On Friday (July 20th), Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises was released nationally to hordes of crowds waiting in line to see the flick. The midnight showing of the film brought in a reported $30.2 million dollars at midnight showings, placing it second behind Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part II.
Fans across the world, one side supporting Nolan and Batman, and the other side supporting the Avengers Initiative, have been arguing about which movie is best and which movie will make more money. Today, fans will get an answer to that question.
Normally, we get box office numbers day by day as they are reported, but this weekend that was changed. In Aurora, Colorado at a screening of TDKR at midnight, 24 year old Neuroscience PhD candidate James Holmes, went into a theater and started shooting. He killed at least 12 people and injured another 50. This guy is an absolute psychopath, in one of his first statements to the police he told them, "I am The Joker and I paint my hair red." Clearly he is delusional because he is not the Joker and the Joker's hair is not red. He is simply a fame-seeking crazy who did whatever he could to be on the news. Nothing about what this man did was justified and he will be pursued with the harshest of punishments by the Denver District Attorney.
With people mourning the losses of dozens of their loved ones, studio executives thought it a good idea to hold off on reporting box office numbers out of respect for the fallen. This was a classy move by WB and its affiliates because the opening weekend had fans and executives alike salivating at how much cash they would be pulling in. Waiting, shows that life is surely more important than a movie and how much money it makes.
Well, the weekend has passed, and I have it on good authority from one of my sources at Entertainment Weekly what the box office numbers are. Again, no official announcement has been made, but early projections have The Dark Knight Rises earning an estimated $162 million at the box office on its opening weekend.
That number comes nowhere close to upending Marvel's The Avengers seat at the thrown, but it is enough for the third highest opening weekend of all time.
1. Marvel's The Avengers: $207,438.708
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2: $169,189,427
3. The Dark Knight Rises: $162,000,000
4. The Dark Knight: $158,411,483
I am a bit sad seeing the top four rounded out like that, but still very pleased with the amount of people that went out to pay their respects to Nolan's final Batman film. It didn't even come close to passing Avengers, but for good reason. TDKR is not a children's movie like Avengers, it caters to an older audience with much more violence, and brooding political themes. Nonetheless, TDKR had a very impressive opening weekend and I look forward to seeing how much it continues to make with such positive word of mouth.
The question now becomes quality. Avengers made more money, but is it the better movie? I will have a column on this subject in the coming days, but for now I would like to hear from the fans. Which movie was better? Can you even compare them? One was the beginning to a franchise, the other-an end. Will either of these films get a nomination from the Academy this year? Or can we finally lose all faith in an ancient Academy, that doesn't recognize achievements in film because they are about superheroes, or science fiction, or any number of movies that the Academy ignores?
Please comment below and be respectful. NO TROLLING!
No comments:
Post a Comment