None of those movies were going up against a record-breaker in the same year that featured 52% of its revenue coming from tickets with 30-40% higher prices. Batman '89 went against record-breaker Ghostbosters II, which came out just a week earlier. But both of them were on a level playing field with the same ticket prices.

Can't really add those sales up and compare - if it's 1 person buying 10 Avengers comics and 1 person buying Batman comics, it's still 1 fan Vs 1 fan.

I bet Spidey is bigger.

Top Comic Books of Decade: The 2000s
Estimated Sales of Comic Books to North American Comics Shops
based on reports from Diamond Comic Distributors
Comic-book Title Issue Ship Price Publisher Est. sales
1 Amazing Spider-Man 583 Jan-09 $3.99 Marvel 530,500
2 Civil War 2 Jun-06 $2.99 Marvel 341,900
3 Civil War 3 Jul-06 $2.99 Marvel 337,000
4 Civil War 1 May-06 $3.99 Marvel 328,500
5 Captain America 25 Mar-07 $3.99 Marvel 317,700
6 Civil War 4 Sep-06 $2.99 Marvel 291,000
7 Civil War 5 Nov-06 $2.99 Marvel 283,900
8 All Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder 1 Jul-05 $2.99 DC 276,000
9 Civil War 7 Feb-07 $2.99 Marvel 274,500
10 Infinite Crisis 1 Oct-05 $3.99 DC 270,000
11 Civil War 6 Jan-07 $2.99 Marvel 263,800
12 Secret Invasion 1 Apr-08 $3.99 Marvel 263,000
13 Justice League of America 1 Aug-06 $3.99 DC 250,800
14 House of M 1 Jun-05 $2.99 Marvel 248,200
15 Superman 204 Apr-04 $2.50 DC 244,100
16 Identity Crisis 1 Jun-04 $3.95 DC 242,900
17 New Avengers 1 Dec-04 $2.25 Marvel 241,500
18 Batman 619 Sep-03 $2.25 DC 235,100
19 Infinite Crisis 2 Nov-05 $3.99 DC 225,600
20 Justice 1 Aug-05 $2.99 DC 223,900

P.S. If they hadn't raped the franchise, I could see Spidey 4 in 3D outperforming both TDK2 and The Avengers.

One thing that TDKR will have that The Avengers didn't was the massive IMAX theaters. That'll probably only bring $3-4m to the bottom line, but it helps to make up a slight bit of the 3D difference.

Those real IMAX screens delivered $6.3m for TDK. Gotta think that's pretty much a baseline for those theaters with TDKR after 4 years of inflation.

By my count, these are the biggest days every for a film without 3-D.
Midnights: 30 million by Twilight
Friday (w/o midnights): The Dark Knight: 50 million in 2008
Saturday: Spider-man: 3 51 million in 2007
Sunday: TDK: 43 million in 2008

Lets assume TDK just *matches* the admissions for all of those.
-32 million in midnights
-55 friday = 87 million opening day
-57 million saturday
-48 million sunday
=opening weekend of: 192 million, about 15 million behind the Avengers. The Dark Knight Rises clearly has it's work cut out for it.

TA only did 18 million at midnight, TDKR should come close to doubling that, which would in theory make up the difference right there.



It is going to sell out pretty much every showing period. The biggest problem is screen. Amazing Spiderman, Ted, and ice Age will all still be taking screens. Its going to exceed 2 1/1 hours, meaning realistically, for every screen a theater gives it, that is 2 showings every 6 hours. W.B. need to focus on one thing: screens. Screens screens screens. They need to get TDKR on as many screens as possible. Like, HALF of every theater will need to be TDKR.

I think the *potential* to destroy Avengers is certainly there.

Moreso than maybe ever before, presales are going to play an enormous role in how successful TDKR is on opening weekend. They will play a large role in determining how many screens every theater gives tdkr. Say a 20 screen theater gives Batman screens, opening from 11 midnight = 13 hours. That equates to roughly 20-22 showtimes for TDKR in a single day. Say that is the plan. IF Presales can sell out, say, 5-7 of those show times IN ADVANCE, before opening day, that is when
-more screens will magically open up
-3 AM and 6 AM showtimes may appear

Those are the things that will have to happen to put TDKR over the top. Thesis - If TDKR is to top Avengers, W.B. really cannot afford to have anybody being shown away from the theater opening weekend. There MUST be enough room to accommodate everybody, and that will only come with an obnoxious screen count.

Assuming they're not going to rush convert parts of the film to 3-D, where does W.B. from here? They need to maximize 1) midnight & 3 AM's, when they have the theater to itself. 2) Screen count through weekend. What to do?

1. Make more takes available for presale ASAP, especially midnights. Midnight shows have ALREADY sold out, when made available. Midnights very well may make up the difference in 3-d sales for TDKR. They need them to be on sale ASAP, to get maximum sell outs. In order to send the message that theater owners to clear screens for TDKR, early sell outs need to happen.

