Disney has plenty to yo-ho-ho about after its "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" set a weekend box office record, reports the Associated Press. "Pirates" raked in $132 million over the three
days. That sails past the previous all-time best debut, "Spider-Man," which took in $114.8 million in its first weekend in 2002. "Dead Man's Chest" also did nearly three times the business of its
predecessor, "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," which took in $46.6 million over opening weekend in 2003. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer says he had expected "Dead Man's Chest" to
open closer to the $77 million of last spring's "The Da Vinci Code." When "people in the industry predicted these high numbers, I thought they were just trying to be mean. So no matter how good we
did, if we did $100 million, we'd be failures," he says. "I didn't think we'd get near these numbers." On Friday alone, the movie took in $55.5 million, surpassing by more than 10% the previous
one-day title holder: "Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith." For Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations, "this goes a long way of dispelling the notion that
people don't want to go to movies anymore. People aren't waiting for the DVD on this one. They are going out to see it."
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