Revenge of the Sith takes in $50 Million on opening day!
I just posted this on my other blog:
From The Hollywood Reporter, Revenge of the Sith shattered both the Opening Day record of $40.4 Million held by Spider-Man 2 and the overall 1-day total held by Shrek 2 at $44.8 Million.
Hollywood seems to be shocked by these numbers, considering how far above The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones they are. I don't understand how they could be - they can't be that clueless, can they?
Even if the Star Wars "purist" missed TPM and AotC because of the buzz, they still would have seen RotS. I don't think there is a single Star Wars fan - or even just those that may not be fans, but still fondly remember sitting through twenty showings of Star Wars - out there that would miss this particular film. As I noted in my review of RotS, this film records the story we thought 20 years ago that we'd never see in our lifetimes - Anakin becoming Darth Vader. This is THE lynchpin of the entire series that we only heard hints and whispers about from Lucas when the original trilogy came out. This is the story that I think every one of us imagined in our heads, that fateful battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan where Anakin went from a human being to the feared dark force of nature that is Darth Vader.
These "industry insiders" don't think RotS will take the weekend record - the Friday to Sunday record. I'm not so pessimistic - I know I'm going to try to see it again at least once this weekend, and I have a feeling that many others will as well.