Will 'The Dark Knight' Ever Catch 'Titanic'?
Monday, July 28, 2008 at 11:36AM 
On the one hand, it's tough to argue with that logic. There's never been a movie with such a head start before. Before next weekend starts, The Dark Knight should be sitting at around $355 million or so, making it the 12th or 13th biggest movie ever in 14 days. There is very little doubt, in fact, that The Dark Knight will be firmly planted in the top ten highest grossing films of all time by this time next week, maybe as high as number seven.
But the post-$400 million terrain is a wasteland. Shrek 2 earned $441 million in domestic coin, and based on one theatrical run (as opposed to the several Star Wars has had), that's the closest anyone has ever come to reaching Titanic: $160 million away. The Dark Knight will take over the third place spot on the all-time list by August 15th, I should imagine, but just track our imaginary weekends and you'll see why that's the biggest reason Titanic is going to be so hard to supplant.
The film lost 52% of its opening weekend crowd in week two, which is about average for any movie. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest more or less mirrors that percentage, and it's in the $400 million club. It is worth pointing out, though, that neither Star Wars Episode I or Shrek 2 ever had a weekend when it made 50% less than the previous weekend, according to Box Office Mojo. But for the sake of comparison, we'll just use the numbers for Pirates and apply them to The Dark Knight in our experiment.
Fitting The Dark Knight with a box office tumble of 43% for this upcoming weekend gives us a three-day total of $43 million. When the following weekend hits, we'll factor in an audience loss of 41%, or $25 million. As for the weeks in between those weekends, we're sticking with our $355 million projection through this Thursday if that's OK with you; that's $41 million in four days, or a little more than a 45% decrease from the in-week totals from the week one. That again runs pretty close to the week two production of the second Pirates movie.
So after the third weekend, you can add another $84 million to the film's current total, or a hair beneath $400 million. We're going to round that up: $400 million in seventeen days.
Let's use the Pirates percentage again in week four: A 46% decline during the week from the previous Monday - Friday, and a 41.5% drop on the weekend. We'd have $421 million after Thursday the 7th and following its fourth weekend in theaters, The Dark Knight would be at $446 million, good enough for third place on the all-time list.
And as you can see, while leaping out to a quick $300 million certainly helps The Dark Knight chase history, the next two weeks, in which it puts up $145 million, indicates just how hard catching Titanic will be. Can it make $150 million more after its first month in theaters? Theoretically, it can. Both Shrek 2 and Episode One are in that ballpark, but Pirates could only manage around another $80 million after its fourth weekend.
A more likely number is around $120 - $130 million, though The Dark Knight will definitely benefit from a favorable release schedule in late August and September. Traditionally, those six weeks or so are not the strongest, and it isn't uncommon to see a lot of bad movies during this time. Between Tropic Thunder and Star Wars: The Clone Wars on August 15th and Eagle-Eye on September 26th, there's very little lasting box office potential to be found. Curiously, the biggest obstacle for Batman will probably be The Clone Wars, which will attract a large percentage of the same audience and is also released by Warner Bros.
If The Dark Knight can make it to $600 million, it will need to have a pretty good fifth weekend, in the face of a lot of competition, to stay on track. Why? Well, we're looking at a $12 million weekend if it performs to the percentages, but between Tropic Thunder, Clone Wars, and Mirrors, plus carryover from Pineapple Express and The Mummy, $12 million doesn't seem very likely for a film that's already exhausted its first-time audience. In reality, it would need about $18 - $20 million to greatly help its cause, and then decline using the percentages in our formula. However, realistically, $10 million seems about right under those conditions. We'll tack on another $12 million during that week, so that our total goes up to $468 million in 31 days.
