No, noo, Jim, it's not "conspiracy theory"--
It's "Jim...you don't even know you're DOING it anymore."

Disney wouldn't give you numbers to play with, so you came running to us to give you all *our* numbers, so you could feel important on Monday morning.
Well, guess what, Jim?--We're -not- Wall Street.  We're not even Ain't It Cool News.
We're just a buncha very subjectively skewed fanboys on a website that shouldn't even be bothering with the subject.  And our "guesses" don't...mean...CRAP.

If you haven't guessed by now, between you and Disney, I'm siding with the Disney executives who were optimistic about the movie, but felt that giving you a number to play with was None Of Your Freakin' Beeswax.
We got into enough trouble over that with "Cars", they know that, you *should* know that, and the fact that a lot of very gullible people are whining about a good movie not making as much as Somebody Else's Imagination and causing other gullible people to believe it is something that should not happen again.  Not with this movie, I'm inclined to say, and not with anybody's.  And if you seemed a little frustrated a few articles ago because they wouldn't play with you, that's because they're not LETTING it happen again.  And bra-freakin'-vo for them.

If you want to pretend next week's movie is "hit" or "flop", use your -own- imagination, not mine; from what we've seen, it seems to be a lot more fertile.
In other words, Jim?...STOP IT.

I don't think this is a case of what happened on JHM with "Cars".  I believe Jim when he says he just has books he'd like to give away.  I think it's fun to see everyone's guesses.  Way to go, Jim! :-)

$78 Million...more or less.... I think with the larger screen plasmas and home theaters on the rise, people don't rush out to the movies to overpay for high ticket prices and even higher consession food prices. While I love the first film of this series, I won't be surprised to see lower than expected numbers at first...but it'll have the legs to shoot over the $250 mil mark domestically in the end.

I'd love film houses to devote more of an effort toward bringing "family movie night" as a much more affordable event...rather than a family of four to expect to pay over $75 for a two hour film.

To shoot to a similar off topic, I'd love to see Sunday nights return back to being "Disney Family night" on TV. Fond memories of taking a bath sunday night then settling down in front of the tv to first watch the Muppets and then Disney. Whether it was "True life Adventures" or some animated shorts, it was a great opportunity for families to enjoy some wholesome entertainment and share in the laughter and magic Disney provides.

-Just a dream of a big kid at heart

$115,461,961
- Disneymarvel

>>If you haven't guessed by now, between you and Disney, I'm siding with the Disney executives who were optimistic about the movie, but felt that giving you a number to play with was None Of Your Freakin' Beeswax. <<

Wow . . . now the Disney executives are tailoring their public statements specifically toward giving Jim Hill a hard time.

Way to go, Jim!

I repeat:

Seems to me that having comments on this site demonstrates the futility of comments on this site.  Jim Hill entertains and, more often than not, illuminates some dark corner of Disney history or potential future.  That'd be why I have been following him for years, not because of the delightfully vapid comments posted after his articles.  What, exactly, is wrong with running a little contest on this site?  Does anyone here actually think Hollywood or Wall Street is going to see our fanboy predictions and base their next financial moves on them?  If you do, please consider a bowl of bran cereal or a piece of fruit for breakfast instead of crack.

I've given Derek's criticism some thought and I think he might have a point.  Jim Hill Media has held contests like this before.  A year or so ago, the site held a similar contest about what TV shows would be picked up.  I can't remember the name of the person who wrote the column, and I can't even find it in the site archive.  So, think about it.  The contest gets held and the guy that held it just disappears.  Coincidence?  I think not!

Y'know, I think I have to side with hagen.  While I like to have battles of wits with unarmed opponents as much as the next guy,  I'm really here to read what Jim has to say, not desperate teenage fanboy keyboard jockeys.  And while some Disney discussion boards occasionally break out into intelligent conversation, Jim's boards have never been able to rise above the level of "Jim sucks, yeah well you suck suckier".

In honor of your wise words, hagen, I now take leave of these boards, leaving the bashers to run free and unchallenged.  Hopefully the proprietors will give in to the futility of the thing and put these boards out of their misery, or at least move them back onto a separate site where they can stew in peace without stinking up the house.

I think it'll do 103 million and change - But only do about 321 mill domestic. I think the blockbuster as we know it is dying - I wrote a whole thesis on my web site (click the link or visit jospehdickerson.com.

- Joe

$120.7 million, won't be like every other blockbuster this summer that has been a disappointment at the box office (Da Vinci Code, MI:3, Superman Returns) or ruined a franchise (X-Men 3). There is only one thing that Pirates has going against it-

*Spoiler Warning*
As I found out from Jim Hill's article the ending is a cliffhanger and Americans like to have their movies end with no questions left to answer.

Pirates will be the biggest movie of the summer by far, no Matrix Reloaded here.

99.5 million.  This will be the biggest hit of the summer...until Snakes on a Plane!

I think the three day opening gross will be $107.4 MM

I predicted that this would be a big hit! It will make $119.6 million.

I think this is bigger than most people are giving it credit. When Fandango says one of every three tickets is for Pirates then it will be HUGE.

