Comments on: Weekend Box Office: ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ Bound For Largest 2D Opening In Box Office History In Wake Of Tragedy

By: jimmiescoffee

jimmiescoffee — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:58:33 +0000

a 3 hour, 2d film made 180 million with a deadly, horrible shooting as a backdrop? best opening weekend ever. no question.

By: Homer

Homer — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:58:33 +0000

How much repeat value does TDKR have? I haven't seen it, so can't comment but I wonder if as many people who went to see The Avengers multiple times would do the same for TDKR, especially after the tragedy at the weekend. Word of mouth seems especially mixed, and I would suspect the momentum TDK enjoyed week after week after release, will be missing this time round with TDKR. Massive opening sure. Sustainability at the box office? Another question entirely.

By: Shy

Shy — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:58:33 +0000

This was never going to break the Avengers' record. All level-headed estimates before release were projecting 170-190 mil, still below the 207mil record set this summer. I find it annoying how people are trying to hang the lower numbers on the tragedy, when the bottom-line is over-excited fanboys were expecting ridiculous numbers that just wasn't going to materialise. Some were saying this would top 220million! Ridiculous.

By: Harry

Harry — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:58:33 +0000

Good article, gabe.

By: YOLO

YOLO — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:58:33 +0000

I'm confused, the title of this article infers that the film did achieve BO infamy but then a line in the article explicitly states that it doesn't. Someone explain, please?

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:58:33 +0000

There's no real way to quantify the effect of Friday's tragic events, but this was never going to break The Avengers' record, anyone who thought it possible wasn't looking logically at the box office and the market. The Dark Knight had the perfect storm of a year of pitch-perfect marketing, 3 years of building respect from Batman Begins & the also unquantifiable effect of the buzz added from Ledger's performance and death. TDKR was obviously hotly anticipated, but it wasn't the surprise breakthrough the previous one was and had weaker marketing and no curiosity-piquing headlines (sadly it does now) & was always going to slip from it's predecessor in total, though it may have managed to top TDK by a lot more in its opening just because of how much further the midnight movie and frontloaded opening trend has pushed in the past 4 years. Throw in the fact that it's playing in 80% of all movie theaters in North America, but more screens are still contractually bound to competing movies than the leftovers from the spring that The Avengers faced, TDKR has a runtime nearly 30 minutes longer making fewer screenings possible per day, and how much more family friendly The Avengers is & finally, the fact that its average ticket price would be slightly lower because of the availability of the 3D option for the Avengers. Plus, TA was an even bigger 'perfect storm' than The Dark Knight, the culmination of the building of 4 separate franchises into one behemoth of a movie. I was saying all along that if it matched TDK with inflation (~$175m now) it would be a huge opening. It may have gotten close to that without the shooting, but it was never going north of $200m.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:58:33 +0000

Any article that starts out with … "When discussing the box office, we try to emphasize weekly that there are always more significant issues than the amount of money a movie makes" tells me all I need to know. The return is nowhere near as much as they were expecting. Granted the tragic circumstances had something to do with it. I just don't see this movie surpassing Dark Knight for one reason…. no Heath Ledger. Nuff Said.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:58:33 +0000

Why the hell would audiences rather stay away from Total Recall? That makes no sense whatsoever. If they're not gonna stay away from Dark Knight Rises, they're not gonna stay away from anything else either.

God, do you have to sink so low that you even use a tragedy to get a dig in at Total Recall?