'PIRATES' A TREASURE FOR DISNEY.Byline: Greg Hernandez Staff Writer BURBANK - Disney's box-office bounty is set to make history this weekend, when ``Pirates of the Caribbean'' joins ``Finding Nemo'' in the movie industry's exclusive $300 million club. It marks the first time the same studio has released two $300-million grossers in a single season. Disney also becomes the first studio ever to release back-to-back $300 million hits, with ``Nemo'' bowing Memorial Day weekend followed by ``Pirates'' in early July. ``It's a remarkable piece of coincidence and circumstance,'' said Chuck Viane, president of Disney's Buena Vista Distribution
Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. is the motion picture and television feature distribution company owned by The Walt Disney Company. . ``It goes back to the movie, and the audience fell in love with both of them.'' ``Pirates,'' in its 15th week of release, had earned $299,903,856, as of Thursday evening. The film, starring Johnny Depp John Christopher Depp II[1] (born June 9 1963) is an American actor. Biography Early life Depp was born in Owensboro, Kentucky, to John Christopher Depp Sr., a city engineer, and Betty Sue (Wells), a waitress. , Orlando Bloom Orlando Jonathan Blanchard Bloom[1] (born 13 January 1977) is an English actor. He had his break-through role in the early 2000s as the elf-prince Legolas in The Lord of the Rings[2] and blacksmith Will Turner in the Pirates of the Caribbean , Keira Knightley and Geoffrey Rush Geoffrey Roy Rush (born 6 July 1951) is an Academy Award- and Emmy Award-winning Australian actor. He is the first Australian-born person to win an Academy Award for acting. , is currently playing in about 500 theaters. ``($300 million) is rarified rar·i·fied adj. Variant of rarefied. Adj. 1. rarified - having low density; "rare gasses"; "lightheaded from the rarefied mountain air" rarefied, rare air for any movie,'' said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co. ``To have two from the same studio in one year, that's a great feather in Disney's cap.'' With the addition of ``Pirates,'' only 16 films have ever grossed more than $300 million during their domestic runs. A majority of those in the top 16 have been part of classic movie franchises with built-in audiences, including four ``Star Wars'' films, two ``Lord of the Rings'' epics and the first ``Harry Potter'' film. That makes the inclusion of ``Pirates'' and the animated ``Nemo'' all the more remarkable, since neither was expected to perform nearly this well. ``Nemo'' is the year's highest-grossing film, with $337.6 million in ticket sales as of last weekend. ``This is purely a reflection of Disney's great choices in material and their great marketing ability,'' Dergarabedian said. ``Beyond that, it was up to the audience to make these films hits.'' With their family appeal, both ``Pirates'' and ``Nemo'' are expected to be among the biggest sellers on home video when they are released on DVD DVD: see digital versatile disc. DVD in full digital video disc or digital versatile disc Type of optical disc. The DVD represents the second generation of compact-disc (CD) technology. and VHS (Video Home System) A half-inch, analog videocassette recorder (VCR) format introduced by JVC in 1976 to compete with Sony's Betamax, introduced a year earlier. in the coming months. ``To get to $300 million, you pretty much have to have across-the-board appeal,'' Dergarabedian said. ``They had younger audiences, older audiences and everything in between.'' Greg Hernandez, (818) 713-3758 greg.hernandez(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): 3 photos Photo: (1 -- color) Johnny Depp, left, and Orlando Bloom found box-office gold in ``Pirates of the Caribbean This article is about the franchise. For other, more specific uses, see Pirates of the Caribbean (disambiguation). For real pirates, see Piracy in the Caribbean. Pirates of the Caribbean : The Curse of the Black Pearl The Black Pearl, originally HEIC Wicked Wench, is a fictional ship in , , and . The Black Pearl is easily recognised by her distinctive black hull and sails. This turns out to be an advantage in more than one way. .'' Buena Vista Pictures (2) Geoffrey Rush, left, is threatened by Keira Knightley in a scene from ``Pirates of the Caribbean,'' the second Disney movie, after ``Finding Nemo,'' to earn more than $300 million in 2003. (3) Geoffrey Rush and his motley crew helped Disney's ``Pirates of the Caribbean'' become Disney's second blockbuster of 2003. |
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