Chronic Murmuring

Passion Numbers

They have revised the initial estimates of $212,000,000 by roughly a million, making the total somewhere around $213 million after twelve days. I noticed that The Matrix: Reloaded had, after twelve days, grossed $209 million. The Matrix currently holds the first place position for highest grossing R-rated movie of all time (in nominal dollars) at around $285 million, so I was thinking that it might be interesting to compare The Passion's progress with it. What is interesting is to compare not where each movie was after twelve days (roughly equal), but to compare the second week of each movie with one another.

The second week of The Matrix was strong - Monday it pulled $10 million, Tuesday it pulled $7 million, Wednesday $6 million, Thursday $5 million.

The second week of The Passion was arguably stronger - Monday it pulled $10 million, Tuesday it pulled $9 million, Wednesday $8 million, and Thursday $7 million.

The second weekends of each movie are also worth comparing. The second weekend of The Matrix pulled in approximately $37 million. The second weekend of The Passion pulled in approximately $53 million.

You can't completely compare these two movies, since for a number of reasons they are different movies with different release dates. They therefore shouldn't be expected to trend the same. But, it is still interesting that given the much more difficult release date that The Passion is in (The Matrix was released as a summer blockbuster), the interest in the movie has waned only slightly. The Passion's second weekend was down approximately 30% from the first weekend, whereas The Matrix was down more like 60% from its first weekend. Easter is still waiting at the end of the month, giving me reason to believe that the movie will have one last surge that weekend before it gives up its last breath. It will continue to stick around for many more months, but probably it won't be a juggernaut of Titanic proportions. At least, not until it goes into DVD sales.