TDKR is being watched by almost everyone I know, but a lot of the people I know watch movies in theaters


TO get the epic grosses like TDK, you need people who never go to a theater to watch it.


With TA the film broke out big time with tweens and kids so that helped it reach a huge gross. It did not have to get anywhere near as many older people to watch as TDK.

I think even with a huge opening weekend I always thought TDK admissions was very difficult.
Historically speaking, almost every sequel to all time hit has decreased.

Having now seen TDKR, I certainly dont think there is anywhere as much repeat viewing value as TDK. Sure fans may love it but among general auds its a tough slog to sit through more than once and there is nothing as compelling as say The Joker to make it a must see a 2nd time.

Yep. It's nowhere near as flashy and fun and suspenseful. The critic who called it a three-hour anxiety disorder is mostly accurate.

TDKR might not have reached TDK's inflation-adjusted gross, but the fact remains that tracking and pre-release interest was insanely high and that the user reviews are excellent (see IMDB, Yahoo Movies, or Rotten Tomatoes).

Even if people find it very dark, if they enjoyed the movie, they won't think: "Damn, what a nice a movie. It was dark though, so I won't recommend it to my friends.". They will recommend it their friends because they enjoyed it. It's as simple as that.

The thing is the level of recommendation. When TDKR came out people said WOW you HAVE to see it, with TDKR its like "hey that's a great movie you CAN check it out". BIG difference.

I'm not sure that plays such a big difference. Inception had great legs (indicating great WOM), and TDKR's user reviews/scores are better than Inception.

I think Heath Ledger's Joker might have played a bigger role than what you're saying. It probably brought people who had no interest in seeing TDK.

Yes I forgot to mention in TDK section "You should see Joker. Heath Ledger is amaaaazing in it"

I looked at Youtube. It definitely has fewer trailer views than Avengers.

TA we need to remember did not become as big as TDK with adults. The big gross is really due to it breaking out with kids and famalies like Spider Man 1. It also was well liked by women as well so it was a 4 quad hit.



About TDK...
Remember many people said:

Heath Ledger 'Killed it'...

The Joker's performance in TDK may not be seen as that great by some on the internet but by the general public, its was an all time performance to them.

You have data?

Who didn't like the Joker?

well to be honest the only people who did like The Joker were Tim Burton Fans .



Lol Joking...

According to BOM Avengers was split over/under 25 and was 60% male. It might have had nearly as many men see it as Avatar.

I'm pretty sure his performance has been praised to the moon on the Internet too. Rightfully so. It is one of the all-time best villain performances we've seen.

This whole discussion about the Joker is kind of like talking about a team's uniforms. In many ways it is besides the point. TDKR is like a team that loses a dominant quarterback to an injury during preseason, and everyone is complaining about the loss of some reserve middle linebacker. Or the coaching, everything but the actual problem. The movie is doing fine in the post Aurora climate. We are now looking at it from a different perspective, than if Aurora had never happened. So, people have a hard time seeing a different outcome.

Call me crazy, but I don't think the Indianapolis Colts would have finished 2-14 if Peyton Manning had been able to play last season. I also think TDKR could have finished over $500m. It may not have, but I think the impact of the shooting both real and psychological is too difficult to quantify enough to rule out alternative outcomes.

The the nearest example of a movie's box office being impacted by negative publicity would be War of the Worlds. When Tom Cruise basically killed his career by attacking psychiatry while he was jumping the couch on Oprah. The movie did fine, but could it have made $250-300m if Cruise had done his normal P.R. routine?

I saw a sold out show on Sunday that had no one under 20 in the audience, it was 60-65% male. It is amazing it can get to $400m+ with very little help from two major demos. It is basically doing the numbers it has achieved with 20-40 y.o. males.

I dont think $480-$530m total is a stretch for what it would have made. Though not much more than that.

Well, wouldn't such a movie have been the original Matrix? I remember the media taking about it. Shots of the gunfights in TV, while questioning whether it encouraged it. The difference may be that people now would make the association on their own without being prompted. Still, I would guess most people are not that easily controlled by circumstances.



There's no way to directly relate that to anything. We could all be making the same assumption from any angle.

