The Phantom Menace earned just 15% of its initial domestic total (not counting the 2012 3D reissue) via its $64m Fri-Sun frame, giving it a 6.73x multiplier. Yes, there were other big hits that summer ( Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Tarzan, The Sixth Sense, etc.), but The Phantom Menace stood high above its relative competition.Īnd while we nerds may have been dissatisfied with the juvenile tone, the emphasis on plotting over character and a lack of action, general audiences were happy to take their friends and family to another Star Wars movie. In its first 23 weekends, it had exactly two frames where it dropped more than 35%. It fell 36% in its third weekend and then didn’t have another drop above 35% until its 17 th weekend of release. Whether general audiences didn’t (comparatively speaking) want to deal with opening weekend crowds, or whether hyperventilating reports of sold-out theaters made everything think they couldn’t a ticket, the film had a remarkable hold in its second weekend, dropping just 20% in its second Fri-Sun weekend. It crossed $200m in just 13 days, a record at the time. And yeah, there was hand-wringing about whether merely scoring the second-biggest opening weekend of all time constituted a disappointment, but much of that talk went the way of the dodo after the film earned another $66m over its second Fri-Mon Memorial Day weekend. While the five-day debut was a record, its Fri-Sun gross was actually below the $74m Fri-Sun opening (of a $92m Fri-Mon Memorial Day bow) for The Lost World: Jurassic Park. To wit, Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace earned $28 million in its debut Wednesday, which led to a $64.82m Fri-Sun and $105m Wed-Sun gross (in just 2,970 theaters). But even absent that advantage, the film was incredibly leggy especially when you consider the film’s reputation as a kind of Hollywood disaster. Second, at the time, theaters playing the anticipated summer blockbuster were required to keep the film in their higher-end auditoriums for longer than normal, which certainly played a role in its summer legs. First, the Liam Neeson/Natalie Portman/Ewan McGregor/Jake Lloyd sci-fi prequel opened on a Wednesday (with a then-record $28 million single-day gross), which slightly skews the multiplier in a positive direction. It played all summer long, becoming one of the leggiest blockbusters of the modern era. More importantly, at least to the conventional wisdom that folks hated the movie as much as the hardcore fan base did, that movie didn’t just snag a huge total box office sum 18.5 years ago. It earned $431 million in domestic release (around $754m adjusted for inflation) and $924m worldwide (on a $115m budget) sans any kind of IMAX or 3D upcharges, which was the third-biggest domestic grosser (behind Titanic's $600m gross in 1997/1998 and Star Wars lifetime total of $460m) and the second-biggest global grosser (behind Titanic's $1.8 billion gross) ever at the time.Īs George Lucas said when promoting Attack of the Clones (paraphrasing): “I made More American Graffiti, I know what happens when people don’t like a sequel, no one goes.” But audiences did go and see The Phantom Menace in theaters that summer. But it also made an unholy amount of money in the summer of 1999. It destroyed our childhood, wrecked Star Wars, etc., etc. Yes, I know, we all allegedly hate The Phantom Menace. And, at least over the last 15 years, few mega openers, or even movies that opened above $30 million, have been as leggy as Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace. I’ve written quite a bit about the legs for major openers, specifically in terms of Wonder Woman and the big openers that legged it out well past the debut weekend. But on this odd Star Wars-themed day, where fans celebrate where the real money from the movie is made, I wanted to take a moment to note something.
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