Pirates plunders box-office record

Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest shattered US box office records this weekend, raking in more than three times as much as the original flick, The Curse Of The Black Pearl.

Opening in 4,133 cinemas in North America, the new Pirates adventure took an astounding $132 million – an average of $31,994 per cinema – shoving aside a four-year record held by Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man which hoovered up an impressive $114 million. Dead Man’s Chest also surpassed Star Wars: Episode III Revenge Of The Sith’s opening day record of $50 million, raking in $55 million.

Factor in the packed theatres in the UK and the international figures will pump up the Pirates booty to $178.6 million – which’ll go some way towards easing the strain of its $225 million budget.

“When people in the industry predicted these high numbers, I thought they were just trying to be mean,” Pirates producer Jerry Bruckheimer said. “No matter how good we did, if we did $100 million, we'd be failures. I didn't think we'd get near these numbers.”

The record-breaking display from Pirates caused other big summer flicks to stutter. Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns dropped by 58 percent, nabbing a second weekend haul of $21.9 million and bringing its total to $141.7 million in 12 days.

The remainder of the top five is made up by fashion rib-tickler The Devil Wears Prada, Adam Sandler comedy Click and Pixar’s Cars.

US TOP 5
1. Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest $132 million
2. Superman Returns $21.9 million
3. The Devil Wears Prada $15.6 million
4. Click $12 million
5. Cars $10.3 million