Tobar said:
Great Weekend at the Box Office for The Phantom Menace
The Phantom Menace has matched expectations and brought in a very healthy $23 million dollars at the North American box office, taking fourth spot for the weekend.
It was a very bouyant weekend, 30% up on last years matching frame with four movies grossing north of $20 million, a first for February. Impressively The Phantom Menacebrought in enough to become the 29th biggest opening for a February. Not bad for a 13 year old film that was only released on Blu-ray a few short months ago.
Beyond that, the $23 million elevates The Phantom Menace domestic box office total to $454,088,301, taking it above E.T and Shrek 2 into the all-time 5th position, just behind A New Hope. While it only requires another $6 million to pass A New Hope it's unlikely to catch the 3rd place film The Dark Knight which is currently $79 million ahead.
On the worldwide front The Phantom Menace has risen from 18th to 15th positon, passing two Harry Potter entries Half-Blood Prince and Order of the Phoenix. With $947,317,558 worldwide and international figures yet to arrive it's a formality as to whether or not The Phantom Menace joins the billion dollar club. To put our prediction hats on, an admittedly optimistic $200 million worldwide haul would pull the film into the all-time 3rd position, just ahead of Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
So, now we wait for the official announcement of Attack of the Clones 3D for February 2013...
Yikes.