2. Step their game up marketing. Not that it has been bad, but this next month, TDKR really needs to be everywhere.

3. Come release day, use presales & tracking from deafening hype to boost screen count. As far as I know, the current record for screens is 11,500 belonging to PIRATES 3, 5 years ago. It is due to get decimated. W.B. need to legit topit by several thousand.

Is the idea of
-45 million in midnights, 3 AMS, and 6 AMs
-60 million during the day
-65 million saturday
-50 million sunday:
=220 million opening weekend

possible? yes. But it would, truly, be the most impressive opening weekend in the history of the box office, Either way, W.B. have to be upset with themselves for not going for the $15 3 -d tickets, at this point.

Nah they did the right thing. TDKR would suck in 3D, being that dark and all.

Quality before butts in seats imo.

Posted Imagecory, on 07 May 2012 - 04:10 PM, said:

Rough ticket estimates for the record breakers:

1983: Return of the Jedi - 7.31m
1984: Temple of Doom - 7.54m
1989: Batman - 10.20m
1992: Batman Returns - 11.01m
1993: Jurassic Park - 11.36m
1995: Batman Forever - 12.13m
1997: The Lost World - 15.72m
2001: Harry Potter 1 - 15.95m
2002: Spider-Man - 19.77m
2006: Dead Man's Chest - 20.71m
2007: Spider-Man 3 - 21.70m
2008: The Dark Knight - 21.74m
2012: The Avengers - 22.15m

The fact that for the last six years the highest attended movie only is an increase of 1.4m or since 2002 is 2.4m shows there is indeed a cap for how high it can go, not that I needed to be told, but some people need reminding. Using an $8 ticket price, TDKR would have to have 25m people attend it, a bigger jump in 3 months than the past 10 years, to get a $200m OW.

Where's the couple people I was arguing with some time yesterday? Is this proof enough?


Someone posted that list on BO and I just used it. Did I just kill this club? I think so.

Make this a $300m opening week or something, unless Avengers breaks that barrier too, lol.

Nothing like math and logic to destroy foolish dreams.

Like I said, make it actually attainable.

No, it wouldn't if done right. Prometheus is dark.

lol "sell out every show." Digital projection allows the vast majority of theaters to add showings on the fly if demand is there. And I can guarantee you this will be on a record # of screens. Just look at Pirates 3; even with Shrek 3 on its back it still got 11k screens because the 2nd one broke the OW record. Theater owners are going to WANT this film, and want it badly.

Who says its 3D wont suck??

I really, really hope I'm wrong though.

So would you have said the same thing back in 1989, 1997, and 2002? Demand for OW will always go up until Hollywood burns to the ground.

I. (or do you say "me"?)

It is bullshit 3D isn't good for dark movies. You take the loss of light with 3D into account when making the movie, so that when you look through the glasses it has the intended darkness.

TRUE

but if the TDKR gets converted in 3D now, it will just broke the 300m O.W.

No, theatres, screens etc have only gone up since then. Obviously there was more than enough room to expand.

But then since 2002 despite any increases in screens or whatever look at how small it is, and now you expect it to increase in 3 months more than it did in 10 years?

Grasping at straws with that, 'm afraid.

What's the absolute maximum OW in terms of admissions? Like if every show in the US is sold out with theaters working 24 hours a day?

This is a great time to be a box office follower. The last truly GREAT summer box office competition was in 2002, between breakout stud Spider-man against old faithful Star Wars. That was decided in two weeks.

We now have 2 1/2 months of eager anticipation to see if TDKR can top Avengers. IDK if there has been a better time to follow the box office then right now, since ive been following it.

Will it? The majority of tickets sold are still 2D.

Let's not throw out actual trends.

$207.1m

There is a different number on this chart your ignoring:



I think TDKR is going to sell substantially more tickets than Avengers. If those numbers are accurate, i see a 3-4 million admissions increase, which is not unheard of at all. Spiderman sold 4 million more tickets than HP, LW sold 3.5 million more than BF, and B89 sold 3 million more than Indy. Those all came in relatively short periods of time,aka they were like UNTHINKABLE.

I am expecting 24.5-25 million admissions for TDKR. That wold equate 215ish.

So what's your argument then? That, not matter what a studio does with marketing, no matter how much its predecessor made and was beloved, it's physically impossible to convince more than 20-22 million people to see a film on OW?

It's going to be the same result as SM1 and AOTC except the gap will be even bigger because of 3D and the fact that Avengers doesn't have to directly compete with TDKR whereas SM1 had to deal with AOTC opening in the same month.

Avengers - $700m
TDKR - $425m

I don't see how its possible that it only does 32m at midnight.

I dunno guys. I am team TDKR but these numbers for TA are going to be pretty tough to beat. They are perfect storm type numbers. I don't believe TDKR has that this time around.

I don't view it as pessimism. $425m is more than double Batman Begins. Even when adjusted for inflation, there aren't any non-Joker Batman movies above $340m. When you look at it like that, $425m is a great result. WB would be very happy with it.