Posted on 07/20/2008 3:15:21 PM PDT by Borges
Holy blockbuster, Batman! The Dark Knight grossed a behemoth $155.3 million from Friday through Sunday, according to early estimates, to score the biggest three-day opening in box-office history, while leading the way on a weekend for the record books.
The second Batman movie from star Christian Bale and director Christopher Nolan finished at No. 1 (as anticipated, duh!), and, assuming the early estimates hold, it set new standards in just about every category imaginable. It scored the biggest three-day opening weekend of all time (beating Spider-Man 3's $151.1 mil bow). It achieved the best opening day and single day in history ($66.4 mil, shattering Spider-Man 3's mark of $59.8 mil). It brought in the most money from Friday midnight shows of any release ever ($18.5 mil, passing Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith's $16.9 mil). It banked a record $6.2 mil from 94 IMAX venues over the weekend (Spider-Man 3 had the old record, $4.7 mil). And it did it all with the biggest theater count, 4,366 locations, of all time.
Oh, but for Bale, Nolan, costars Maggie Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger, Warner Bros., DC Comics, and everybody else involved (all of whom scored career-best bows, naturally), things get even better. The Dark Knight is already more than three-quarters of the way to passing the $205.3 mil that 2005's Batman Begins earned during its entire domestic run. This followup film also drew raves from ticket buyers, scoring a solid A CinemaScore review from a crowd that skewed slightly male and older. And if you add that to the critical coos that The Dark Knight had already been earning, as well as the fact that it's really the last mega-blockbuster movie to hit the multiplex this summer, the film should continue its remarkable run for weeks to come.
As it happened, The Dark Knight wasn't the only record breaker at the box office this weekend. By coming in at No. 2 with $27.6 mil, Mamma Mia! set a new mark for the biggest premiere ever for a movie musical, if that early estimate holds (Hairspray banked $27.5 mil on its first weekend a year ago). That total also passes the $27.5 mil that star Meryl Streep's The Devil Wears Prada earned in its debut two summers back, and it can be credited to the same crowd: older women. Yep, a whopping three-quarters of the film's audience was ladies, and 64 percent was over the age of 30. But they loved Mamma Mia!, and along with the few fellas who also came to see Pierce Brosnan in the Broadway adaptation, they gave it a nice A- CinemaScore grade.
Mamma Mia! and The Dark Knight accounted for nearly 75 percent of all box-office revenue this weekend, so there was little money to go around for the rest of the movies in release. Hancock (No. 3) fell 56 percent to bank $14 mil. Journey to the Center of the Earth (No. 4) dropped an expected 43 percent to earn $11.9 mil. Hellboy II: The Golden Army fell a colossal 71 percent to earn just $10 mil, after bowing at No. 1 last time around. (That ranks among the 40 worst second-weekend declines in history, ouch!) And newcomer Space Chimps (No. 7) failed to take off, with a mere $7.4 mil.
The success stories continued in America's art houses where the Sundance thriller Transsiberian averaged a sweet $17,608 in two venues.
Overall, the cumulative box office set yet another record: The weekend's $253 mil total domestic gross was the biggest three-day sum in history (smashing the mark of $218 mil, from the first frame of July 2006, when Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest led the way). Needless to say, the box office was up an eye-popping 64 percent from a year ago. And, needless to say, with Batman protecting them even more than before, everyone in Hollywood will sleep well tonight.
I hated it!
She should have gone into hiding after “Brokeback Mountain”.
>> I enjoyed “Superman 2” but it doesn’t hold a candle to “Batman Begins” or “The Dark Knight” or “X-Men” or “X-men 2” or “Spiderman” or “Spiderman 2” or “Superman Returns” or “Blade” or “Sin City.”
I’d put Superman I and II a little higher than you would. Liked it better than X-Men. Better than Sin City or Blade. Possibly better than Superman Returns, Spiderman III, and XMen 2 (though its a close call). Certainly worse than Batman Begins, Spiderman, Spiderman II, and the Dark Knight (which is likely the best of the group). I think I’d rank as follows ...
Top Tier...
Dark Knight
Spiderman II
Batman Begins
Spiderman
Superman II: Donner Cut
Superman Returns
X-Men 2
Middle Tier
Spiderman III
Superman: The Movie
X-Men
Batman (Keaton/Nicholson)
X-Men III
Iron Man
Superman II (Lester Cut)
The Incredible Hulk (Ed Norton, 2008)
Bottom Tier
Fantastic Four
Batman Returns (Keaton/Devito/Pfeiffer)
Fantastic Four II (Silver Surfer)
Superman III
Sin City
Daredevil
The Punisher
Blade
Hellboy
Batman Forever (Kilmer/Carey/Jones)
Horrible
Batman (Adam West)
Hulk (Ang Lee)
Batman & Robin (Clooney)
Catwoman (Halle Berry)
Superman IV
H
>> I hated it!
Really? Why? My wife’s not really into this stuff, and she loved it. I have not heard from anyone that hated it.
H
S2 was quite serious in theme. The love story was much more moving than most films about ‘regular’ people.
>> S2 was quite serious in theme. The love story was much more moving than most films about ‘regular’ people.
Actually, I didn’t buy the love story that much partially because I didn’t care for Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane. First, she was obnoxious and irritating — a world-class pain-in-the-ass to Clark Kent. Also, she just was not pretty enough. There is simply no reason a guy that could have his pick of any woman on the planet would fall for an obnoxious woman like Kidder’s Lois Lane (I know, she wasn’t obnoxious to .
Personally, I prefer Erica Durance’s Lois Lane from Smallville. She’s spunky and bull-headed, but she’s got a brother-sister type relationship with Clark (adversarial, but genuinely caring). She’s not obnoxious to Clark, but infatuated with Superman like Kidder. She’s also a knockout to the extent that you can actually see Superman falling for her.
Kate Bosworth was OK, but not spunky enough.
H
I thought that the movie was perhaps, one of the most political movies I have seen in years.
Once you get past the storytelling itself, you end up with the following set of archetypes.
Batman is Order.
The Joker is Chaos.
Two Face is Chance.
I think the movie is making a huge political statement.
Evil must be confronted. Soldiers must fight it.
Chaos is at our door, it cannot be appeased or negotiated with, it needs to be smashed.
Chance is always with you. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
And finally, and most importantly, a real hero never needs to take credit for all that goes well, and accepts the blame for things he didn’t even do in order for Order to persevere.
I could go on and on about the allegories to the War we now fight, from concerns about electronic spying, rules of engagement, a nay-saying press, rendition of prisoners and on and on.
This movie was a huge risk for the Director. Once you peel away the crashes and explosions, it is a parable of the need to stand strong in the face of evil and of self sacrifice in the name of a greater good.
I’m stuned this ever got made in Hollyweird.
Cheers,
knewshound
www.knewshound.blogspot.com
Most Big studio adventuire films tend to be fairly clear cut about good and evil.
You are soooo right!
I’m just waiting for the rats to whine it puts them in a bad light, or the Muslims.
The fact the the enemy was the Joker, and not some stereotype of Hollywood villains, will make it very hard for the usual suspects to complain.
I cannot recommend this movie enough.
Cheers,
knewshound
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