*SPOILERS* The Dark Knight *SPOILERS*

[zero]

The web slinger was in theatres from May 3rd, 2002 to August 18th. Admittedly, ticket prices are way higher than they were at the time, but still ...

Movie ticket prices have not jumped that much in six years, IMAX tickets are a lot pricier, but it hasn't been THAT big of a jump.

And comparatively, The Dark Knight is only about $ 2.7 million shy of where Titanic was in it's 4th weekend at the box office.

That's not even a comparison though. Titanic's total gross after four weeks wasn't even 25% of what The Dark Knight has made. Titanic made a ton of money by getting about $30 million a week for five months, whereas Dark Knight has made the bulk of its money in the first couple weeks. The projections I've seen have Dark Knight closing out anywhere between $500m and 550m, so either way it's probably going to be only the second movie in history to ever cross $500 million and it's pretty much a guarantee that it will be the number two highest grossing film of all-time by the end of the week.

And there's no way it stays at #1 this weekend, not with Tropic Thunder, Star Wars and Mirrors. College kids and those in their mid-twenties go to see Tropic Thunder, families will go to see Star Wars and the teens/college kids not seeing Tropic Thunder will go see Mirrors. I suspect TDK will stay in the top five, possibly even top three, but it won't be #1.

That said, I did see Dark Knight again today at the noon IMAX showing and there were still a substantial amount of people in there, which was pretty surprising for the first showing on a Monday. And the movie is even better the second time around, so if you haven't watched it yet, I don't know what the hell is wrong with you. If you haven't seen it twice, go!

[Godfatha]

You also have to account for inflation. This is a relevant snippet from a Globe and Mail article:

However, the numbers reflect today's higher admission prices, and The Dark Knight likely will not approach Star Wars or Titanic in terms of actual number of tickets sold. Taking inflation into account, The Dark Knight would need to pull in about $900-million to match the number of tickets sold for Titanic and about $1.2-billion to equal Star Wars.

This is if you want to have a different measuring stick to compare the films (tickets sold as opposed to dollars made).

EDIT: It's scary to think that twice as many people saw Titanic, and three times as many saw Star Wars.

Edited August 11, 2008 by Godfatha

[zero]

I don't think accounting inflation is always fair either though, people forget that movies used to stay in the theater for years. Before the days of home video, the only way you could watch a movie would be at the theater, which is why Gone With the Wind would far surpass anything ever in terms of tickets sold because it was in theaters on and off for several years.

So if we adjust for inflation for older movies, I think we also have to take DVD sales into account for newer ones. Also, cinema business isn't what it used to be thanks to home theaters and depending on if you believe the MPAA, piracy.

Edited August 11, 2008 by Zero

[Benji]

And there's no way it stays at #1 this weekend, not with Tropic Thunder, Star Wars and Mirrors. College kids and those in their mid-twenties go to see Tropic Thunder, families will go to see Star Wars and the teens/college kids not seeing Tropic Thunder will go see Mirrors. I suspect TDK will stay in the top five, possibly even top three, but it won't be #1.

Wait, what, am I majorly missing something here? How in the hell did I not know there's a new Star Wars coming to the cinema?

[alldaws1]

And there's no way it stays at #1 this weekend, not with Tropic Thunder, Star Wars and Mirrors. College kids and those in their mid-twenties go to see Tropic Thunder, families will go to see Star Wars and the teens/college kids not seeing Tropic Thunder will go see Mirrors. I suspect TDK will stay in the top five, possibly even top three, but it won't be #1.

Wait, what, am I majorly missing something here? How in the hell did I not know there's a new Star Wars coming to the cinema?

It's the new animated Star Wars thing.

[Benji]

And there's no way it stays at #1 this weekend, not with Tropic Thunder, Star Wars and Mirrors. College kids and those in their mid-twenties go to see Tropic Thunder, families will go to see Star Wars and the teens/college kids not seeing Tropic Thunder will go see Mirrors. I suspect TDK will stay in the top five, possibly even top three, but it won't be #1.

Wait, what, am I majorly missing something here? How in the hell did I not know there's a new Star Wars coming to the cinema?

It's the new animated Star Wars thing.

Ohhh, I thought that was going to be DVD-only? I'm still behind and either way I don't really care for the animated Star Wars stuff anyway.

[Scott McFly]

Yeah, I apprecate that The Dark Knight is creeping up on and will probably surpass Star Wars, but then you have to take inflation into account since Star Wars was released 30 years ago. Inflation adjusted, TDK is currently 49th of all time domestically, still a bit behind Spider-Man. And as mentioned, light years behind the likes of Gone With The Wind and Titanic.

But then as Zero mentions, movies are being released onto DVD (or home video) far, far quicker than they were before and obviously there was no such thing in GWTW's era. So a direct, fair comparison is never going to be possible for movies so far apart with completely different markets and distribution methods.

With that being said, I would say it's fair to compare movies in the modern DVD-era with inflation adjusted. In which case, TDK's next target is Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest from 2006, which is $16m ahead in terms of US box office. And worldwide (impossible to account for inflation), it's $3m behind Transformers and $70m behind the new Indiana Jones.

Also, something I've never understood - they only ever report the Top 10 over a given weekend, almost completely ignoring anything taken during the week. I believe the weekly figures will run Friday - Thursday and I wouldn't be surprised to see Pineapple Express on top when those figures come out.

But as long as it's still beating Mamma Mia in the UK, that's fine with me.

EDIT: Not to mention $138m of Star Wars' gross was from the 1997 re-release.

Edited August 12, 2008 by Scott McFly

[Gabriel]

You can't adjust anything for any reason, because it skews the numbers too greatly and there are far too many variables.