We brought this up in a message board on a related topic this weekend, but Titanic isn't the number one movie of all time because people raced out to see it; in fact, the opposite is true. We talked about how much The Dark Knight could make after its first month. Titanic is a rarity in the modern box office chase in that it made most of its money - $400 million - after the first month. You can't make that argument for The Dark Knight because it actually has competition around it. Titanic really didn't have any. Here's what I said about this singular quirk on the message board:
"When you look at early 1998 (remember, Titanic was released on December 19th of '97), only five movies released before May of that year made over $50 million, and wow, are they ever hall of famers: The Wedding Singer is the best of the bunch, and you've also got City of Angels, U.S. Marshals, The Man in the Iron Mask, and Lost in Space.
"I mean, what else were people going to watch? When I say Titanic had no competition, that's true. There were some films around from December 1997, but (Titanic) already had the advantage of opening later in the month. January's not competitive, one movie from February put up a fight (the Sandler flick), and when U.S. Marshals and The Man in the Iron Mask are the biggest movies in March, you can see what an open road Titanic really had. There's not a movie in its way that made $100 million until Deep Impact in early May.
"I just don't think it will ever align like that again: A movie with widespread interest, wins the Oscars two months into its run, the rest of the industry basically shut down for half a year. Look, The Dark Knight will have at least three possible $100 million earners released within a month of its debut, Step Brothers, The Mummy, and Tropic Thunder. It just has more competition to deal with, which is why $600 million, at least in the current $10 per ticket, 4,000 theater environment, just won't happen again."
Our calculations, which again, are educated speculation and don't even reflect my personal belief in what the film can do, would have The Dark Knight crossing $500 million, well into second place, by Labor Day. I'll spare you the boring math play-by-play we used to get there, but we're predicting that The Dark Knight will hit $550 million on Halloween weekend (and it should actually get an increase in theaters that weekend if Warner Bros. is smart), but look at the distance it takes to get there, nearly two full months to grab another $50 million. All we're doing is decreasing its weekly total by 40% from the previous week and going by the weekend percentages for Pirates, which because it faced a ton of competition when it debuted and because its second weekend is the closest to Dark Knight among any $400 million earner, makes it the most logical comparison.
Could it be higher than $550 million by Halloween? Sure. I'd say maybe $570, if every condition in the experiment plays out perfectly. I don't think it will be anywhere near that number, but I do feel $535 is a viable finish line. I can't really predict what kind of Labor Day spike it will receive, though I factored in a 23% jump that weekend. And two months is a long time; depending on the number of theaters Warner Bros. keeps the movie in, that number could go up. But I think $600 million by Halloween, if not out of the question, would take a heroic effort after Labor Day. Then, of course, after Halloween, there are tons of decisions: The studio will be pushing Harry Potter and its other holiday films, clearly the move at that point will be to focus on the DVD, and theater owners will have to decide if it's worth keeping a movie around that's brining in less than a million a week.
If The Dark Knight is on the high end of the Halloween number, say $570 million or so, there's a remote chance that $600 million could happen if Warner Bros. does a holiday season re-release in advance of the DVD. I don't see that happening, however, and more than likely the biggest movie of the decade will wind up between $25 and $40 million short of Titanic.
Once again, it's a ship that can't be sunk.
Reader Comments (32)
It's a good article, to be sure, but I think the one difference between this movie and "Pirates 2" that you neglected to mention is the actual quality of the films. Pirates 2 opened to middling reviews, and currently stands at a middling 54% on Rotten Tomatoes, as opposed to Dark Knights 94%. I know reviews don't guarantee a thing (just look at Hellboy 2), but when it surrounds a blockbuster of this magnitude, they do come into play. Word of mouth is positive for Dark Knight, in that friends and family are encouraging one another to see what all the hype is about. With Pirates, interest diminished quickly as late comers got word of its average quality. This movie has legs based not only on franchise, like Pirates, but on genuine talent, much like Titanic.
Not only that, but several news outlets have begun to speculate at realistic Oscar potential, not only for Ledger, but in the Picture, Director and Screenplay categories to boot, not to mention the sweep in technical awards. A late season awards push would be huge, and should it get any noms, a re-release would not be far fetched at all. Come January, where very little mainstream movie going is focused, and all of the sudden Dark Knight comes to seize the box office once again, even if it does only pull a few extra million.
