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There was booty to be plundered, but some people put up a fight in giving it up.

Kim Hollis: After anchoring a record-setting Memorial Day weekend, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End fell 62% to $43.2 million this weekend, giving it a running total of $216.5 million after ten (and a half) days. What do we think of this result?

Reagen Sulewski: If I'm Disney, this is a "Yay" with a "But". I'm still not jaded about $100 million weekends, but that drop shows that a hypothetical fourth entry in the franchise isn't bulletproof, and that lack of staying power has to be troubling. The fall off from entry number two probably means that $100 million is taken off the table domestically for this outing.

Kim Hollis: I hate to say that any movie that made this much money is a disappointment, because it feels ludicrous to do so. But relative to expectations and the performance of the previous movies, it isn't up to the same lofty standards. The ray of hope is that At World's End did have a Saturday/Sunday bump after a pretty rough Friday this weekend.

Tim Briody: BOP regularly receives hate mail when we call $200 million movies disappointments, but after the breakout of Dead Man's Chest, the fact that $300 million for At World's End is still somewhat of a question mark, it kind of is. The fall-off very well could've been worse.

David Mumpower: It's good...and bad. At World's End had the fifth largest opening of all-time, but it was only the third largest of the month. Plus, that was with holiday inflation on its first Sunday. So, the second weekend decline is not surprising. I think that everyone would agree that we expected the title to have more than $216.5 million in the bank at this point. As such, it feels like money has been left on the table, so to speak.

Kim Hollis: Right, it was automatically going to have a drastic drop because of the holiday.





David Mumpower: And it was also going to have a stiff drop because its weekdays had been right in line with the terrible performances of Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third. Frankly, $43.2 million is better than I was braced for here.

Reagen Sulewski: I think it's a bit of spin to say "oh, we knew it would fall that much because of the holiday." Sure, films drop two-thirds after Memorial Day Weekend, but that's typically from the four-day totals, not the three-day.

David Mumpower: Well, Spider-Man 3 dropped 62% and Shrek the Third fell 56% in their second weekends, so it's not just the holiday meriting some of the blame. For whatever reason, the tentpole third titles of May all failed to demonstrate legs.

Kim Hollis: And all of the top 12 had pretty similar drops over from the three-day portion of last weekend as well, with Waitress and Disturbia being the only exceptions. Even Bug, which opened small, had an over 60% drop.

Reagen Sulewski: I just feel there's been this climate of lowered expectations where all drops are considered equal. Sure, legs aren't what they used to be, and sure these films are front loaded. I still can't consider it the "business as usual" for a tentpole release to earn a third of its business in the first three days.

David Mumpower: That's an interesting point. We'll go meta with the topic in just a moment, but I do agree that the unusual arc of $100+ million in three days following by less than $200 million afterward is hard to accept as status quo.

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