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I’m frankly surprised so many people seem to expect a $100-115 million opening weekend for “The Dark Knight.” That is, admittedly, where I placed my vote, but I didn’t expect so much company.
I’ll probably put an actual number to my guess in that light some time this week (all these stories about blasting away advance ticket sales records have me wondering if we’re underestimating the thing). But for now, I’m curious what readers think the final box office tally of the flick will be.
So, have your say in this week’s poll. The final total for “Batman Begins” was right around $205 million, so I think it’s safe to say most people expect that bar to be hurdled. But I’m including good cross-section of choices, in case some folks want to be brazen.
And again, if you want to put an actual number to it, let us know below.
19 responses so far
1 7-13-2008 at 10:28 am
Chad said...
I’d predict a $115 mil opening and $285 mil total.
2 7-13-2008 at 10:46 am
Proman said...
88-ish opening, $260 tops.
3 7-13-2008 at 11:23 am
Mr. Gittes said...
$300+ total.
Don’t forget the foreign market. They’re gonna go nuts over TDK.
4 7-13-2008 at 11:40 am
Brian Kinsley said...
It still surprises me that Begins only got to $205m. It was such a widely praised movie, both with critics and audiences.
I say it gets over $300m, but only just. The runtime and the darkness will affect it.
I don’t know if it’ll be the top grossing film of the year or not. Probably between that, Indy 4 and Potter 6?
5 7-13-2008 at 12:13 pm
Kristopher Tapley said...
I think the fact that IMAX tickets are more expensive than general theater tickets should be taken into account as well.
Proman: I’ll make a side bet with you here and now that the film makes much more than $88 million on opening weekend.
6 7-13-2008 at 1:10 pm
Proman said...
Well, while on this site, there have been many instances when I wanted to make bets.
I am fully aware that “The Dark Knight” is tracking well above my $88 figure. However, I do not think it will do the currently predicted $130 million either (wanna bet on that?).
Consider this a conservative estimate. I am not fully decilining your bet as I can see this movie land in the $100 million neighborhood (especially after Iron Man’s performance). So I kind of expected it to do somewhat better. I do think, however, that it is worth remembering that “Batman Begins” only made $48 million in it’s opening weekend.
I would be more prepared to make any bets if I had actually seen the movie by myself.
As of now, the only thing I can say with confidence is that I do not think this movie will come anywhere close to Iron Man’s total for a variety of reasons. It may have a bigger 3 day opening but it won’t have the same legs.
I am a lot more comfortable challenging your prediction that “The Dark Knight” will be the highest grossing movie of the summer. Or even the third highest grossing movie of the year (and, perhaps, even fourh).
7 7-13-2008 at 1:12 pm
Jonathan Spuij said...
I’m for the opening weekend around 100-110 mln.
106 to be exact ;).
Final domestic somewhere around 320 mln orso. Somehow I doubt that it will gross that much more than Indy or Iron Man.
8 7-13-2008 at 1:23 pm
Bill said...
I’ll guess it tops out at 300 mil. Harsh economy will cut down on repeat-viewings.
9 7-13-2008 at 1:52 pm
Jon said...
115-125 opening.
300-325 final
10 7-13-2008 at 2:41 pm
Kristopher Tapley said...
Personally, I think it’s safe to assume a comparable leap from 1 to 2 in this franchise to the “X-Men” – “X2″ spike. And then some, actually. “X2″ leapt 50% 5 years ago. 50% for TDK would be right around $120-125 million. So yeah, I can see this bouncing past $130 million.
11 7-13-2008 at 2:59 pm
Proman said...
“50% for TDK would be right around $120-125 million. So yeah, I can see this bouncing past $130 million.”
$120-125 million would be closer to 135-140%, actually.
12 7-13-2008 at 5:01 pm
Kristopher Tapley said...
Hehe, forgive my math. Had my own idea of the opening weekend on the brain. Make that $75 million at 50%.
