Boxoffice Guru : Dark Knight Still Tops and Crushes $300M Mark

by Gitesh Pandya

THIS WEEKEND More records were smashed into bits by the unstoppable megahit The Dark Knight which remained at number one by a comfortable margin for the second straight time. Moviegoers had mixed feelings for the two new releases with the Will Ferrell comedy Step Brothers scoring a solid second place bow while the sci-fi sequel The X-Files: I Want to Believe underperformed barely reaching double-digit millions.

Audiences once again filled theaters all weekend for the superhero blockbuster The Dark Knight which grossed $75.2M, according to final studio figures, dropping a reasonable 53% from its record-breaking opening. With the cume soaring to an eye-popping $313.8M after only ten days, the Warner Bros. release shattered the $300M mark in record time. The old record was held by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest which banked $258.4M of loot over its first ten days and crossed the triple-century mark in 16 days.

The new Batman film also set a new record for the largest second weekend gross outdistancing the $72.2M that Shrek 2 hauled in back in May 2004. Knight has now virtually matched the $314.9M collected by Iron Man over the last three months and will become the year's highest grossing blockbuster on Monday. On the all-time list, the new Joker saga has quickly climbed up to number 23 sitting right behind 2001's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

Dark Knight's hold was impressive considering how much business it already absorbed on the first weekend. Looking at the largest opening weekends in movie history, second weekend drops were 62% for Spider-Man 3, 54% for Dead Man's Chest, and 56% for Shrek the Third. Word-of-mouth has been strong for the Christopher Nolan-directed sequel and the Imax showings continue to be a major event creating even more excitement and repeat business.

Given its sturdy hold, Knight now looks to be on a trajectory that will see it zoom past the $400M mark by the end of its third week of release. With most of the summer's tentpole titles already played out, and a full month before students go back to school, the Caped Crusader now has a realistic shot of breaking through the $500M mark domestically joining only Titanic in that exclusive stratosphere.

Overseas, The Dark Knight was a dominant force grossing an estimated $65.6M and ranking number one in 43 markets. The opening in the United Kingdom which followed last week's glitzy London premiere led the way with $22.3M, including previews, while holdover markets dropped by an average of only 38%. The early international cume rose to $126.3M putting the global tally at a stunning $440.5M with major territories like Japan, Germany, Korea, and France still to open. A worldwide haul of more than $1 billion is certainly possible for Bruce Wayne and pals.

Sony scored a solid opening with the new comedy Step Brothers starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly which premiered in second place with $30.9M. It was the fourth best opening ever for Ferrell trailing Talladega Nights ($47M), Blades of Glory ($33M), and Elf ($31.1M). Brothers averaged a potent $10,000 from 3,094 locations and its R rating didn't seem to hurt its box office punch. The story of two 40-year-old slackers forced to live together after their single parents marry more than doubled the $15.1M bow of the comedian's last film Semi-Pro which also carried the R rating.

Produced for $65M, Step Brothers played to young men as expected. Studio research showed that 54% of the audience was male while 66% was under 25. Sony found a great slot on the calendar following a seemingly endless string of superhero and action movies from late June into July so moviegoers were in need of some star-driven comic relief. Plus the sibling rivalry film reached the marketplace ahead of two other R-rated comedies - Sony's own stoner flick Pineapple Express opening August 6 and Paramount's war romp Tropic Thunder launching a week later on August 13.

The ABBA musical Mamma Mia! held up remarkably well in its second weekend slipping only 36% to $17.7M for third place. The Meryl Streep-led pic has now grossed a stellar $62.6M in its first ten days and has been playing to female moviegoers at a time when so many other films in theaters are targeting guys. Mamma delivered slightly better results than last summer's Hairspray which dropped 42% in its sophomore frame to $15.9M for a $59.7M ten-day tally. A final tally of $120-125M could result for Mamma Mia!

Opening to weak results in fourth place was Fox's sci-fi sequel The X-Files: I Want to Believe with $10M from 3,185 locations for a mild $3,147 average. The disappointing debut was just a fraction of the $30.1M bow that its predecessor generated ten years ago in June 1998. Factor in higher ticket prices and the new adventure for Mulder and Scully attracted less than one-fourth of the audience of the first X-Files.

Audience erosion, direct competition from The Dark Knight, mixed reviews, and a weak marketing push all contributed to the lackluster performance. Budgeted at just $30M, the PG-13 film played evenly between males and females and saw adults 25 and older make up 70% of the crowd, according to studio research. Fox now looks to end the summer as the only major studio without a $100M hit this season.

