor,
Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End. The first Spidey installment made $403 million domestically ($821 worldwide) while the sequel made less with $373 million ($783 worldwide). Though it’s doubtful, if this trend were to keep up we could assume that
Spider-Man 3 should make somewhere near $350 million domestically.
But this installment has Venom and tons of high-flying action! Will this and the fact that this third installment is a conclusion to a strong trilogy be enough to make
Spider-Man 3 the biggest earning
Spider-Man film to date? To do so, Columbia Pictures has to hope for an opening weekend equivalent to the original
Spider-Man -- $114 million. This will give it a big enough head start to collect the coin it needs before the arrival of
Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End on May 25th.
Based on its history,
Pirates 3 is looking to be the box office champ in this bout. Though the film is slightly out of place with its May release instead of the more-comfortable July spot that has treated the film so well, the franchise is one of the few that has had a sequel earn way more than the original.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl brought in $305 million domestically ($653 million worldwide). If we were to base our estimates on the first film, our initial assumption would be that
Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End has no chance against
Spider-Man 3.
But then we have
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest! The film absolutely killed it at the box office by taking in $423 in domestic ticket sales; over one-billion worldwide. The
Pirates attendance is growing, not shrinking! Numbers like this are daunting and any betting man would go with
Pirates 3 at least winning the worldwide box office bout. So, what is our conclusion?
Unless one film completely misses the mark --
Spider-Man 3 has had both strong and mixed reviews so far -- the domestic box office bout between
Spider-Man 3 and
Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End is going to be close. How close? Though hard to say, expect
Spider-Man 3 to earn $400 million domestically while
Pirates 3 takes in a little more at $430 million. On the worldwide front, Pirates should turn Spidey into cannon fodder.
Spider-Man 3 may take in $800 million worldwide, but that will have nothing against
Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End’s take that again comes close to one-billion.
