Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest Swashbuckles to Fabulous Riches

Continuing its rampage across the movie box offices of the world, Walt Disney Pictures' Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest entered sacred waters over the weekend, becoming only the third film in history to pass the $1 billion mark in global ticket sales.

With Italy — which opens Wednesday — the lone remaining major market left to it, Dead Man's Chest is unlikely to surpass the number two film, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ('03) at $1.1 billion, and certainly won't reach Titanic's majestic $1.8 billion, but taking home the bronze, especially in this era of seismic challenges to the entire theatrical film system, is an astonishing achievement.

Among the films other achievements: highest opening day gross ($55.8 million) in U.S. box office history, highest three-day opening ($135.6 million), tied as fastest film to reach $200 million (8 days), fastest film to pass $300 million (16 days). With a prodigious take of $415 million in the U.S. and $588 million internationally, Pirates is the top-grossing film of 2006, the biggest Disney film ever, and the sixth biggest movie all-time in both the domestic and international markets.

Pirates also led a resurgent summer (Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day) domestic box office take of $3.85 billion, up 6% over the same period last year. "I truly believe the axiom that lines beget lines. When you're on a roll, everything positive happens to you," said Chuck Viane, head of distribution at Disney, which in addition to Pirates, had a blockbuster with the animated comedy Cars.

The entertainment public is a finicky and skittish beast: there is an unquestionable herd mentality that takes over when a hit becomes a smash becomes a phenomenon — once a "tipping point" is reached and success itself becomes the story, in other words — and every manner of excess is forgiven in a mass benediction of good will. But maneuvering a given entertainment, a movie for example, into that position of anointment is vastly more a matter of fortuitous zeitgeist, timing, and ill-defined psychosocial tumblers falling into place seemingly of their own accord, than it is a matter of the specific acumen and skill of the marketers, or even the artistic quality of the entertainment.

Though the truth is otherwise, blockbuster success always seems inevitable after the fact. In fact, the public spends much of its time being resentful of the structures of manipulation set up to grease the skids to hitsville, and when the hit comes, the insightful marketer knows that the best he can do is lead the cheer, hold on loosely, and enjoy the ride.

Article Author: Eric Olsen

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