My guess is $150 million

Hey!  That 120.3 million was mine!  Tim Ericson, aka tericson...

I will guess $119 million.

I was the first to guess $94.2 million (and made it into the first recap of guesses), but got bumped by "rjrip." Wanted to make sure my guess gets counted again.

Cnn.com and Entertainment Weekly gave PotC:Dead man's chest a D+ rating.  The entertainment weekly review is on cnn.com's enterainment page.

I predict 142 Million

TikiBird73 said:
Cnn.com and Entertainment Weekly gave PotC:Dead man's chest a D+ rating.  The entertainment weekly review is on cnn.com's enterainment page.
----
The Thursday-night RottenTomatoes.com (by which point most of the reviews are in) has it at 53%--With most of the negative reviews complaining that, yes, there -can- be Too Much of a Good Thing.

Which is kind of a shame, really, but not unexpected:
What made Pirates 1 a hit in the first place (and, not coincidentally, that it'd also come out after the same long, hard, summer that "Nemo" rescued us from) was that it was such a jawdropping surprise.
We saw the "Disney theme-park movie" concept and expected "Country Bears"; we saw the "Jerry Bruckheimer does pirates" title and expected "Cutthroat Island"...And the moment Captain Sparrow first entered on the last few inches of his sinking ship, you KNEW that this was a movie you had to go back a second time to drag somebody else to see, since they wouldn't believe you if you told them, either.  :)

...Which, as has been noted earlier, is the way bad sequels to good action movies happen--Trying too hard for the first movie's quirk and humor, bludgeoning them over the head with it, and trying to turn any bright spot of creativity into a marketing anchor.
It'll still be a hit on the first weekend, and I'll still go see it, but this time, unlike a certain Pixar movie, if it doesn't stay at the top, we'll at least have a clearer idea why.

129.0M

According to boxofficemojo, Pirates 2 made $55.5 million in its 1st day, a new single day and opening day record.

Hey Jim:

$132 MILLION for the opening weekend:  The biggest weekend film opening in motion picture history, besting Spiderman by $18 Mil. Biggest single day opening of $55 Mil, best Revenge of the Sith by $5 Mil.

How you gonna spin this negatively Jim?  I suspect that in your hatred of Disney you'll find a way.

Disneyfanusa, Jim does NOT hate Disney. If you honesty think that, you obviously haven't read his articles. No one who hates Disney would open up a website about the mouse and post almost every day. Yes, some of his more recent articles have had a negative tone to it, but you can thank what he was writing about. Unlike some other sites, he is not going to try and spin bad news into good. If you want a lets-only-say-good-things-about-the-mouse website, go somewhere else. If something happens that is disappointing, he'll write about it. If something happens (like this) that is anything but disappointing, he'll write about it. Is there any indication at all from the many PotC articles he's written over the past few weeks that he wants it to fail?

askmike1:  Bulls**t.  Jim Hill is an untalented hack who can't get a real job and uses this website to make attacks against Disney.  His "inside information" is probably provided by disgruntled (or ex-employees).  Didn't he recently get kicked out of Disneyland because he was trying to make a personal buck on Disney history?  As I read it, disney found out because one his tour group complained to a Disney employee about his tour.  Bet this guy couldn't get a job with Disney and now he uses this site to complain about it. (and yes, in this world I do believe people do open websites for that exact reason).  Personally, I know for an absolute fact that he and his other writers regularly approach Disney Cast Members asking them to provide him with inside information.  No wonder he did this contest....he couldn't get anyone to give him projected box office for Pirates this weekend.

Look, Disneyfanusa..... is anyone forcing you to read this website? Is Al Lutz and Jim Hill holding you hostage forcing you to read every one of these articles? If not, you don't have to read these. So in short, stop the complaining or just stop reading.

Did Jim get kicked out of DL? Yes. Anytime recently? No. And the tours he was giving were to tell people stories about DL that Disney would never tell. And obviously you don't "read it" as he got kicked out because some IDIOTS who were part of an official DL tour went to his tour instead by mistake & complained to Disney about their stupidity.

So, he was on Disney property, conducting his own paid tours?  Disney had every right to remove him from their property.  And that's pretty nasty of you to call those people idiots.  You run around breaking the rules, you get caught, its your own fault, not the fault of "idiot" tourists.  

PS - unless you're really Bob Iger, putting his picture next to your name is pretty damn creepy.

I don't want to get into an argument about whether or not he was right because this is not the thread for that (but yes, the people were idiots because they went to the wrong tour (and mistaking Jim for a tour CM is just downright impossible) and had the nerve to complain that they made that mistake).

As for the Iger pic, it's called an avatar. It's an image picked by the user to represent them. Nub uses Darth Duck (at least that's what I believe it is), Greenyskyp uses Captain Jack & various other users use them too.

&lt;i&gt;As the 2006 edition of this computer graphics &amp; interactive techniques conference draws to a close, Jim Hill looks back at one of this year's more memorable presentations. When ILM's FX team shared its own private stash of &quot;Pirates of