My point, however, was that, given the variables involved (Ledger’s death, most of all), I think it’s fair to assume anticipation for this sequel is much higher than it was for “X2,” which followed up an extremely flawed initial installment that certainly wasn’t critically acclaimed.
13 7-13-2008 at 7:49 pm
Fei said...
I predict a $110M+ opening and around $350M total. Those who disagree, please provide reasons. Saying things like, “I have my reasons” just isn’t good enough.
The midnight show at my local IMAX theater sold out at least two weeks before the opening. All six midnight shows at another theater were sold out when I checked on Friday. And two Friday shows at the same theater have also already sold out. The Dark Knight will also have at least the third widest release of all time (if not widest or second widest). These trivial indicators, in addition to tracking, clearly suggest that the movie could open at around $130M.
Why is anybody still surprised that Batman Begins “only” earned $205M domestic, or that it “only” opened at $48M? Have some perspective, please. Joel Schumacher trashed the franchise, leaving the public highly skeptical about the prospect of a new Batman movie. The fact that it had a lifetime multiplier of greater than 4 is excellent performance for a summer action movie.
The hype for the movie will create a huge opening, no doubt, but it will have good or great legs because of word-of-mouth and repeat business. Literally everybody who has seen it says that The Dark Knight is much better than Batman Begins, even people who didn’t like Batman Begins very much (e.g. Devin Faraci at CHUD).
Why is the “darkness” of the movie such an issue? It is still just PG-13 after all. Nolan’s Batman movies are clearly aimed at adults, thus a great original-to-sequel comparison would be The Matrix to The Matrix Reloaded. Like Batman Begins, The Matrix was an action movie aimed at adults that gained an enormous popular following that led to a record-breaking opening for an R-rated release—$92M. Even though consensus held The Matrix Reloaded to be significantly inferior to the original, it still managed to pull $281M, showing an average lifetime multiplier of about 3. Adjusted for inflation, Reloaded would earn $321M today. The domestic total from original to sequel increased 64%.
Why can’t The Dark Knight do the same? With the same level of increase, it would do at least $330M. Why is length an issue? Titanic and LOTR were all three hours long. (Heck, even Jackson’s King Kong managed a lifetime multiplier of 4, despite its length and soft opening.) And consider Revenge of the Sith, a particularly dark PG-13 release also about two and half hours long. It had a $108M opening and $380M total, despite the underwhelming box office and popular opinion of Attack of the Clones (not to mention the backlash against The Phantom Menace).
Consider The Godfather and The Exorcist, two of the highest-grossing R-rated releases of all-time when adjusted for inflation. Both are dark; The Godfather is three hours long and violent; and The Exorcist is one widely regarded as one of the scariest movies ever. Yet The Godfather did $543M in today’s dollars, while The Exorcist did $761M in today’s dollars.
The point is that when a movie is “good” enough, and the public is excited enough, conventional wisdom goes out the window. Just look at Iron Man—comic book property unknown to most of the public, starring a B-list actor with a history of personal issues. And I’m honestly surprised that Indy 4 managed over $300M after the backlash that it received.
I fail to see how The Dark Knight grossing less than $100M opening and less than $300M overall is a rational position. Doubters, please explain yourselves, or risk looking like idiots.
14 7-13-2008 at 8:15 pm
Proman said...
Kris, that’s certainly a fair assessment. Most of all I’m impressed how
Still, I think it’s important to distiguish between absolute and relative anticipation. I’m sure that there are a lot of people who anticipate TDK very very much but that doesn’t mean that there are THAT many of them. We are talking about an ultimately very successful movie but I think there are limits to the audience it will reach (we are still talking about the #1 movie of the summer, right?).
It won’t play like a family film and that’s one advantage that Iron Man wiil have over it. Time will tell how far “great reviews” and anticipation will take it. Pretty far, I predict.
And Fei, no offense but most of your comparions don’t make any sense (Godfather, Titanic, The Exorcist ???). Also there was no backlash against Indy 4. Give me a break. If you can’t understand why crowds went to see it, than I cannot help you.
