Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith grossed $50,013,859 from showings at 3,661 theaters and more than 9,000 screens around the country on Thursday, including special midnight shows, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.
That beat the one-day record set in May 2004 by Shrek 2, which sold $44.8 million on a single Saturday — its fourth day in theaters.
The George Lucas film, which features the transformation of Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker into the evil Darth Vader, also beat the opening day record held by Spider-Man 2, which grossed $40.4 million when it opened on a Wednesday last June.
“Fifty million is a good opening weekend, let alone a single day,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations. “This is the box office equivalent of a 100-year flood.”
USA Today also had another article - that I can’t find now - that the midnight showings alone raked in $16 million of this $50. That’s pretty damn incredible.
“When you absolutely, positively, have to kill every fucker in the room, purple bladed lightsabers are where it’s at.”
Fool is prophetic.
Somehow, I ended up adopting the purple one. It hung from my belt loop for most of the evening. I am sure someone is in possession of a picture of that tragedy.
Why … yes, yes I am.
(I was also surprised Fool didn’t totally kick my ass at lightsaber dueling).
I’d say things were a rousing success. I met Tuesdayscoming at Atomic Books, and we drove here. We were the first ones to arrive, but only by a matter of a few minutes, as these guys showed up maybe five minutes after our arrival. He and she showed up within moments of each other, and were followed in some order by him, her, them, and her. I briefly met the guy behind Baltiblogs - Nathan? - and saw Jeff Price & his wife at a nearby table. He showed up towards the end of things as we had all migrated to tables and were trying to eat before the show.
It was all quite a great time - turns out Viddy This! actually lives closer to me than I thought. I’d judged from some photos he posted on his blog that he lived across York Road, but he’s probably walking distance from my apartment - this is good, because it means I can steal his Jeep without having to leave my car. He’s also got a very attractive wife, and somehow I wound up hugging her twice in the confusing jumble of goodbyes as the “on to the movie” crowd seperated from the “Star Wars sucks” crowd.
The Happy Hour aspect of the gathering was poorly planned - too little time was allotted to meet and greet bloggers — especially since it was this dude’s first happy hour! — and while it was an intimate group, I think it was me and JWER who were looking at Jeff Price’s table (there was someone else there …) and trying to figure out if they were supposed to be with us or not.
I’d parked my car on Belvedere Avenue, and the line for the 7:30 showing stretched down York, then up Belvedere, damn near to my car. We all got into the theater and took seats in the very back row on the far right. Like has been observed: there’s no such thing as a bad seat in The Senator.
Whatever I ate did not agree with me, so right before the movie began, I was able to get myself into an empty stall in the bathroom and … well, it was bad.
Epiphany lost his cell phone. After the movie we were all on the floor looking for it, there was an usher helping us … and then Tuesdayscoming found it hiding in plain view.
There was a “War of the Worlds” trailer attached to the film. There was also a five-minute film before the showing documenting Star Wars fans waiting to buy tickets to Episode I waaaay back in 1999. Highlight: “I SLEEP WITH GOATS!”
(When I saw the movie yesterday AM at Regal, there was a “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” trailer.)
It was good fun. If you came, excellent! If you didn’t, why?
