Can 'The Dark Knight' sink 'Titanic'?
It's a third straight No. 1 spot at the box office for "The Dark Knight" with a weekend haul of roughly $43.8 million, give or take a large popcorn.
That brings the domestic box-office gross to about $395 million as of Sunday morning. Between the time I began this post Sunday night and the time I hit the publish button, Batman and the Joker probably toppled the $400 million mark.
We mentioned last week that "The Dark Knight" is brilliantly done, an island of blockbuster moviemaking genius in an ocean of celluloid diarrhea. Even the ending made sense, which is something that has been sorely lacking in cinema of late.
With Batman making big buckaroos, it's time to start wondering if Gotham can sink the big James Cameron-Leonardo DiCaprio boat. "Titanic" produced more than $600 million in box-office revenue in 1997, by far the biggest movie in history.
Mark Harris wrote in the Aug. 8 issue of Entertainment Weekly (the one with our girl L.C. on the cover) that it wouldn't happen.
I say it does, and not just because movies cost a buck or two more in 2008. "Titanic" had the staying power, Leo and Kate entrenched at No. 1 for months, not weeks. But "The Dark Knight" has the Internet, Facebook, MySpace and fan forums.
What does this mean? It means the more people start seeing the numbers and the more us media folk raise the question, the more Batman fans will start organizing campaigns to see it a third, fourth and fifth time. Call it artificial inflation if you wish, but call it a record, nonetheless. (Boxofficemojo.com has the top movies all-time adjusted for ticket inflation. It's interesting.)
There are no rules against multiple ticket purchasers. We're fairly certain more than one guy got roped into multiple theater viewings of "Titanic" with his girlfriend.
"The Dark Knight" is two-thirds of the way toward washing away the immortal Jack Dawson. They said the actual Titanic ship was unsinkable. Look what happened with that notion.
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Comments (13)
To say that this film will come near 600 mill is a little premature. With far more summer and fall popcorn flicks being punched out then ever before its hard to imagine that the Dark Knight will maintain everyones interest, or should i say attention for that to happen. Its almost safe to say that it will replace Star Wars at number two but i just dont see it dethroning Titanic. And especially at the global box office. That number is and im sure will be for a long time untouchable
Mmm, you mentioned the Internet, facebook, youtube, and fan forums as being a driving force in shooting this movie to the top spot. Yeah, that's definitely a factor, but it's also a two-way street: faster technology also means more efficient distribution of pirated copies. Back in 1997, going to the theatre was really the only way to watch a new movie, unless you wanted to mail order a pirated copy from the Philippines or something.
That said, $500-$550 million is easily within reach for this movie, and from there, it's just a small hop.....
Josh, I hear you on the international box office number. That's a big one. Although, I read tonight that Dark Knight has already raked more than $200 million in six non-U.S. cities. Not bad.
Hans, you're correct on pirated copies. But peep this story to read how Warner Bros. cut down on it:
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/movies/ny-darkknight0728,0,5769800.story
Why do people think Titanic has the all-time gross, when ticket prices are so high that ticket sales are overinflated? The true criteria for box office gross is the number of tickets sold, and for that, you need to adjust for inflation.
I don't think so we can compare this movie with "star wars". coz it's more than 30 years. I think any one can understand the difference between now and 30 years ago.
For most money made.... titanic holds the record for now. For most tickets sold goes to "gone with the wind". But again you have to look at the economy and there reaction to movies. Today movies are common place and taken for granted. "we will just wait for the dvd" comments are nothing to us. but in 1939 there was no dvd and movies were still new. the entire country shown up just to see a "picture flick". For this reason I cannot see ticket sales better then money made. If B.T.D.K makes it over titanic then we have to give it props for the best movie ever made because its going against all odds. Internet piracy, video cameras, bootleg dvd, and the fact not everyone is going to go see it cuz they hate the theaters overcrowding and just wait for the dvd release. Titanic did not have these problems other then the dvd release people. and even then it wasn't as bad as today.
My info for this is on
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm?p=.htm
well it's already at 400m. by the end of next weekend it'll be about 450m. and then it's probably got about another what 8 weeks left in theaters? plus if it gets up to the 550 mark the media will start running "will batman beat titanic" articles and that's just going to hype it up even more!
still. I hope it doesn't overtake titanic, which I think is a better movie overall.
Of course when they re release Titanic in theaters in 2012 (100th anniversary) which I can't see them NOT doing...it will then overtake batman once again, and order will be restored.
Sure the film will raise 600m, it's at 400m before coming in france (bonjour les filles) spain, italy, deutchland... europe is populated
Hey, Frogman, they are discussing domestic gross only, not including international sales...Titanic made $600,779,824 in U.S. ticket sales alone, it actually made $1,835,300,000 world-wide. That's right, almost two BILLION dollars.
my apologies :) I'm just coming out of the cinéma... what a movie, what a heath ledger
Excuse my pardon, but Josh, according to IMDB Pro Dark Knight has already beat Titanic, 715M Worldwide, and 454M In the US so add that up then open ur mouth. and its not even out in all countries, some have a release date of this week, so it should be very interesting week, and yes i do think its gonna sink Titanic.
anyone know how much longer the dark knight will be i theatres, it's still going to need a bit of time if it's to pass the titanic, slowly decreasing by with each day at the box office.
Hey darkknight27,
the guess here is that 'The Dark Knight' will remain in theaters through September. Whether that means it's playing near you is another story.
It could last even longer if people keep seeing it, and when it breaks the $500 million mark by the end of August, we're guessing the studio will give it a big push to break "Titanic" and put it in more theaters. "Titanic" was in theaters for months.
Plus, "Iron Man" keeps making money somewhere and that came out May 2, so "The Dark Knight" could feasibly go to Thanksgiving.