“Matrix was an action movie aimed at adults that gained an enormous popular following that led to a record-breaking opening for an R-rated release—$92M.”
Actually it opened with $27.7 million. You are thinking “Matrix Reloaded”.
I really have to see this movie for myself to see just how “great” it really is.
15 7-13-2008 at 10:45 pm
Fei said...
Proman, your dismissal of my arguments make no sense.
The reason why I mentioned The Godfather, The Exorcist, Titanic, etc. was to address the commonly given reasons for why The Dark Knight supposedly can’t have strong legs. Oh, it’s too LONG. It’s too DARK. Many things affect how a movie plays to the public, and length and tone/content do matter. But when there’s enough audience interest, those factors can no longer be considered limiting. I’m not saying that The Dark Knight is anything like those movies that I mentioned or will perform like they do. I just wish that people wouldn’t be so ready to low-ball their predictions based on naive arguments.
Show me how there WASN’T any backlash against Indy 4. Just because the box office numbers don’t reflect said backlash doesn’t mean that such public sentiments don’t exist. You must be living under a rock to be ignorant of all of the negative opinions the movie has garnered. (Note: I, for one, thought that the movie was quite good.) Remember the phenomenon that was The Phantom Menace? So many people were disappointed by it even in 1999, yet it grossed over $400M. Strange things happen. I suspect that the nostalgia factor is as equally at work with Indy 4 as it was with Episode I.
And please reread the sentence that you quoted from me again. I WAS referring to The Matrix Reloaded when I mentioned the $92M opening, which is why I wrote “gained an enormous popular following that led to a record-breaking opening.” A record-breaking opening (for the sequel) happened AFTER an enormous popular following was gained. The whole point of my comparison of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight to The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded was to show how much public goodwill toward a franchise could pay off for a sequel, regardless of its content.
Remember that YOU were the one who implied that Batman Begins’s relatively soft $48M opening would be a limiting factor for The Dark Knight. But if The Matrix could grow a $28M opening to a $92M opening from one movie to the next, then why can’t The Dark Knight make $130M from Batman Begins’s $48M? The Matrix Reloaded is proof that a franchise starter’s opening weekend figure means just about nothing, and it’s proof that an action movie for adults could open really huge and have decent legs. So what’s the big deal about The Dark Knight not playing like a family movie?
And you still haven’t explained your “various reasons” for predicting that The Dark Knight will gross less than everyone else is saying.
16 7-13-2008 at 11:17 pm
Fei said...
By the way, Iron Man and Indy 4 may be family friendly, but they haven’t exactly played like traditional family fare, which opens softer and has longer legs. The classic example of the blockbuster family feature is Finding Nemo, which opened at $70M and made $340M domestic, featuring a lifetime multiplier of close to 5. Family movies are marked by stronger-than-average weekday hauls and significantly lower-than-average weekend drops. While Indy and Iron Man have displayed strong holdover performance, their overall performance is still only slightly above average for $100M-openers.
17 7-14-2008 at 12:55 am
Yih said...
Definitely over 300. I know people who don’t watch movies ever excited to see this opening weekend. Women are gushing over this whether it be Bale or believe this…”honoring Ledger” with your movie ticket. And outside of that, the first one was a huge critical and a commercial success. Everything is set in place for this movie to break records.
18 7-14-2008 at 6:52 pm
Phil said...
Are you guys insane — it’s gonna top Spiderman 3′s weekend total and be above 150 million and set a record. Mamma Mia will also do very well. There is so much universal praise and the tickets getting sold out, fandango reporting higher presales — unless that’s all unsubstantiated hype, there is no way that this not gonna be huge.
19 8-24-2008 at 11:04 pm
poopy pants said...
HAHA.. no one even guessed close to what it has made — in week 6 its about to pull in 500 million.. Its number 2 in all time domestic box office.. Like I said HAHA to ya’ll especially those who guessed it would top out in the 200 millions..