New Line's 3D adventure Journey to the Center of the Earth enjoyed the best hold in the top ten dipping only 21% to $9.7M in its third session. The total for the Warner Bros. release is now a solid $60.5M. Will Smith followed close behind with Hancock which became the superstar's fifth career blockbuster to cross the $200M domestic mark. The Sony title grossed $8.3M, off 41%, for a cume to date of $206.5M.

The animated comedy WALL•E slipped 36% to $6.4M pushing its sum to $195.3M. After its fifth weekend, the G-rated pic is running 9% ahead of Pixar's Ratatouille from last year but 5% behind the pace for the company's 2006 summer offering Cars. The superhero flick Hellboy II: The Golden Army ranked eighth with $5.1M, down 50%, giving Universal a mediocre $66.1M to date.

Fox's intergalactic toon Space Chimps dropped 37% in its second weekend to $4.5M putting the ten-day total at just $16.2M. A final tally of $25-30M seems likely. Rounding out the top ten was the Angelina Jolie actioner Wanted with $2.7M, falling 46%, putting the assassin thriller at a robust $128.6M to date.

Boxoffice Guru : Serious B.O. Records for Dark Knight

by Gitesh Pandya

THIS WEEKEND The eagerly awaited new Batman film The Dark Knight broke the all-time opening weekend box office record and drove the overall North American marketplace to the largest frame in history with moviegoers dumping over $250M into theater cash registers over three days. The new musical Mamma Mia! managed to connect with its non-superhero fan base and posted a strong opening of its own in Knight's shadow while the animated comedy Space Chimps debuted to mild numbers. After back-to-back weekends when ticket sales were softer than last year's, the box office soared to heights never before seen.

Records fell this weekend thanks to sky high demand to see the latest Caped Crusader vehicle The Dark Knight which hauled in a jaw-dropping $155.3M over the Friday-to-Sunday period to set a new industry benchmark. Averaging a stunning $35,579 from 4,366 theaters, the PG-13 comic book flick edged past the previous opening weekend record of $151.1M held by another superhero sequel Spider-Man 3 from the first weekend of May last year. The Peter Parker pic even had more total screens with roughly 10,000 which was about 800 more than Knight's tally. Batman's gross included $18.5M from Thursday night shows between midnight and 3am which also set a record beating the $16.9M of 2005's Star Wars Episode III. Critics piled on praise for the $180M-budgeted Dark Knight which scored some of the best reviews of the year.

The new Batman film reunited director Christopher Nolan and actor Christian Bale who successfully rebooted the franchise with 2005's Batman Begins after the series was left for dead after 1997's disastrous Batman & Robin starring George Clooney and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Begins opened on a Wednesday in mid-June with $48.7M over three days and $72.9M over its five-day opening period leading to a solid $205.3M domestic final. The Dark Knight will surpass that mark in under a week's time. Veteran character actors Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman also returned while Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Heath Ledger joined the cast. Ledger's acclaimed performance as The Joker became a magnet attracting millions of comic and action fans and his accidental death in January only heightened the curiosity factor making the must-see film of 2008.

The Dark Knight blew open the bank vault door on Friday and made off with an eye-popping $67.9M (including Thursday night midnight sales) smashing the records for best opening day and best single day gross ever. Both of those marks were held by Spider-Man 3 with $59.8M. Sales fell sharply on Saturday by 29% to $48M, still an amazing haul, and Warner Bros. is estimating that Sunday's gross will slip by only 18% and come in at $39.5M. Knight's Saturday and Sunday tallies were the second best ever. The Spidey threequel can still claim those records with $51.3M and $39.9M, respectively. Rival studios on Sunday projected a three-day tally between $151-153M. Final numbers will be released on Monday.

Also adding excitement to the film's release was the fact that Dark Knight was the first regular movie to use IMAX cameras during filming. Six action sequences were shot with the heavy-duty equipment allowing those who see the film in IMAX theaters a greater entertainment experience. This helped Knight set a new record for biggest IMAX opening with $6.2M from 94 venues this weekend for a scorching $66,000 average. Ticket prices are also higher for the large screen format.

After just three days of release, The Dark Knight is already the sixth biggest blockbuster of the summer and is virtually guaranteed to swipe the 2008 box office crown away from Iron Man in the coming weeks. With all students out of school in July, midweek grosses will be much stronger than in early May when the metal man and the last webslinger pic debuted.

