The Hot Blog

I'm feeling a bit conservative too.

Make that relatively conservative, after all we are talking about what will ultimately be a very successful movie. But that's not the topic here and we can thank excessive hype for it.

"If it does the first, Roman, it does the second.

The key number is Friday's. $50 million is the number to beat. Indy did $56 million on Thursday and Friday combined. Iron Man started with $39m. "

Supposing The Dark Knight manages to beat Indy's 6 day total (which is quite a feat and I'm going out on a limb and predicting this will not happen), it will still have to continue performing well to keep up and I suspect at some point it will start falling behind.

All of that assuiming that the Friday to Saturday to Sunday drops aren't too huge (unlike Indy, I expect TDK to lose a lot of attendance on Saturday).

"Batman Begins did less than 50% of its overall gross overseas, which means that even if it does $300m here, it could do less than Iron Man overall. "

That's likely but ironically the movie's title which sounds nothing like the first film could help the distributors get the leg up they need and start from the clean slate. IMO, one thing that the current campaign proven is that Joker is a lot more interesting as a character than Batman (this may be due to suprsingly uncharizmatic Bale's performance too).

"Five films did $700m worldwide last summer. It looks like Indy is the only film that will get there this summer."

Well, if the studio's expectation's of Indy doing at least $94 million in Japan are true, it could do as much as $500 million overseas and over $800m worldwide (this is all but done deal already). Iron Man should push past $600m with Japan's help, btw but we won't know until September).

Another interesting point is that while many people were comparing busy comparing Indy's domestic performance with Pirates 3, over a month and a half ago I pointed out that the movie plays a lot more like Transformers (and, at this point, runs more than a week ahead of - $321 million is a possibility).

Why am I ponting this out? Legs. Indy's lifetime mutiplier is confidently above a 3 - not bad for any event flick and above most any superhero movie). This is why (unless TDK opens to some insane figure which will force me to re-evaluate my predictions) I'm still predicting that TDK will have a hard time cracking $300 million.

Look at the boost a sequel like X-Men 3 got in it's opening weekend and then consider it's (very solid) final total. Will TDK have what it takes to bring viewers in for repeat viewings to make up for it's lack of family appeal?

And here's the final thought: if it wasn't for the precedent set by "Iron Man" this year, would be having this conversation in the first place?

Batman Begins had a multiplier of over 4, so are we assuming that will be diminished by greater frontloading?

"Batman Begins had a multiplier of over 4, so are we assuming that will be diminished by greater frontloading?"

I think that's a safe assumption based on sherr weakness of the said movie's opening. Not to mention that in a situation like this something's gotta give - which is why movies with extraordinary opeinings are among the ones with highest second weekend drops percentagewise(there are some exceptions, of course).

Heck, not even Star Wars or Lord of the Rings movies could pull that kind of a multiplyer.

I think it's very safe to take the opposite tack on this one. Dave's prediction powers = fail

"IMO, one thing that the current campaign proven is that Joker is a lot more interesting as a character than Batman (this may be due to suprsingly uncharizmatic Bale's performance too)."

well, this ain't James Bond.

Anyone else completely fucking fed up with the box office talk on this picture? Christ enough already. All this talk about how much its going to make this weekend, or friday, or 2am saturday or whatever makes everyone sound like they're on CRACK. It's become an obsession with too many people and it sounds really unhealthy, not to mention sad.

No, it's better. Hooha!

But seriously, Warner Bros. is up the creek on the expectation game. This one got away from them, and now if it only opens to $115 - $125, they can't even call that a victory without being drowned out by the naysayers and "told ya's".

Got my ticket for tomorrow night all the same.

I too was getting confused about this pre-sale ticket stuff and how Sex was breaking records but then made just north of $50mil (amazing numbers, obviously, but not for Batman anymore).

IS ERIC ROBERTS REALLY IN THIS THING?

THAT FUCKING OWNS.

Couldn't the question have been in Lowercase and the excited statement in CAPS?

I'M DRUNK SO IT'S CAPS AHOY NOTHING PERSONAL JEFFYMAC.

(I am starting to honestly like Jeff again for some reason. Plus I think he's finally "getting" it.)

i know that this is going to sound naive but, once every great while, you all need to stop obsessing over what may or may not be the box office gross and just sit back and enjoy the movie.....
this would be one of those times.....
really.....
we don't get a lot of these....jus' sayin'...

Lex, I think if we had a drink together at your local watering hole we'd get along.

That said, I'm not a big fan of bathroom floors.

I have already enjoyed the movie... and I am only writing about the box office like this because the rest of the media has gone bat shit crazy about it.

And yes, Eric Roberts plays an Italian in this film.

I've said this before, mostly when Star 80 or Greenwich Village has come up, but I wholeheartedly consider Eric Roberts to be one of the greatest actors of the last half-century. No shit, on par with Pacino or Dean or Brando or early De Niro. It is one of the great tragedies of contemporary cinema that his talents have mostly been squandered in DTV movies and fifth-billed villain roles, and that he was so depressingly backtracked by his own sister. Because he's absolutely incredible.