The only numbers that matter are how much money the movie has made at the cinema. Doesn't matter if it ran for a decade sixty years ago, or if it's running for two months in the present with greater cost to the average movie-goer.

I am extremely proud that Nolan, Bale and company took what was a joke of a film franchise and managed to turn in one of the highest grossing films of all time.

[Benji]

I am extremely proud that Nolan, Bale and company took what was a joke of a film franchise and managed to turn in one of the highest grossing films of all time.

I know it's personal opinion, but I really don't care, I hate when Batman is called a bad (or good, for that matter) film franchise, what it is is a fucking awesome comic franchise that finally got the translation it has long deserved and brought some massive credibility to a film genre that is still finding its feet in many ways. Not a shot at you in any way Gabe, I just thought it needed to be said

[livid]

But it in itself became a movie franchise when they started to make the comics into movies...

For instance, you wouldn't call The Bourne Series a book franchise would you?

[Benji]

But it in itself became a movie franchise when they started to make the comics into movies...

For instance, you wouldn't call The Bourne Series a book franchise would you?

I guess not, but then I didn't know about the books until well after the film, if I had, I know that it should be considered different things, but I tend to consider something a franchise of what I originally knew it as, Harry Potter is a book franchise to me despite films, Final Fantasy is a video game franchise despite films, books and other stuff, it's my perspective that is skewed. Besides the fact if you're going for semantics then this is a totally new film franchise to the previous Batman films, but that's (and the rest of this) is just me being anal

[Gabriel]

I like to keep everything separate. The Batman books are hit or miss for me, but have some of the most iconic and awesome story arcs in comics in general over the years.

The original Batman film franchise, for me, started out alright (still not great) and gradually went downhill to the point where Batman & Robin became a children's film out of sheer ridiculousness.

The new Batman film franchise has taken the core story, adapted it for today's world, kept it as dark and gritty as the Gotham City in the comics, but made it real instead of placing Gotham in Halloweentown. This new franchise is not aimed at children. It's taking aim at everyone, but it's also unrelenting and doesn't pull the punches. It's not for everyone, and that's the appeal. It's not at all like watching a comic book movie... it's like sitting down to watch an action-adventure... or a crime film... or drama.

For the crew on the new franchise to step in after the catastrophe that was B&R, and bring Batman back to prominence, show that it's not a joke, and become one of the highest grossing films is quite an accomplishment.

[zero]

I guess not, but then I didn't know about the books until well after the film, if I had, I know that it should be considered different things, but I tend to consider something a franchise of what I originally knew it as, Harry Potter is a book franchise to me despite films, Final Fantasy is a video game franchise despite films, books and other stuff, it's my perspective that is skewed. Besides the fact if you're going for semantics then this is a totally new film franchise to the previous Batman films, but that's (and the rest of this) is just me being anal

It all depends on the source material. Final Fantasy is always going to be a video game franchise because no one gives a shit about FF books, films, animes, etc. In Japan maybe, but their audience in the US could barely be considered "niche" outside of the video games.

Harry Potter is a book franchise because the movies are direct adaptations of each book. Batman is different because none of the movies directly adapt a single book or series of books. Batman Begins is probably the closest adaptation of an actual comic (Year One), and even that's pretty loose. The character itself is iconic, but the film franchise was a wreck, which is why they had to start all over because no one could have possibly fixed it after that last movie.

[Scott McFly]

You can't adjust anything for any reason, because it skews the numbers too greatly and there are far too many variables.

The only numbers that matter are how much money the movie has made at the cinema. Doesn't matter if it ran for a decade sixty years ago, or if it's running for two months in the present with greater cost to the average movie-goer.

All that adjusted list is doing is looking at the number of people who went to see GWTW and comparing it to the number of people who are seeing Dark Knight and displaying the results in today's money. I guess it could be argued that the number of tickets sold to a film is a better indicator of how well a movie is doing in comparison to another, regardless of how long ago it was. But you're right, the number of variables is huge and there's no way to say for certain that film x from the 40's was more successful than film y from the 2000's. So hence I think comparing films from the DVD era (say 2000 onwards) is probably the closest thing to being fair, even if you have to adjust Spider-Man slightly for average ticket price in 2002 compared to 2008 for TDK.

Anway, the UK Top 10 from this past weekend is in and The Mummy has knocked Dark Knight off number 1 by about £350,000 (£4.43m to £4.09m). Total gross for TDK is £34.6m compared to Mamma Mia's £39.1m. Although for the week as a whole TDK made about another £9m compared to £7m for Mamma Mia.

EDIT: Monday's take for the US - $3.8m for Pineapple Express, $3.7m for TDK, $1.9m for The Mummy. TDK now $15m behind Star Wars unadjusted, $400,000 behind Tim Burton's Batman adjusted.

If anyone's wondering, I'm getting these from Box Office Mojo and IMDB.

Edited August 12, 2008 by Scott McFly

[Benji]

All this talk of money, all we need to know is one thing. It was awesome and sales will never be able to be totally accountable so who really gives a toss except studio execs?

End of discussion.

[Lord Nibbler]

This has probably been posted, but I'm not going to check through 48 pages:

Michael Bay's Batman script

As good as Nolan's was, I think Michael Bay's script had a lot going for it. He made the Rachel Dawes character a lot more appealing, for one.

Edited August 14, 2008 by Lord Nibbler

[MalaCloudy Black]

Michael Bay's The Dark Knight, by Michael Bay! Awesome.

[Toe]

"We hack the internet"

[MalaCloudy Black]

"Which internet?"

"All of them."

and

"The hugest fucking missiles you will ever see!"

[thuganomic]

Wow, honestly? Sounds terrible. Sounds exactly like the cheesy shit that made Batman & Robin unbearable.