ROTTEN TOMATOES: Box Office Guru Preview: Dark Knight Set For Gargantuan Grosses Comments

Box Office Guru Preview: Dark Knight Set For Gargantuan Grosses

by Gitesh Pandya | July 17, 2008

Summary

The superhero sequel The Dark Knight and the musical Mamma Mia! debut head to head in what could a tight race for the number one spot. Or one film might open $100M higher than the other. Either way, the North American box office will soar to dizzying heights and become one of the highest-grossing weekends in movie history. Back to Article

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Brudanos writes:
on Jul 18 2008 07:54 AM

Im glad to here this movie is doing so great, I definitely want it to beat out the cr*p of a movie that was Spidey 3.

I live in Guadalajara, Mexico and even things here are nuts, I went to the Thursday midnight screening and had to wait in line for 3 and a half hours to get a decent spot in the IMAX theater. You can't find a ticket until monday of next week for this movie.

I loved this so much Im going to watch it once a week until they remove it from the theaters.

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TheCaptain of TeamLoyalty writes:
on Jul 18 2008 07:54 AM

Overhype, it killed Spiderman 3 but just hurt TDK, Iron Man is still better, it did more with a stricter rating.

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Merlin235 writes:
on Jul 18 2008 07:55 AM

I'm glad this movie is getting such high praise. It is nice when a blockbuster movie can come out that is well received, especially considering such massive missteps that some have taken recently. And if the Joker turns out to be an alien, don't ruin it for me! ;)

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rgallitan writes:
on Jul 18 2008 11:05 AM

Don't underestimate what a big weakness the darker tone is. Many critics have claimed TDK plays more like a crime drama than a superhero movie - which is great for Oscar buzz, but not so great for business.

Fans will power an impressive opening weekend, but I wouldn't expect the final gross to pass Iron Man.

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tagerd writes:
on Jul 18 2008 02:58 PM

ledger recieving an oscar is iffy(nomination for sure), but i have to say nolan will get the best director nod at the oscars, yeha he had some choppy editing but it all fit into how the scene played out, and how he blended imax and reg shots was incredible, you know what scenes he shot in imax, but i couldnt tell watching the movie alone, all around great job done, bale ledger and eckhart all did fantastic jobs capturing the characters, every flaw in their personality shows, and maggie gyllenhaal is a great improvment over katie holmes as rachel

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-apocolyptic- writes:
on Jul 18 2008 04:11 PM

In reply to this comment (#1887751)
Ironman was agood movie, don't get me wrong.
But THE DARK KNIGHT is by far superior.
I actually thought Ironman was the best comic adaptation UNTIL I absorbed THE DARK KNIGHT.
And ratings are subjective to the person. What you might view as R I might view as G.

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jmac1302 writes:
on Jul 18 2008 04:39 PM

I just saw TDK and was blown away by how great of a film this truly was. I was a little worried that this movie had been over hyped and that, when I saw it, I would be disappointed by the final product. I wasn't disappointed in the least! Between the amazing performances (especially Heath Ledger) and the great cinematography, I was sitting on the edge of my seat the whole time.
As far as the box office is concerned, I went to a fairly early showing at 12:40pm on Fri and, even though the showing wasn't sold out, there were quite a few people for that time of day. Also, it really surprised me how young some of the viewers were. I mean people were bringing like 5 and 6 year olds to the movie. This despite the dark nature of the film. Which really poses the question of how much the rating or "darkness" of the film really matters.
Overall, with the quality of this film, the word of mouth TDK is getting, and the passing of Heath Ledger, I think this movie has a very good shot of giving Spiderman 3 (which was a far less superior movie) a run for its money.

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neoes writes:
on Jul 18 2008 05:27 PM

I don't think it'll beat Spider-man 3, that record will probably be there for a long time. I do believe it'll be in the top three, if not beating Pirates for number 2.

I predict around $134 million opening weekend.

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neoes writes:
on Jul 18 2008 05:31 PM

In reply to this comment (#1889529)
Dude, if The Dark Knight opens to $130 million, there's NO chance it won't beat Iron Man's $313.9 million. Of course it will...I don't see it dropping like 70% next weekend, so lets say IF it does make that much, it would power past $300 million in 4 weekends.

