Holy $66 Million Debut, Batman!
LOS ANGELES - 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.
Source : AP
In this image released by Warner Bros., Heath Ledger starring as The Joker, is shown in a scene with Christian Bale, starring as Batman in 'The Dark Knight.'
(AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures, Stephen Vaughan)Hellboy, Hancock Hot; Meet Dave Not
Los Angeles (E! Online) - Hellboy had a good weekend. Will Smith had an impressive one. Brendan Fraser had an okay one. Eddie Murphy didn't. Have any of the above.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army topped the Friday-Sunday box office with $35.9 million, according to Exhibitor Relations estimates today.
In its second weekend, Smith's Hancock slipped to No. 2, but definitively proved its bad reviews were no match for its star's appeal and moviegoers' taste. The superhero tale grossed another $33 million, and scored the modern box office's ultimate compliment—ticket sales fell less than 50 percent.
Fraser's Journey to the Center of the Earth, a 3-D remake of the classic Jules Verne adventure, opened in third, with $20.6 million.
Murphy's Meet Dave, meanwhile, looked like it was in for a brief, unpleasant run.
The high-concept comedy about little space people bowed in seventh with $5.3 million, the lowest total for a debuting Murphy wide release since the actor's 2002 film The Adventures of Pluto Nash.
It is generally believed that, in box office discussions, it is not a good thing to be compared with Pluto Nash. Ever.
Other box office notes:
• Hellboy II is now the top-debuting Hellboy movie of all time. The original Hellboy opened with $23.2 million in 2004. • It's a good thing for Sony that Hancock held up as well as it did, for emotional as well as financial reasons. Sony released the first Hellboy but passed on the sequel, leaving Universal to score the box office win with Hellboy II. • One reason Hancock held up as well as it did: The movie's CinemaScore, as determined by audience polling, was a solid B-plus, significantly better than the movie's Tomatometer reading, as determined by movie-review sampling at Rotten Tomatoes. • Angelina Jolie had a better weekend than Wanted (fifth place, $11.6 million; $112 million overall), which didn't really have all that bad a weekend itself. • In its fifth weekend, The Incredible Hulk ($2.2 million) stood at $129.8 million overall, and continued its eerie mimicry of Ang Lee's Hulk, which stood at $128.1 million after five weekends, per Box Office Mojo stats. • The Incredible Hulk fell out of the Top 10, just like (wait for it…) Lee's Hulk, which fell out of the Top 10 in its fifth weekend. • Sex and the City ($1.7 million) departed from the Top 10 in its seventh weekend, and after a $148.2 million haul. • In limited release, the French thriller Tell No One enjoyed a Hancock-ian second weekend, grossing $241,000 at 18 theaters, per Box Office Mojo, for the biggest per-screen average of any movie. • Josh Hartnett's August did so-so, taking in $6,505 at one theater. • Harold, a new comedy about a balding 14-year-old played by Two and a Half Men's Spencer Breslin, wasn't especially virile, with $10,300 at three theaters, Box Office Mojo said. Here's a recap of the top-grossing weekend films based on Friday-Sunday estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army, $35.9 million • Hancock, $33 million • Journey to the Center of the Earth, $20.6 million • WALL-E, $18.5 million • Wanted, $11.6 million • Get Smart, $7.1 million • Meet Dave, $5.3 million • Kung Fu Panda, $4.3 million • Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, $2.4 million • Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, $2.3 million
