Daily Box Office Analysis
By David Mumpower
July 25, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The Dark Knight Rises earned $17,762,472 million yesterday, a decline of 8% from Monday’s $19,389,129. It once again falls two full days behind the pace of The Dark Knight, which didn’t fall under $18 million until its seventh day in theaters. There is some upside today, though. The Dark Knight fell 15% from $24,493,313 on its first Monday to $20,868,722 on its first Tuesday. So, the final Christian Bale-as-Batman movie has held a tiny bit better than its immediate predecessor.
In terms of the big picture, however, the gap between the second and third Batman movies created by Christopher Nolan has expanded yet again. After five days, The Dark Knight had already earned $203,773,518 while The Dark Knight Rises is at $198,038,896. Much was made in 2008 of The Dark Knight reaching the $200 million mark in only five days. The Dark Knight whipped the existing record of eight days set by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.
Even now, The Dark Knight is tied for second fastest behind only The Avengers’ three-day total. Two other movies have matched the five days to $200 million mark. They are Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Only a few days ago, the question was not whether The Dark Knight Rises would join this group but instead whether it could surpass The Avengers. Instead, the latest Batman movie will require six days, which is good enough for sixth place all time but also undeniably a disappointment.
Disappointment may become the lingering theme of The Dark Knight Rises. During a recent evaluation of The Avengers, I had mentioned the difficulties that Nolan’s final Batman movie would face in meeting (ridiculously unrealistic) expectations. Some of you wrote in to let me know that I was being too harsh, but I felt strongly about the subject. We have witnessed this sort of scenario several times in the past as the final movie in a trilogy disappointed the general public.
I had hoped that Nolan, a sublime talent, could avoid such difficulties. Fate had other plans and now we will never be able to separate whether The Dark Knight Rises would have struggled on its own merits versus the real life tragedy tethered to it. And as I stated yesterday, I will not engage in that theoretical supposition. All I can say definitively is that The Dark Knight Rises is not pacing as it should relative to any reasonable expectation for a sequel to one of the seminal films of this generation.
We all know the rules about such sequels by now. The quality of a movie directly correlates to the opening weekend of its successor. The Dark Knight is as beloved as any title in the 2000s. While I am not as big a fan as others here are (again, I prefer Batman Begins and Iron Man), I still consider it to be the most triumphant project of the 2000s in terms of box office, quality and lingering impact. The stage was set for The Dark Knight Rises to dominate the competition. It should have opened well in excess of The Dark Knight and demonstrated a scalding first week pace.
Instead, The Dark Knight Rises has fallen short of The Dark Knight on four consecutive days. Also, if we remove midnight revenue from the equation, the 2008 release also did better on the actual Friday as well. Yes, there is an explanation for this and a heart-breaking one at that. We have to accept the events of Aurora as a part of the conversation moving forward, perhaps even a cornerstone. There is no means through which consumers can distinguish The Dark Knight Rises from a shooting at an exhibition of The Dark Knight Rises. So, there is reason for potential customers to wait an appropriate time to see the movie in theaters. This is the problem Warner Bros. faces from this point forward.
You are probably aware of the impending debut of The Olympics. This will be a key portion of the Daily Box Office Analysis over the next couple of weeks. The question of how much this event impacts movie attendance impacts box office is an inevitable topic. The answer is yes with the more interesting discussion being how much. In other words, box office revenue will hurt by a global event of tremendous intrigue. This event begins during the second weekend of The Dark Knight Rises (technically, it started this morning as my TiVos already recorded a lot of soccer). Yes, on the heels of a tragedy that impacted its first weekend in release, it faces a second hurdle in its second weekend, albeit a much happier one. In short, I am struggling to identify ways that The Dark Knight Rises can regain momentum.
The hope would be that some of the consumers who were unwilling to watch The Dark Knight Rises on opening weekend will feel more comfortable after a few days. The news coverage eventually will move away from the recent catastrophe in Aurora to the more uplifting story of The Olympics. At this point, perhaps consumers will differentiate the latest Batman film from the actions of a monster. In terms of box office, this is the hope for Warner Bros. moving forward. Realistically, it is a Harvey Dent coin flip whether The Dark Knight Rises has an exceptional second weekend holdover. The combination of negative news and the opening ceremonies for The Olympics could still discourage consumers. If the latter is true, the final domestic performance of The Dark Knight Rises will fall far short of expectations.
Unlike The Dark Knight Rises, the rest of the top ten performed as expected from Monday to Tuesday. All nine titles increased between 14% (Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Protection) and 36% (Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted). Combined box office for the top ten was $28.9 million. This amount represents an increase of 2% from Monday’s $28.2 million. Given that The Dark Knight Rises comprises a whopping 60% of that revenue and that it fell $1.6 million from Monday, the overall increase is quite impressive.