The Rejects Report over at Film School Rejects have put their money on a weekend gross of $136 million. This seems like a pretty good baseline to start out predictions — the record, biggest ever opening weekend was set by Spider-man 3 at $156 million, second is Dead Man’s Chest at $135m followed by Shrek The Third on $121m (Source: Box Office Mojo).
The Dark Knight has already broken one record, opening in the most theaters:
The film’s more than 4,366 domestic playdates is a record, surpassing the 4,362 theaters for May 2007’s bow of “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.” Double– and triple-screening at many venues means “Dark Knight” will play on 9,200 screens in the U.S. and Canada.
Its engagements include 94 Imax venues — Nolan shot long segments using Imax-format cameras — and most of those giant-screen auditoriums were sold out by midweek. A Warners exec estimated that Imax presales totaled $3.5 million, with advance ticketing for other venues adding considerably to that total.
Rejects question why Mamma Mia was released the same weekend as TDK — I’d say to capture all those girlfriends and mothers that do not fancy a gritty action flick yet are being dragged to the theaters by their wide-eyed male counterparts looking to get their Joker fix. A quick dash, a fork split, you watch this and I’ll watch that sort of thing — shame they’ll be waiting a good 45 minutes after their movie has finished, with the Dark Knight clocking in at 152 mins.
I’m going to stick my neck out and go for an opening of $157m, because I am an optimist and Spider-man 3 deserves knocking off the top spot.
Place your bets now… (sorry, no prizes on this one, I haven’t got any free stuff to giveaway!)
Comcast have posted some more exclusive videos — this time interviews with Gary Oldman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Christopher Nolan, Christian Bale and Aaron Eckhart. On top of this there is a behind the scenes look at Gotham Knight.
I also forgot to mention some of their other exclusive featurettes which are available in standard and high definition. I’ve included links to the high definition versions for ease, streaming was being a bit slow for me earlier.
The first votes are in for The Dark Knight on IMDB, and it has scored a whopping 9.7/10 hitting the 4th best movie of all time spot in their top 250 movies list with 4,500 votes. Obviously this rating will go down as ‘normal people’ begin to watch the movie and cast their votes to increase the sample size — but damn! That is impressive.
Rotten Tomatoes also have the movie sitting pretty at 94% over 154 reviews.
Only a few hours now until the Dark Knight is released in theaters across the country! For those lucky enough to have pre-booked tickets in time for tonight, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for!
Remember, remember, Experience it in IMAX.
Movie Chronicles will be right here for the sequel.
If anyone heading to the London BFI IMAX showing next Thursday fancies meeting up, drop me a line.
A short while back we mentioned that the History Channel would be airing an hour long feature on the history of Batman, come July 16th. This documentary, entitled “Batman Unmasked — The Psychology of The Dark Knight”, aired last night and has promptly been uploaded to YouTube in five parts, strung together in the playlist below — catch it while you can:
The embedded video below shows Maggie Gyllenhaal and Aaron Eckhart in an interview on The Today Show, talking about the Dark Knight premier and the feelings it has generated amongst viewers — under the banner “Fresh Faces in Gotham City”:
YouTube user Directorian has posted a video of The Dark Knight gala which took place in Chicago. Whilst the gala featured a screening of the movie, this video only shows us the introduction with the stars along with the Visionary Award 2008 — which went to Christopher Nolan.
In his acceptance speech Nolan explains why he chose to shoot in Chicago and a little bit about his experiences with shooting in the IMAX format, before thanking the WB and of course his mom.