I glad you brought this up because I've thought a lot about it. IMO, If WB is smart they will start up the viral marketing for this flick around the start of October, just in time for Halloween. Then re-release this flick as wide as possible and let viral marketing play into some sorts of Halloween Bashes for TDK. TDK fans everywhere will flock to since this thing one last time, and of course we know tons of people will dress up as characters or whatever. It will garner interest from mainstream fans as well because by this time it will have a shot to get closer to the $600 million mark.Also let's face it TDK is the perfect flick for Halloween, just like it is the perfect Summer movie. Batman has no limits.
Vincent -
It's a fair point, although the reason I picked Pirates was because its first two weeks mirror The Dark Knight more closely than any other film. Great word of mouth and near-universal good reviews didn't prevent The Dark Knight from slipping by over 50% from its first weekend, which is, as you can imagine, the second biggest weekend for most films.
I wouldn't hold my breath for The Dark Knight to take home too many Oscars; it almost certainly won't win Best Screenplay. We've got Australia, The Road, Benjamin Button, and some smaller flicks still to come, plus Wall-E. It's a crowded field. Best Director seems like a stretch, too, although I'd say Nolan could very well score a nomination; he's never been nominated before, and he's a great, young director. I wouldn't say it won't win Best Picture, but it has the best chance of being nominated in that category among the big three.
Ledger's a shoo-in, in my opinion. The tech awards, well, they're nice, and it will probably do well in several of them (let's remember, Quantum of Solace could push for editing and stunts, as well), but they don't spur on much box office performance.
And by the time the nominations are released, Warner Bros. could make immeasurably more money on video sales than they ever could mounting an expensive theatrical re-release for a movie people have already purchased on DVD. I'd also argue that there will be plenty of movies around in January, just not movies released in January. There are plenty of movies that appeal to the Batman crowd from November till the end of the year, with 007, Harry Potter, Transporter 3, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Twilight, and The Spirit all debuting within two months of each other. And because The Dark Knight has such massive widespread appeal, the number of movies that could eat away at its audience will naturally be larger.
I will concede that the numbers may be higher at the benchmarks than I've stated: Labor Day may be higher than $500 million, but it'd be a real stretch to say that the film would be within striking distance of Titanic by that point. Could it be higher than $550 million by Halloween? That's a real big if. We gave it a chance to make $570 million by then, but the real business for a movie is done in the first month, so you'd have to figure around another $200 million in the next two weeks for it to have a legitimate shot.
If you agree that a movie would make more money if it were the only option and less money if it's not, then clearly facing at least four $100 million flicks between July 18th and September 1st has to put a dent in The Dark Knight's run. Again, most of these movies will pull from The Dark Knight because its demographic slice of the pie is so wide.
And Allen, yes, I think Warner Bros. should go all-out around Halloween. The only reason they wouldn't is RocknRolla is due out on October 31st, and Joel Silver probably won't let WB undercut that movie after the dismal performance of Speed Racer earlier this summer. It will probably get a nice push.
hey i'd just be happy if it got in the top 3 in all-time B.O. records for the US, no matter how long or short it'd take to get there.
oh & an oscar for heath ledger.
Top three is almost definite at this point, and the Oscar seems very, very likely. Wouldn't you hate to be a fellow Best Supporting Actor nominee this year? Imagine if you won...
Hey, Colin, I get the feeling that box office number crunching is one of your hobbies, am I right? ;P
Anyways, Titanic is what it is. The Dark Knight's numbers are amazing, but Titanic had the repeat attendance of thousands of twelve year old girls and the dragging along of thousands of parents and grandparents. People who rarely see movies saw Titanic. To those losers...ahem...I mean people, ultimately The Dark Knight is Just Another Batman Movie.
