website tracking
Search The Big Picture

« As If You'll Actually See Brittany Snow in the Video Game Flick 'Clock Tower' | Main | What? Colin Farrell as Dr. Watson? I Don't Buy It »
Thursday
11Sep2008

'Dark Knight' Heading Back to IMAX in January

DateThursday, September 11, 2008 at 9:24AM
Ask and ye shall receive, I guess.

Yesterday, we hypothesized a way that The Dark Knight could gain a little more ground on Titanic as the all-time domestic box office champ. The film would still need to pull in another $90 million at this point, which certainly won't be easy; we're forecasting just under $4 million for Dark Knight this weekend, and it would only drop off from there.

So in our experiment, Warner Bros. would ramp up a Halloween Dark Knight special event, releasing it in 1,000 theaters or so and making it a kind of costume party. I also think they should add a few minutes to the film to make it a tad more noteworthy.

While whether or not the studio goes that route remains to be seen, but IMAX has announced that they'll fill an obvious void in their schedule this January by re-releasing the film on the giant screen. According to Reuters, the move has more to do with snagging Oscar votes than dollars, but I fail to acknowledge the possibility that Oscar voters will need to be reminded of the biggest moneymaker in a decade.

Still, that's the quasi-official stance, that a late January re-release will keep the film fresh in voters' minds. The talk is that IMAX will bring back The Dark Knight for a limited run, though there has been no word on a theatrical run at that time. It still makes some sense, because even though the DVD will be out by that time (why not just send the DVD to Academy voters?), it's not like a short engagement like this will cost the studio that much.

Since January rivals August for the worst movie month of the year, I can see this idea working, although I don't know how much more money it would make just thrown back into theaters post-DVD. Maybe if you combine this January re-release with the Halloween expansion, you could close in on $560 - $575 million. Hypothetically...

AuthorColin Boyd | | in , , , , , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | Comment2 Comments |

Reader Comments (2)

Why so intent on TDK passing Titanic? Who else really cares? It will add absolutely nothing to the movie's greatness.

Thursday, September 11, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterJonathan

It's the only thing left for the movie to do, if it can. Box office has nothing to do with any movie's greatness, but as you'll notice, I never mention the quality of either film being determined by its revenue.

However. since this is the only film likely to come close to $600 million while ticket prices are below $15, it's newsworthy. And if the studio is making a real attempt to dig up more coin, that, too, is worth mentioning.

Thursday, September 11, 2008 | Registered CommenterColin Boyd

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>