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"Sith" Hits $200 Million
It's no Jedi mind trick.
Star Wars: Episode III--Revenge of the Sith continues its attack on the box office, hitting the $200 million mark in North America on Thursday night.
In doing so on its eighth day in release, the prequel ties last year's Spider-Man 2 as the fastest to reach that milestone. And its earning potential only looks up from there as Sith heads into the lucrative three-day Memorial Day weekend.
For box-office analysts, smashing the $200 million mark doesn't come as much of a surprise for a film that grossed a Jabba-sized $50 million in its first day in theaters on May 19.
"This is a phenomenal box-office achievement," Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office tracking film Exhibitor Relations, tells E! Online. "The $50 million-dollar day was sort of a foregone conclusion it would be a sprinter to $200 million. And it's already the top-grossing film released this year."
After a record $158.4 million haul last weekend, Sith rang up $182.7 million by Tuesday to surpass yet another benchmark--Spider-Man 2's record for the biggest six-day gross. Wednesday's engagements added another $8.5 million, and with $9.1 million on Thursday, Sith has grossed $200.4 million going into the weekend, per BoxOfficeMojo.com. The prequel, which reportedly cost more than $110 million to produce, has also grossed nearly $160 million in foreign territories.
But the real question is whether Revenge of the Sith will be powerful enough to pull Hollywood out of its recent doldrums. So far, the answer appears to be yes.
"This is a movie that the industry needs right now and for it to make this much money this fast tells us there is an audience out there that wants to go to the movies," says Degarabedian. "But again, a Star Wars like this doesn't come along every day. And given it's the last Star Wars movie, it's not a surprise at all that it has reached this milestone so quickly."
Sith is on track to surpass Spider-Man 2's total domestic gross of $373 million and possibly hit the rarefied $400 million mark, a record achieved by only six other films, including the original 1977 Star Wars, aka Episode IV: A New Hope ($461 million), and 1999's Episode I--The Phantom Menace ($431 million). (Titanic's all-time record of $601 million is in its own solar system, far, far away.)
Those stats are all the more impressive considering it's not officially summer yet.
"Spidey 2 came out in July when all the kids were out of school, which helps the midweek grosses, and it also had the July 4 holiday to give it a boost, whereas Sith had just a regular May day," says Gitesh Pandya, editor of BoxOfficeGuru.com. "Also Spidey 2 had a normal second weekend that was not a holiday, whereas [Sith] has the Memorial Day weekend, which will help boost it even more."
Pandya adds that Sith's record-setting pace has been sparked by the film's mostly rave reviews, especially in light of its two near-universally panned predecessors.
"It's a matter of strong word of mouth and repeat business, which keeps the movie afloat."
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