Let us not also forget that though it was a mere 11 years ago, Titanic still existed in a world where an affordable, legal, high-quality personal copy of a theatrical release was not available 4 to 6 months after it's run.
Well, since Wanted was last week's most illegally downloaded movie, according to TorrentFreak, odds are there will be a few thousand downloads of The Dark Knight, too, which has got to hurt repeat geek business.
I have to second the first comment that the difference between this and Pirates is the quality of the film. But I'll also take it further and say that I believe it is similar to Titanic in the sense of repeat-business because I believe the millions of comic fan-boys are going to see this movie again and again and again. I am not one of them and I desperately wish to see it again. I think the current numbers represent mostly first time viewings with of course some multiple viewings. In the coming weeks those fans will give TDK that constant steam that Titanic had when it made $25 million a week for months.
On top of all that, go ahead and throw the mere speculation that the film will beat Titanic and see how many of those fans want to take the spot of the 12 year old girls and make their movie the greatest of all time.
IMO, the film will easily hit the 600 million for the reason I listed above and then sharply decline once the crown is earned.
On the day of his death, I predicted a nomination. The closer it approached, the more confident I felt. Now, after seeing it twice, I am beginning to believe a victory is more than a strong possibility.
Lately, the Academy has been all about the "make-up" Oscar (and I don't mean the one they hand to Rick Baker every year) and the long overdue Oscar as well. By that rationale, eventually Leonardo DeCaprio, Johnny Depp, Laura Linney and Kate Winslet will end up with statues as long as they keep working.
...and to further my previous point, I don't think the quote/unquote "geeks" will see this movie over and over again. The stereotype of which you speak also has the sense of entitlement that goes along with illegally acquiring a copy of the film through the wonderment of modern technology. The "Batman geek" is not going to give the studio their hard earned money just for bragging rights.
Matt,
If the quality of the film were truly an indication rather than the public's desire to see it, than Pirates 2, Spider-Man 3, and half of Titanic wouldn't even be part of this discussion. I'll say that the terrific reaction to The Dark Knight won't hurt it, obviously, but to sustain it? I mean, it had trouble sustaining from the first weekend, no offense.
The difference, as I tried to illustrate, is that Titanic had no real competition. People went to see it again and again in part because there was nothing else they wanted to see. Five movies over five months made $50 million or more. That's terrible box office. Absolutely lousy. There wasn't another $100 million movie in 1998 until Memorial Day weekend. The Dark Knight has some major hurdles, with both the movies currently in release that are doing solid business, and the likely $35 - $40 million openings for The Mummy, Tropic Thunder, and possibly The Clone Wars.
That's the real argument I'm making: How can this movie continue to put up unbelievable box office when it's already showing a noticeable mortality in its numbers and it will face a lot more competition in the next month?
Incidentally, for those who want to argue the percentages I used, and you certainly can, because I just picked the movie with the closest comparables, I went ahead and mocked up what the numbers would look like if The Dark Knight only lost 30% per week from now until Halloween. This includes a very healthy Labor Day increase of 50%, by the by. Assuming these percentages, The Dark Knight would blow past $600 million on Labor Day weekend and go on to make $767.75 million by Halloween.
Of course, since the movie has already dropped more than 50% in a weekend when it shouldn't have, making the case for the incremental loss of 30% is an awfully big assumption.
hey jerky, it's me again! you're still a ridiculous idiot! what is the purpose of all of this speculation? first you thought it would reach $350M max and it has surpassed your "prognostication." now you're incessantly wondering: will it reach the level of Titanic? well this much is for sure, you're a Titanic waste of cyberspace. how about you just LET THINGS PLAY OUT!! you're like a nervous new york times, except your articles are worse (thanks for proving that it is possible!) and you're much more jittery.