This weekend's achievement was nothing new for the Caped Crusader. In fact, Dark Knight is the fourth Batman film to break the all-time opening weekend record. The first Batman did the deed in 1989 with its $42.7M bow at a time when no film had ever debuted to $30M, much less $40M, over a three-day weekend. That record stayed for three years and was broken in 1992 by Batman Returns which bowed to $47.7M. Jurassic Park would swipe the record the following summer but Batman Forever took the title back with its $52.8M launch in 1995. All three Batman films opened in mid-June.

Warner Bros. did not opt for a global attack with The Dark Knight, but it did release the superhero pic in 20 markets this weekend and grossed an estimated $40M from 4,500 international screens led by Australia's $13.1M over five days. Many European markets open this coming weekend including Italy and the United Kingdom while Asia's top markets Japan and Korea will launch in early August.

Led by the staggering sales for the new Batman-Joker feud, the overall box office soared to more than $255M in ticket sales making it the best weekend in movie history. The previous high was $218.4M over the July 7-9, 2006 frame when Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest bowed to a then-record $135.6M. Studios are hoping that the roughly 36 million moviegoers who saw trailers and posters at multiplexes this weekend will keep coming back in the weeks ahead for more summer films.

Box Office Guru : 5 1/2 Days Hancock $107.3 M

by Gitesh Pandya

THIS WEEKEND Will Smith took home yet another gold medal at the box office with his superhero-with-an-attitude actioner Hancock which opened at number one over the Fourth of July holiday weekend nearly doubling the gross of the frame's silver medalist. Sony's critically-panned title collected an estimated $66M over the Friday-to-Sunday period and a solid $107.3M since its launch on Tuesday night with previews beginning at 7pm. The three-day average was a strong $16,646 from 3,965 locations.

Its five-and-a-half-day tally was the fourth biggest opening for the extended Independence Day holiday frame trailing 2004's Spider-Man 2 ($180.1M in six days), last year's Transformers ($155.4M in six-and-a-half days), and 2005's War of the Worlds ($112.7M in six days). Since the holiday falls on a different day each year prompting studios to bow their films in various ways, comparisons are not always fair. But in all three cases, the extended openings accounted for 48-49% of the eventual final domestic gross.

Smith once again proved that he's Hollywood's most bankable box office draw. Hancock was the actor's eighth consecutive number one opener, eighth consecutive film to break the $100M mark, and gave the actor his seventh consecutive year of having a film reach the nine-digit mark. Co-starring Jason Bateman and Charlize Theron, Hancock offers up a new take on the superhero story with a central character that drinks, curses, and roughs up children. The PG-13 film cost a reported $150M and Smith served as producer as well as star. Reviews were overwhelmingly negative but audiences came out anyway generating sales that were far from a record, but still very healthy nonetheless. Bad buzz could make the weeks ahead rocky though.

Hancock's journey began on Tuesday night with $6.8M, Wednesday's official opening day delivered $17.4M, and Thursday added in $17.1M more. The Fourth of July holiday fell on a Friday this year and saw Hancock take in $18.8M. Saturday climbed 39% to $26.1M while Sunday was estimated to dip by 19% to $21.2M. Sony launched the tentpole pic around the world this weekend and hauled in an additional $78M overseas bringing the global opening to a stellar $185.3M over the past week.

Following its top spot debut last week, Disney/Pixar's animated hit WALL•E fell 47% to second with an estimated $33.4M giving the G-rated toon a sturdy $128.1M in ten days. It was a larger than usual decline for a Pixar pic but the Fourth of July holiday falling on a Friday contributed to the slide. The robot adventure opened 34% higher than last summer's Ratatouille which debuted at the same time, but after ten days the lead was cut in half to 17%. Both periods include the Independence Day holiday.

But thanks to strong midweek sales at a time when kids are out of school, WALL•E's ten-day cume is 10% ahead of Cars and 9% ahead of Kung Fu Panda. Both of those animated hits opened in early June. The road ahead will not be an easy one as two more PG-rated family films open this Friday - the Brendan Fraser adventure film Journey to the Center of the Earth and the Eddie Murphy comedy Meet Dave. At its current pace, WALL•E could find its way to $235-245M domestically.

Universal's effects-driven actioner Wanted fell a steep 60% in its second weekend to an estimated $20.6M and boosted its ten-day total to $90.8M. The $75M Angelina Jolie assassin pic should find its way to $130-140M from North America making it the second biggest R-rated film of the year after Sex and the City. Overseas, Wanted grossed an estimated $18.8M from 23 markets pushing the international total to $64.2M and the global gross to $155M so far.