Sunday, July 20, 2008

'Dark Knight' sets box office record with $66.4M




(Okay when Batman Begins was out it was all about Star Wars and other drivel that summer and nobody would give BB the recognition it deserved back then. Nolan created something so beautiful and different from Schumacher's nippled version and it had every fan craving a sequel...notice i said fan...cause the US flag colored spiderman did some good by allocating some space on it's bandwagon for fickle fans who like a funny and charming superhero...
So this entry here is for one of them who happens to be a friend of mine and thought that the joker made no sense in the DC Universe...well Nicholson playing that character was fantastic and Ledger...God bless his soul...you got the twerp eating his words...Nolan gets an applause for his work on the whole...when he said a few sequels are as good as the first like Godfather II and Empire strikes back...i'm sure he held back a sly smile...Memento....Prestige...Batman Begins and now this...Good movie makers exist...Bale never needs to convince me anymore since American Psycho....also congratulations to Michael Emerson for the nomination...and look for the guy who plays Agent Mahone in THE DARK KNIGHT)

Saturday July 19 10:35 PM ET


Batman's joust with the Joker has set another box office record. Stoked by fan fever over the manic performance of the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, "The Dark Knight" set a one-day box office record with $66.4 million on opening day, Warner Bros. head of distribution Dan Fellman said Saturday.

The movie's Friday haul surpassed the previous record of $59.8 million set last year by "Spider-Man 3." "The Dark Knight" might break the opening-weekend record of $151.1 million, also held by "Spider-Man 3."

"I think they're in jeopardy," Fellman said of the "Spider-Man 3" records.

"The Dark Knight" began with a record $18.5 million from midnight screenings, topping the previous high of $16.9 million for "Star Wars: Episode III The Revenge of the Sith."

The opening day grosses for "The Dark Knight" far exceeded the full weekend haul of its predecessor, "Batman Begins," which took in $48.7 million in its first three days in 2005.

Reviews were excellent for director Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins," but they were stellar for his "Dark Knight."

"We've really never seen anything like this," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "The death of a fine actor taken in his prime, a legendary performance, and a movie that lives up to all the hype. That all combined to create these record-breaking numbers."

Buzz had been high for the Batman sequel well before Ledger died of an accidental prescription-drug overdose in January. Trailers last fall revealing Ledger's demented Joker, with crooked clown makeup, turned up the heat even more. The critical acclaim over his performance that built from advance screenings left fans in a frenzy.

"It's a combination of things. Certainly, that's a great part of it, but I think this movie's gross was partly because of the reviews it received and the incredible buzz and word of mouth that preceded it with our early screenings," Fellman said. "And the success and quality of the last one, `Batman Begins,' delivered by Chris Nolan just set the tone for the opening of this movie."

"The Dark Knight" reunites Christian Bale as Batman, the vigilante crime-fighter tormented by personal tragedy, and co-stars Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman. Maggie Gyllenhaal also stars.

The film spins an epic crime duel as Ledger's Joker orchestrates a reign of terror on the city of Gotham aimed to spread chaos and break down the restraint that keeps Batman on the right side of the law.

While critics are taking the film seriously enough to suggest Ledger could be in line for an Academy Award nomination, the action-packed movie also delivers as pure summer movie escapism.

"If you're worried about mortgage payments and gas prices, when you're sitting in `The Dark Knight' for two and a half hours, you're not thinking about any of that stuff," Dergarabedian said.

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