OMG, will DK set the record? OMG, it set the record, will it break the next one? OMG, it beat the next one. OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
must you insist on being the paris hilton of internet entertainment news? every high water mark you've "predicted" for this film has been smashed and left in the dust. i can't believe all these people read your douchey tabloidesque froth. entertainment news is one thing but you're just a mouthpiece in serious need of some psychological comforting and i'm sick of seeing your esoteric articles on imdb. you're like those people on Fox News that the anchors constantly refer to when there's a slow news day: "joining us now is colin the idiot, who's going to tell us what he thinks about john mccain's most recent colonoscopy results since we don't have any news!" your blog is just another example of people with too much free time and the nexus of the unraveling of civilization and sensible media. before you direct that argument toward me, think about how long you spend writing this trash vs. (that's an abbreviation for "versus," moron) how long it took me to write this.
-stinkynuts
PS, don't think you're any specialer than me, yours stink just as much as mine.
Don't get me wrong. I totally agree that The Dark Knight's high numbers in its first weekend hurt its chances of lasting long enough to beat the Titanic. But then again, I don't think you can relate this movie to Pirates 3 because that movie may have had the hype on opening weekend but critically it was a dissappointment, so how can you compare The Dark Knight, which is recieving praise from both viewers and critics, to a movie which didn't recieve the same praise. Yes, the second weekend may have had a similar decrease in audience (between TDK and POTC 3), but that doesn't mean anything considering TDK had the best opening day weekend in U.S. history.
I need to bring up a point briefly mentioned by MRPigg: isn't it unfair to hold Titanic expectations with The Dark Knight when considering the modern-day time window between theatrical and home video release? We're looking at a turn-around these days of anything from 1-4 months after theatrical release, and then we see subsequent dvd releases with "new" material tacked on. Back during Titanic's run, we didn't see a video release for that movie for at least half a year. That contributes to the movie's theatrical longevity. Nowdays the production studios already have a dvd release plan in place before releasing a movie. I think it's monumental that The Dark Knight has made the money it has in the current format of the movie release. Even with the current release format I bet we'll see The Dark Knight give Titanic a run for its money.
570 million by Halloween?
Are you being serious? There's no way TDK will be making a noticable amount of money in October, those days should end in early September.
The fact that anybody could think that any movie could gross an extra 50 million dollars (and possibly 70) over 3 months into a release is laughable.
Realistic expectactions would put TDK at a final gross of anywhere from 475-510 million dollars total.
Alex -
I don't think The Dark Knight will make a big chunk of change in October. It'll be lucky to go for $50 million over the course of two months and most of that would be in September; I apologize if that wasn't more clear in the article. There was a lot of dense mathematical stuff to pound out. The $570 million is a kiss if WB releases it in about 1,000 theaters on Halloween weekend, as a sort of last hurrah. I still don't think it will get that high. I do believe $500 million by Labor Day is an option, though, particularly if it's close to $400 million by August 4th.
Guiney -
I put The Dark Knight side-by-side with the most favorable comparison. Spider-Man had a better opening weekend than Pirates but lost a ton of audience immediately. Shrek 2 didn't open nearly as strong but was more consistent. I picked the movie that had a lot of competition around it, like The Dark Knight, lost about half its audience after the first weekend, and made over $400 million. There's only one movie in that group.
Incidentally, Pirates 2 held the honor of the biggest box office opening, as well. I can't see what else I'd compare it to.
Stinkynuts -
Sorry you don't like our editorial direction here at The Big Picture. Perhaps you'd like to read similar articles on this subject available at more sensible media outlets like:
The Telegraph - (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/2463461/Dark-Knight-closes-in-on-Titanic,-the-most-successful-film-of-all-time.html)
Or The Associated Press -
(http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jb68x_tOGx8QHjI0Cr6C-Vy79OGgD926UTTG0)
Also, it's worth pointing out that we're analyzing the data that we have, and that data changes every week. Four months ago, nobody was saying this movie could challenge Titanic, and now there's a different tune in the air. Still, if you don't like what we do, why do you waste your time reading it? And then waste more time commenting about me? Hell, why do you even bother clicking over from IMDB if this site is so worthless?
