Warner Bros. HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN debuted with a spectacular $93.6M the second best three-day opener ever after SPIDER-MAN -- for the weekend ended June 6, 2004, overtaking the rampaging SHREK 2 for the box office lead. Opening for the first time in the summer season, the third movie in the blockbuster POTTER franchise (with vfx by ILM, Cinesite (Europe), Double Negative, Framestore CFC and The Moving Picture Co.) also did killer business overseas last week, garnering $114M.
Meanwhile, DreamWorks SHREK 2 fell off 47% in its third week, but still grabbed a sensational $37.9M for a second place finish. With $314.5M in its pocket so far, the monster hit passed the $300M threshold in a record 18 days. By contrast, it took FINDING NEMO 51 days to manage that feat. By the way, SHREK 2 now trails the all-time animated hit by only $25M.
The rest of the top 10 shapes up like this: Foxs THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (with vfx by Digital Domain, Hydraulx, ILM, The Orphanage, Custom Film Effects, among others) slipped to third place in its second week with $27.8M and a cume of $128.4M. Buena Vistas RAISING HELEN held the fourth spot with $6.5M and $24M. Warner Bros. TROY (with vfx from Cinesite (Europe), Framestore CFC and The Moving Picture Co.) drew $5.9M for the fifth spot and a total of $119.2M. Paramounts MEAN GIRLS moved up a notch to sixth place with $2.9M and $78.1M. MGMs SOUL PLANE managed $2.7M for the seventh spot and $10.9M. Universals VAN HELSING (with vfx by ILM) slipped to eighth place with $2.4M and $114.6M. Foxs MAN ON FIRE fell to ninth with $1M and a cume of $75.3M. And IDPs SUPER SIZE ME finished 10th with $842,684 and $6.2M to date. Box office information obtained from boxofficemojo.com.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
