Fearless Forecast: Will 'The Dark Knight' Make History?

Any takers on the $200 million opening weekend figure for The Dark Knight being thrown out there by excited fanboys? After all, they're basing their bold predictions - number one for over a month, it'll beat Titanic - on absolutely nothing. They want The Dark Knight to blow away the current record for a debut, but they can't tell you how it's conceivable. The reason they can't is that a $200 million weekend isn't that conceivable. Something like one in 20 Americans would have to see this movie this weekend for that to happen. Will fifteen to twenty million people pay to see The Dark Knight? I have no doubt of that. But in three days? That's like all of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston seeing the same movie in the same weekend. So, let's pump the brakes on the $200 million talk. There's a reason only one film has ever broken $150 million (Spider-Man 3): It's really damn hard to do. I wouldn't say The Dark Knight has no chance for a date with history - it has probably even odds in my book - but anything above say, $165 million, is hard to take seriously. Earlier this week, we provided you plenty of reasons why The Dark Knight might not break the record. Competition's the main thing. Spider-Man 3 had none, and The Dark Knight has plenty. When Spidey hit theaters, no other movie that weekend made over $5.8 million. Only 11 other movies made over $1 million. The rest of the top ten from May 4 - May 6, 2007 combined for $27 million and change. This weekend, we could see at least four other movies earn ten million, and one of those might do $25 million by itself.Keep in mind, with all the Dark Knight hype, there is going to be a backlash. It's not like everyone in America saw the first one of these movies, and even if there are people really curious to see this one, there will be a fair percentage of them hearing about sold out showings and all the rest. They won't want to stand in line for two hours for a movie they won't get to see. They'll check it out next weekend. Yeah, but what about all the advance ticket sales? Isn't The Dark Knight shattering records there? Yep, but unless theater owners are putting in new rows of seats for every row that sells out ahead of time, that doesn't impact total business one iota. There are only so many tickets, and once they sell, they sell. It really doesn't matter when they sell. Clearly, though, there are people who have been waiting for this a while and would pay twice as much to see it.  People like these brave souls who attended last night's screening in Tempe, Arizona. If you offered them tickets for $20, they'd pay it in a heartbeat, and then you could think about $200 million. So taking all of those things into account, how much will The Dark Knight make? I think it will be close to the Spider-Man number, but just a little lower. Because this film has so much potential to make money, it could be as high as $155 million. Then again, it could be as low as $135 million, if people want to avoid the headache that this weekend is sure to be. I'll split the difference. For the past couple of days I've been in the $142 - $146 million range. I'll go on the high side of that. Oh, and by the way, Mamma Mia! will do terrific business, as well. It's not the same audience, obviously, but any competition at all hurts The Dark Knight's chances to break a record, and this is pretty strong competition, actually. The Top Five: 1 - The Dark Knight ($146 million) 2 - Mamma Mia! ($26 million) 3 - Hancock ($14 million) 4 - Hellboy II: The Golden Army ($11 million) 5 - Journey to the Center of the Earth ($9.5 million) Incidentally, I do believe The Dark Knight will break one important box office record. I think it will get to $300 million faster than any movie in history; I put that number at a lucky thirteen days.

Comments

[Insidious]

Jesus, try proofreading. These records are bullshit anyway being that they're in nominal dollars and not tied to inflation.

[Get The Big Picture]

They're not tied to inflation from 14 months ago? Or are you saying that all contemporary records don't compare to, say, Gone With the Wind? You're wrong about that, too, if you're accounting for opening weekend ticket sales, but over the long haul there is definitely a case you could make. Or course, Gone With the Wind was in theaters for over a year and there was no home video, so you had no other choice but to pay to see it in a theater.

[Henry Oak]

I haven't seen it yet but does it really have that broad appeal? I mean it is a film about Batman, which kind of narrows the field a bit. Furthermore it seems to be a bit on the dark and gritty side, which I am sure will alienate some. I'm not skeptical, just curious.

[Get The Big Picture]

Yeah, but there's a lot of rubbernecking because of the death of Heath Ledger and all the talk surrounding how good he actually is in the role. But, yes, it's not fun for the whole family.

[Henry Oak]

I don't have the exact figures but I think Batman Begins grossed something like $350m worldwide. So say that Dark Knight is better and more people see it because of Heath Ledger's death. I still think it will be hard to reach the gross of a film like the first Narnia, which grossed some $700m due to its universal appeal (stroke blandness). I don't mind if it does well but I thought that Batman Begins had a fairly strong focus on a young male audience and would guess that it goes perhaps even more for The Dark Knight. I think that maybe a lot of the housewives who see it in the first week would be hesitant to recommend it to their friends?

[James]

Don't forget that some theaters have actually ADDED additional showings of this movie because midnight shows had already sold out. I've heard of 3am and 6am shows being added. Most if not all theaters aren't usually open at those hours, and I'm pretty positive Mama Mia won't be airing at those times. So the statement about ticket pre-sales not having any ultimate effect on weekend sales just plain isn't true. I also do not recall hearing the same type of phenomenon with spiderman 3, which was pretty much a BAD movie, (people are saying the ticket pre-sale numbers are somewhere in the vicinity of 8x spiderman3) whereas this movie has a cult following from the past 20+ years since michael keaton and jack nicholson did it, not to mention all the comic book fans, etc. Yes, the first batman appealed to mostly young men, but heath ledger appeals to young women and his death has increased that interest immensely. I think this movie is going to blow everything else away. As for Mama Mia, Hancock, Hellboy and Journey to the Center of the Earth putting up any time of significant numbers in comparison...maybe last weekend...or next weekend...not this one.

[Henry Oak]

I remains to be seen if Heath Ledger appeals to young women in the guise of the Joker ;) It's always fun to speculate about things so I just think that there is a possibility of a backlash to the hype because of the not so general appeal of the movie. I mean, Ledger was brilliant and good looking in The Order but people hated that. Kingdom of Heaven suffered a backlash because it was too demanding on the young fans who came to see Orlando Bloom. But soon enough we will see.

[James]

I say this only from personal experience. Young women I work with, associate with, communicate with and am personal friends with have all expressed an interest in "Heath Ledger" more so than the actual movie. Some of these saw and enjoyed Batman Begins, but many did not. As you said, there is no real way to know how much of an appeal that will hold and how much actual impact it will have on sales, but the theaters that aired screenings every half hour starting at midnight last night because the shows were selling out so fast, well, they speak volumes.