Nice Jerky Boys reference, though. I haven't heard one of those in over a decade. Thanks for the tip on getting psychological help, but I think between the two of us, my twaddle comes off as much better adjusted.
Hey Colin,
Very interesting numbers breakdown you've got there. I always thought that 'Titanic' made so much of its money from so many teen females seeing it about 7 times each and bringing along their boyfriends. After hearing so many of my friends watch 'The Dark Knight' multiple times, I was starting to get encouraged that it could actually beat 'Titanic.'
However, I never remembered how poor the competition for 'Titanic' was! When I reviewed the numbers for 'Titanic' at Box Office Mojo, the movie consistently made $30M (give or take) week after week. I thought, "How could 0 movies put a dent in that crazy run?" Now I know.
In the competitive environment of this decade, with blockbusters coming out every few months, its just impossible to go for a "slow and steady wins the race" strategy. Small wonder why so many movies are front-loaded in their ticket sales. I just hope the unprecedented word of mouth that 'The Dark Knight' has been getting can give it better declining numbers than 'Pirates 2' had (which I felt was a crappy movie, by the way).
Flash Fact: according to my calculations, if 'The Dark Knight' wanted to beat 'Titanic's' inflation-adjusted number, it'd have to beat about $920M.
The highest grossing film in the US is not Titanic. It is Deepthroat. Regardless, both films are about something big going down.
Nobody really knows how much money Deep Throat made since it was essentially distributed by the mob, and there were plenty of allegations at the time and since that they inflated their reports of ticket sales. But, yes, $600 million is the high estimate for that.
"I still don't think it will get that high. I do believe $500 million by Labor Day is an option,"
Labor Day...
You mean when TDK should only be making around 1.5-3 million in weekends and way less than a million dollars on weekdays?
"There was a lot of dense mathematical stuff to pound out."
I'd really like to see how you're doing your daily math because a lot of things don't add up.
No way is any movie going to make another 50-70 million (let alone 100 million) when it has lost so much steam by labor day.
You can add another 10, or maybe 15 if the movie is really lucky, to its final gross past labor day.
Alex -
I used the same percentages from Pirates 2 for the same number of weekends, and just decreased each Monday - Thursday by 40%. The only adjustments I made were skipping two weeks to get to its Labor Day increase (because Pirates came out two weekends earlier in 2006) and the Halloween push. I used the same percentages for those weekends, though, but I trimmed the two weekends before them in the chain of events.
I did make an error, but not in my math. I said that the film would hit $500 million on Labor Day weekend. If the percentages stay roughly the same, it will break $500 million the weekend before; on Labor Day it should be close to $520 million.
For your edification, here's all the math:
Opening Weekend - 158,411,483
Second Weekend - 75,166,466
Weekend Averages (based on Pirates):
43.5 - 43,220,717
41.5 - 25,716,327
46.6 - 13,732,518
34.2 - 9,035,997
+23.5 - 15,948,029 (Labor Day increase)
47.3 - 8,404,611
35.7 - 5,404,165
32.3 - 3,658,619
46.5 - 1,957,361
37.9 - 1,215,521
35.1 - 788,873
36 - 504,879
+280 - 14,136,613 (Halloween increase)
Weekend Totals - 218,890,696
First Week - 80,203,728
Weekday Averages:
40 - 48,122,236
40 - 28,873,341
40 - 17,324,005
40 - 10,394,403
40 - 6,236,641
40 - 3,741,985
40 - 2,245,191
40 - 1,347,114
40 - 808,268
40 - 484,961
40 - 290,976
40 - 174,586
40 - 104,751
Weekday Totals - 200,352,186
Combined Totals - 577,654,365
That's through Halloween, allowing for some increases on the holiday weekends. According to this tracking, based on the numbers put up by a movie that most readers believe didn't have the legs The Dark Knight will, the Batman movie will make a little over $50 million after Labor Day, a big chunk coming at Halloween. If WB doesn't add to the theater count that weekend, obviously, the final number won't be quite as high.
