Friday, 07/18/2008 - 1:14 am
by Stefan Halley
101 views, 5 comments
Dark Knight #1
Look for the Bats to break records.
You may have heard of a little movie called The Dark Knight. It opens today in the US and has already opened in a number of markets around the world. According to Fandango, they have already sold out nearly 1,000 showtimes in advance of opening day. I wouldn’t be surprised if The Dark Knight beats the opening box office record set by Spider-Man 3 of $151 million. Opening in a record 4,366 theatres, The Dark Knight edges out the previous record holder Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End by 4 theatres and that movie opened with $115 million.
Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 94% approval rating which is almost unheard of for a mainstream box office movie. With huge amounts of hype or as Scott Kurtz at PVPonline.com says, “Give me a chance to at least enjoy the film in a proper context before we start handing out academy awards and working on the sequel”, the film should shatter any previous records and will easily take over Iron Man as the #1 movie of the year. It’s 1989 all over again when Tim Burton’s Batmania swept the world.
Any bets on how big the opening of The Dark Knight will be?
I’m thinking that it’s going to have possibly the biggest opening ever. And I think it’ll edge out Iron Man as #1, but I don’t think it’ll be as huge as it might otherwise be. This is, from what I’ve heard, an almost relentlessly dark film, and while it may be a HUGE critical success so far, and I don’t think it’ll get the repeat viewings that a lot of people think it’ll get because of how dark it is.
I think it will definitely be worth seeing again. But the investment of not only money but time, in regards to repeat viewing, is an issue. It’s not really a movie you catch after work on a non-Friday.
After you’ve seen the film, you’ll understand why neither time, money, nor darkness will hinder repeat viewings. I expect it to get very close to or surpass the $160M mark. I’m seeing it for the third time tomorrow.
Oh, I saw it, and it was breath-taking. Absolutely amazing. I plan on seeing it at least a few more times, but I don’t know if the average summer moviegoer is going to. Although, even if this film was dependent solely on its rabid fanbase, I still think it might end up being one of the biggest films ever. It’s already broken the midnight showing records. I’m really looking forward to seeing the Sunday numbers.
BATMAN SMASH!! Whoops, wrong superhero reference. But, yep. It had the biggest opening of all time, thankfully and deservedly beating out SPIDER-MAN 3. However, a report says that, due to adjusted dollars from last year, more actual people may have seen SPIDEY 3. I don’t care. As long as it made more money and people are already calling the best superhero film ever, which it just may be.