This movie was fantastic. Tbh, I still can't really decide on Iron Man or TDK, since they're so different. Completely different, actually. TDK was as intense as a superb crime thriller, it just happened to have a guy dressed up as a bat as the protagonist.

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neoes writes:
on Jul 18 2008 05:32 PM

In reply to this comment (#1885391)
He's joking, if you read it properly. He said, "this could be a tight race OR one could debut $100 million more than the other."

Anyone with a quarter of a brain knows that TDK will be number one this weekend.

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TheCaptain of TeamLoyalty writes:
on Jul 18 2008 09:05 PM

For what they were supposed to be, The Dark Knight and Iron Man are even, except for the campy batman voice. THe problem was that The Dark Knight was so overhyped that because it was not the best movie ever it was kinda a dissapointment to me.

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Greg_Arious writes:
on Jul 18 2008 10:32 PM

This movie was sooo great. I never want to see movies 2x in a theatre but Im planning on seeing this again just so I can digest it all. I hope this beats SM3 because that was such a terrible movie. This movie deserves to be #1 as it is the best comic book movie ever made.

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BucWild writes:
on Jul 19 2008 03:07 AM

Seen it twice. Imax was the better format without question. I don't own any stock in Warner Brothers, so why should I even care, but this movie will be one of the top grossing movies of all time.

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BucWild writes:
on Jul 19 2008 03:11 AM

Iron man...totally unbelievable origin(he built it in a cave with terrorists watching him??? they must be the dumbest terrorists ever). The DUDE as the evil bad guy robot in the end-totally lame. Downey jr saved this movie from bsing a TOTAL failure. To say that it was on the same level as TDK is like saying that Boondock Saints is just as good as the GODFATHER, 1 or 2. Ludicrous.

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TheCaptain of TeamLoyalty writes:
on Jul 19 2008 04:46 PM

To say that Iron Man is lame yet thinking that The Dark Knight is vastly superior is retarded. No it is totally believable that a guy with half of his face burnt off can go around killing people. It is believable that the mob would not go and kill the Joker after he left, it is totally believable that a bunch of cons would not blow up the innocent civilians, etc. THe lamest batman voice of all time. So BucWild, also known as DC employee, try talking **** to someone who is not better than you in everything.

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bigbrother writes:
on Jul 19 2008 08:50 PM

In reply to this comment (#1890334)
I think the truest judgement on how good the acting was in this movie is that you just discussed it and didn't even mention that Gary Oldman, Micheal Caine and Morgan Freeman were even in it. I think I've only read once where someone mentioned Caine. If that's not an awesome testiment to how good the performances were in this movie I don't know what is.

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TheCaptain of TeamLoyalty writes:
on Jul 19 2008 09:04 PM

Oldman and Freeman phoned in their performances, while Caine was great again.

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bigbrother writes:
on Jul 19 2008 09:39 PM

In reply to this comment (#1898002)
I thought Oldman was good. I was impressed with how he's resisted the urge to go over the top with him. Gordon is basically a beat cop, so Oldman's usual comfort zone i.e. whacky excentric characters would have seemed wildly out of place for him(Nick Cage could learn something from Gary on this point sometimes the greatest bit of acting an actor can do is pretending to be normal) and Freeman's performance suffered for lack of screen time, but you have to cutback some when you have that many quality actors.

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Evileye138 writes:
on Jul 20 2008 01:36 PM

In reply to this comment (#1896866)
I think you are being too hard on Batman's voice. DC superheroes have generally used the rule of lowering their voice an octave in character to do 2 things. 1. To have a general difference between the "superhero" and the "non superhero person". 2. A deeper voice gives an impression of power and can be used to put a little extra fear into a "bad guy". The batman voice may have been a little campy, but I think it helped quite a bit in putting a distinction between Bruce Wayne and Batman. On another subject quickly, I loved Iron Man, but TDK had more depth, better overall acting and more of an overall great movie experience then Iron Man did. Not too take anything away from Iron Man, but just because you didn't think TDK wasn't the best movie of all time, doesn't mean it wasn't a masterpeice. Iron Man was just a great movie.

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ChuckW writes:
on Jul 21 2008 03:50 PM

In reply to this comment (#1896866)
DC owns Marvel every week in the comic shops for quality, if not sales. Now, at the movies, DC owns Marvel in quality AND sales. Excellent.

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