I know the popular line to attack Cruise (that he lost it). Honestly though, I think that if anything killed his career it was simple publicity burnout from non-stop coverage, irrespective of what he said. Since then I don't think there's evidence of poison of any kind, maybe disinterest, or maybe just him fading away like every draw does eventually.

I think BTW that WOTW wouldn't have ranged that high. I was guessing lower on MI3 mainly for other reasons, but I wasn't going to turn down the populist sale.

Do you really think there's a direct comparison between football and movies? Didn't Payton sign his contract for an automatic 8 wins?

1. How would that movie have opened though, if Columbine had occured its opening weekend? Also, its first two weeks had drops of 18.8% and 20.5%. The next three weeks after Columbine, the film had drops of 30% on average. If Columbine had happened OW it might not have made $150m, and if it had not happened at all, it might have made close to $200m. We will never know.

Lastly, if Harris and Klebold had shot up a theater showing the Matrix, I think the film would have had a different box office run.

2. Well there is some evidence, such as the poll done last week by NRG. Unfortunately it is almost worthless, because it does not define what reluctant means. Were you to reluctant to go the movies, but ultimately did or were you reluctant enough to not go to the movies this week? It would also be helpful if the poll they did isolated the effect on TDKR. Are all movies hurt or is TDKR disproportionately impacted?

The problem is that the movie studios don't want to admit if this is a problem. Nor do the theaters want to admit to a potential problem. Insiders or comentators like David Poland and Scott Mendelson have a bias against anything the mainstream industry reporting accepts as being true or conventional wisdom, so they reflexively dismiss its impact. The impact could be quantified to some degree if someone wanted to find out.

3. I saw most of Cruise's films in a theater before 2005. I saw Collateral OW the year before. I would not consider myself a fan as I think he is quite limited as an actor, but he always worked with directors I found interesting. Since Hook, the only SS movie I had missed was Armisted. I have not seen a Cruise film in a theater since. I know women in their 40s (a cousin and my wife's best friend) who were appalled at Cruise that Summer. Lifelong fans that were no longer interested in him, after he attacked Brooke Shields for using Paxil.

Sure a star can lose their popularity at any point. Without his meltdown/overexposure his films could have had the same results, but that year he screwed the pooch with many.

4. No, I don't think there is a direct correlation. However, so many times a team suffers something like the IC did last year, and some fans will alter their thinking after a certain point to think the injury, trade, or scandal, had no effect.

I do know from Bill James work that some pitchers and hitters can be completely different when circumstances or surroundings change. Bill James did some very interesting work on pitchers such as John Tudor and Sandy Koufax to show that they were basically the same pitcher when they had much worse results. Yet, when they moved to different ballparks that played to their strengths in contrast to previous parks that negated their strengths they were much better pitchers. They were the same pitchers, but outside factors had changed the perception of their quality.

I know from personal experience. When I ran competively some days the wind would help me and other days it would be against me. However, if someone saw my time one day and another day, they might think I had a bad day. Some of my best runs were when I had marginal times due to outside factors such as hills and difficult surfaces, but I beat the field by a larger margin or placed better than days I had a better time.

There's Something About Mary, MBFGW, The Ring, Wedding Crashers, American Pie. It's a common trend for well received movies to hold best at first. I'm pretty sure the gross would have been similar. I just don't think 20% was sustainable.



Who knows.



Another thing is that I would guess people less likely to go anyway are mostly likely to then poll as reluctant. The compound effect could be greater than you might expect.



Well, WB said they are certain it had an effect, not that I take their word on it.



I take the BO more seriously and it doesn't surprise me regardless.



People can convince themselves of all sorts of things, and often they may have a point or not because the world is very complex and we tend to like stories we can explain. Still, sometimes it's clear.



Sure, there are many intangibilities in sports.

This is about the funniest post I think I've ever read. 700 mill for TDKR?

Even without the shooting TDKR would be lucky to beat TDK, let alone Avengers.

Not sure where else to put this.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/09/justice/o ... ?hpt=hp_t1

A guy claiming to have brought a gun in to protect himself and the other theater goers. This happened at a theater I attend quite often. Really scary to think bout.

And whether he was telling the truth or not it goes to show how the shooting is still fresh in peoples minds.