Hope all that helps.
I'm really not sure how you think it's realistic to expect TDK to only see drops of 40% weekly in the weekday numbers, especially when it only pulled in 10.5 million in its 2nd Monday (no way is it going to gross over 48 million Monday-Thursday this week).
Your Labor Day increase also sounds overly exaggerated and it's ridiculous to suggest that the movie would only drop 1 million the following weekend (just including the 3-day gross).
Lets be realistic with these drops... When you take a realistic approach to things, the total gross you should get is around 475 million dollars.
The weekend tracking for The Dark Knight is slightly higher than $40 million. Even if the movie only makes $75 million between yesterday and Sunday, it's still going to be at $390 million. How it won't make $80 million beyond that - allowing for at least $35 million the following week - is beyond me.
"How it won't make $80 million beyond that is beyond me."
"200,352,186"
I'm not buying this number at all.
You're over-shooting the weekday total by a good 50-70 million dollars.
Shave that 70 million off your total and you get 507 million dollars.
Drop that fabled magical 14 million dollar Halloweend weekend TDK will supposedly be able to pull off and you'll get a total of around 493 million.
I think your weekend holds are a very optimistic as well.
I question TDK's ability to gross over 500 million dollars, and the article you've written is not convincing in the least.
Here's one more set of numbers...OK, two sets. It's the in-week percentage losses for Iron Man and Indiana Jones. I think it's a simple premise to assume similar numbers for The Dark Knight. I don't believe you could make an argument that its performance Monday-Thursday would be significantly less. For the record, I'd love to keep with the Pirates 2 showdown, but I let my Box Office Mojo subscription lapse and they're not doing upgrades right now, so...I'm limited to its weekend totals.
Here we go:
Iron Man
24.5
12.9 (48%)
8.9 (32%)
9.9 (+111%)
5.1 (49%)
2.1 (59%)
1.06 (50%)
.774 (27%)
.503 (35%)
.237 (53%)
Can you guess the average of those percentages? That's right - 39.5%.
Indiana Jones
45.6 (*Memorial Day Weekend, hard to compare that Monday to a regular week)
14.4
8.7 (40%)
5.9 (32%)
3.9 (43%)
2.75 (30%)
1.79 (35%)
1.12 (38%)
.49 (56%)
Want to take a shot at the average for this movie? Wait for it...39.42%
So, in other words 40%, which is kind of what I said before. Again, if you have an actual reason why The Dark Knight would be well below that, I'm happy to listen to it. But since we're speculating if $600 million is a possibility, we look to movies in the same environment. Or should I think it will do Meet Dave business from here on out?
That you think it will not perform to a fairly standard percentage, in spite of its stature in the marketplace, is a differing opinion, but you haven't offered anything to back it up. I'll try to back it up for you: Even if The Dark Knight loses 50% of its audience from the previous week instead of 40% every week (and if Indy Jones didn't, this one won't), the movie would still make $160 million on weekdays alone over 13 weeks, based on $80 million in the first week.
That'd drop the number in the $535 million range, counting a good Halloween.
And I think the way WB has marketed the movie to this point - which is to say, flawlessly - they've got to realize that the most gothic movie of the year (and the biggest), with one of literature's great villains played by an actor who died and may get an Oscar nomination might bring people back in for some more midnight shows. After all, if Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas can make millions of bucks in 500 theaters at Halloween, how could this one avoid it?
Let's say they don't decide to put it in more theaters at Halloween. Do you think the number would still go down? Even if it does, how much difference would it make then? The movie, by any reasonable calculable standard I can come up with - and I've offered several, none of which you can disprove so much as disagree with - will have made over $500 million anyway. It's still not within reach of the all-time record, which was the point of this exercise all along.