I think I've been successful in avoiding much of the hype or at least have not been over burdened by it. I very much enjoyed the first and have wanted to keep an open mind about this one. There seems to be a backlash against the movie but it's gonna perform and go huge. Does it have to beat Indy or Ironman to be considered a success? I was surprised at Iron's success but a couple of weeks before it's release the high opening numbers started floating around so then it wasn't completely out of the blue.

Indy was garbage but I think the base and interest was too high that even if everyone and their sister said it was crap, people were gonna still skip joyfully to the theater four weeks after release.

I have not seen this new Batman but I suspect it'll have legs because it sounds like its a movie for grown folks. Whereas a lot of other high hyped films have opened well and then faded because grown folks thought if they didn't experience it in the opening euphoria they could just wait 'til video. Here, if it's not for a few weeks, they're still gonna go.

Is Warners thinking it's a 4 quadrant movie? You've got the big three for the women: tall, dark and handsome. Fanboys will go for the adrenalin and emo stuff but I'm thinking the same appeal that women found in Wolverine is gonna be at work here.

As opposed to Harry Potter or movies with hobbit or dinosaurs that appeal to a kid's sense of fantasy, here it's going for their sense of aspire. It may not be appropriate for kids but parents today are too clueless, too careless, or too narcissistic not to give their kids anything straight out of the package and not believe they can't handle it.

There may be some drop off from Friday to Sunday but that could be mainly due the theaters not blasting the thing 24 hrs consecutively by that point.

I love when people talk about kids "handling" a movie, as if it's some sort of domesticated animal that will bite you if you're not an adult. god forbid children feel anything besides happy sunshine up their asses.

There's definitely gonna be a drop from Friday to Sunday.... this is about as tailor-made for a massive frontloading as you get. (Not that this is necessarily a bad thing).

With midnight shows everywhere, and 4300+ screens, Friday's number is gonna be massive. Just massive. I'd guess that SITH's Friday record is probably in jeopardy. After that, there's nowhere to go but down.

Really, though, with the early raves and strong buzz, I think it would have to have an opening weekend under $100 million to not get to $300 million. Which, let's face it, is a very, very unlikely possibility.

Odds are that it opens somewhere between SPIDEY ($115) and PIRATES 2 ($136) -- probably closer to PIRATES 2 -- and then cruises to a $310-360 finish (depending on opening). If it has strong legs, then $400 million would be within reach.

Those are crazy numbers, but I think I'm being somewhat conservative, all things considered.

Just read the David Edelstein piece linked in which he responds to his critics.

Though I mostly agree with him, he blows it by saying that Two-Face's coin-toss is a pale imitation of Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men. The coin toss has been Two-Face's trademark in the comics for many, many years...if anything, Anton Chigurh is a rip-off of Two-Face.

We really do not get that many of these, and that's why it's interesting to speculate on the grosses. It could be interstellar or not. It could be record-breaking or not. Whateverthecase, everyone will not be seeing it Friday. This means people will be seeing it all over the weekend. I cannot be alone in wanting to see this movie more than once over the weekend.

Around here, screenings are sold out through late Saturday, so I imagine there will be a solid Sunday to follow. And, yeah, who cares how fast it makes a shitload of money. It's going to make the money. It's going to be huge and it's going to make it over the long term because it's one of the few summer movies I've seen in a while that really motivates repeat viewing. I got to see it for free, but it's going to get at least two more tickets out of me before the month is out. And I generally wait for home video to see something a second, third, or more times. I want to see it in IMAX again at least a couple of times and maybe in a regular theater for comparisson. I like it that much. It's my kind of summer movie and I'm glad it's here. It's flawed, you can find problems with it. But as an overall package, little comes close this year. (Actually maybe only WALL-E is close in my book this year and it's very much the flipside of the coin. One fills you with wonder and hope and the other gives you exquisite dread and an adrenaline shot.) Even though I hated INDY 4, this is turning out to be a damn good summer.

The success numbers for TDK are $100+ opening and $250+ domestic. Anything above those numbers is gravy. All the talk about opening records, anything that does $100M+ opening is largely considered a great opening and as of yet, there is no data showing a failure or underperformance at that opening (like there is for some $60M openings). Given the audience(no little ones) and length, $100M+ would be great.

If you're a Roberts fan, his debut film, KING OF THE GYPSIES, is now out on DVD. It's one of the great underrated movies of the 70s, with a stupendous cast, Sven Nykvist photography and an addictive score by David Grisman and Stephane Grappelli.

Around here, screenings are sold out through late Saturday ...

Around WHERE? I've been in New England all week and there are no sellouts yet, not even in the resort towns.

As to the midnight shows tonight? A lot of mall theaters won't do a midnight show because if something goes wrong and a riot breaks out the police will blame the mall management.

Austin, TX. Which is cooler than any place you ever are or will be.

I think we all remember the great Star Wars Mall Riots of '99.

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

URL:
Remember me? YesNo

Comments: