‘Dark Knight’ plans rerelease
Batman wants an Oscar.
More literally, Warner Bros. wants a statuette — or 10 — for “The Dark Knight.” So the studio plans to rerelease its blockbuster Batman sequel in January, the height of Academy Awards voting season.
“It’s just a matter of bringing it back as a reminder for people,” a studio insider said.
Warners domestic distribution president Dan Fellman acknowledged ongoing talks with Imax executives about the prospect of restoring the Christian Bale starrer to some number of giant-screen venues in January. It’s uncertain if “Dark Knight” also will reappear in conventional venues at that point.
Directed by Christopher Nolan, the film’s huge commercial and critical success has spurred talk of possible Oscar nominations for its director, producers and cast — most specifically Bale’s co-star, Health Ledger, for the late actor’s edgy performance as the Joker.
- from THR
“Dark Knight” reigns as new Imax king
The Imax-format release of Warner Bros.’ “The Dark Knight” has blown past “The Polar Express” as the giant-screen exhibitor’s top first-run release.
Imax also touted the Batman sequel’s having passed an average tally of $400,000 per screen on the company’s 139 worldwide screens.
“The Dark Knight has shown the power of the Imax experience when partnered with a filmmaker and a studio that get it,” Imax Filmed Entertainment chief Greg Foster said.
Directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale, “Dark Knight” has rung up more than $925 million worldwide including $55 million in Imax grosses. That compares to the $45 million fetched by the Imax 3-D version of Warners/Imax’s seasonal favorite “The Polar Express,” which was distributed in both conventional and Imax 3-D formats in 2004.
That first worldwide theatrical run for “Polar” capped off at about $285 million, but the Tom Hanks-starring movie has been re-released in Imax 3-D every holiday season. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, “Polar” will unspool in about two dozen Imax 3-D venues over Thanksgiving, with its four-year cumulative box office grosses in Imax 3-D approaching $70 million.
- from Reuters
Guy Pearce as the Riddler in Batman 3?
In a recent sit down with MTV News, Guy Pearce (long mentioned as a potential candidate due to his relationship with the “Memento” helmer) stated to us that he’d be interested in looking at the role (or any role in the film) so long as Christopher Nolan was still on board as director.
“I’d love to work with Chris again,” said Pearce. “There hasn’t been any discussion, we’ll have to wait and see. I have a lot of reluctance [to playing a superhero or villain], but doing it with someone like Chris Nolan would certainly make it appealing.”
- from MTV
‘Tropic Thunder’ Leads Box Office For Third Week, While ‘Dark Knight’ Tops $500 Million
The Box-Office Top Five
#1 “Tropic Thunder” ($14.3 million)
#2 “Babylon A.D.” ($12 million)
#3 “The Dark Knight” ($11 million)
#4 “The House Bunny” ($10.5 million)
#5 “Traitor” ($10 million)There’s an old rule of fashion that says you’re not supposed to wear white after Labor Day. Rival studios might want to seriously think about convincing Robert Downey Jr. that the adage is supposed to say black.
Downey and Ben Stiller’s “Tropic Thunder” continued its late-summer dominance over the holiday weekend, scoring $14.3 million to lead the American box office for the third consecutive week. In doing so, the action parody bested four new wide releases and boosted its overall total to $86.6 million — or about one dollar for every time I’ve heard someone use the phrase “full retard” within the last month. (Note to pop-culture savants: It’s not funny anymore.)
Also not laughing this weekend: Vin Diesel (and anyone who saw “Disaster Movie”). Already extensively ragged on by its director, Mathieu Kassovitz, Diesel’s sci-fi epic “Babylon A.D.” failed to catch on with audiences either, managing less than $10 million for the three-day weekend and just $12 million including the holiday. Oh well, there’s always “The Chronicles of Riddick II,” Mr. Diesel. Or another “Pacifier” movie, for that matter. Frankly, I want to see both about the same amount. Which is to say, not at all.
- from MTV
Hollywood endures summertime blues
The lucrative summer moviegoing season in North America ended on a lackluster note on Monday as ticket sales limped to a new record while attendance slumped to a three-year low.
The U.S. Labor Day holiday weekend, which marks the traditional end of summer, was led for a third round by “Tropic Thunder.” Ben Stiller’s Hollywood satire earned an estimated $14.3 million during the four-day period. It marks the lowest tally for a Labor Day holiday chart-topper since 2004, when the martial-arts film “Hero” opened to $11.5 million.
The DreamWorks/Paramount comedy, which Stiller directed and stars in alongside Robert Downey, Jr., has earned about $86.6 million to date. Four new entries were largely ignored, with 20th Century Fox’s Vin Diesel sci-fi picture “Babylon A.D.” coming in at No. 2 with just $12 million.
The overall picture for summer was not particularly shiny, with a 4 percent rise in the average U.S. ticket price to $7.16 saving the day for the movie industry.
Estimated sales inched up 0.43 percent from last year’s record to $4.2 billion, while the number of tickets sold slid 3.5 percent to 586.9 million, according to tracking firm Media By Numbers. The previous low for attendance was in 2005, when 563 million tickets were sold.
- from Reuters
‘Dark Knight’ continues global streak
“The Dark Knight” remained potent overseas, easily leading the weekend with $19 million at 6,580 playdates in 62 markets, while “Mamma Mia!” stayed stellar outside the United States.
With summer ending, “Dark Knight” has cumed $416.7 million offshore to became the 30th pic to pass the $400 million mark in international cume. Warner Bros.’ sixth Batpic continued to show decent traction from holdover biz with its German soph sesh off 48% to $4.4 million and its third French frame down only 31% to $3.3 million.
Combined with its sensational domestic performance, “The Dark Knight” has totaled $919 million worldwide and become only the 10th pic to go past $900 million by that measure. It’s the second-best foreign performer this year, trailing only “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” with $466 million.
- from Variety
Hollywood asks: who needs Harry Potter?
Boy wizard Harry Potter won’t be whipping up his magic when the fall film season begins next week, but Hollywood is hoping momentum from summer hits like “The Dark Knight” and a wide mix of new movies will keep audiences happy into the holidays.
Two weeks ago, Warner Bros. yanked “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” from a November release and pushed it to next July, which could spell trouble at box offices because the previous four “Potter” films averaged $920 million in worldwide ticket sales. That is a lot of movie magic.
But a range of films from broad comedies such as “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” to thrillers like “Eagle Eye” and art house fare including “Flash of Genius” could sustain the summer upswing, studio executives and box office watchers said.
“You’ve got it all,” said Paul Dergarabedian of box office tracker Media By Numbers, when assessing the outlook from September through mid-November, when the new James Bond flick, “Quantum of Solace,” kicks off holiday season moviegoing.
Last year, Hollywood also came off a strong summer after raking in a record $4.18 billion in North American receipts, but then came a slate filled with war films such as “In the Valley of Elah” and dark dramas that tanked at box offices.
When the summer movie season officially ends on Monday’s U.S. Labor Day holiday, box office watchers again expect a summer tally of over $4 billion. A good chunk of that comes from the blockbuster Batman sequel “The Dark Knight.”
This fall Hollywood seems to have learned a lesson from its bleak 2007 as it dishes up such light-hearted entries as Joel and Ethan Coen’s wacky new comedy “Burn After Reading” starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney; the animated sequel “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa”; and Disney’s latest teen confection, “High School Musical 3: Senior Year.”
- from Reuters
Anatomy of a Hit: ‘The Dark Knight’
Sue Kroll had been in her job as Warner Bros. president of worldwide marketing for less than a week when her office phone rang. A friend implored her to look at the news online immediately.
“At first I thought it was a rumor,” recalls Kroll of that tragic afternoon in January. “I didn’t believe it was true.”
Heath Ledger, co-star of the studio’s highly anticipated summer tentpole “The Dark Knight” and the centerpiece of Warners’ meticulously planned marketing campaign, had been found dead in his New York apartment.
On the Burbank lot that day, many more phones were about to start buzzing.
“It was just this incredibly quick sequence of calls,” Kroll remembers. She talked to producers Chuck Roven and Emma Thomas, production president Jeff Robinov and president/COO Alan Horn.
Horn’s first priority, he says, was to reach out to Ledger’s mother and father in Australia and offer his condolences. All the movie’s marketing materials would be run past the family, he promised them.
“We were already out with the ‘Why so serious?’ campaign,” he notes. “We said (to Ledger’s family), ‘Look, is this an issue? Would you like us to pull this?’ And here’s what they said: ‘Heath loved the movie, was very proud of it. This was just an accident.’ They were fine with it — more than fine, they were completely supportive.”
Nearly six months later, Ledger’s performance as the Joker helped power “The Dark Knight” to a best-ever $18.5 million opening-night take. It was the first in a cavalcade of domestic boxoffice records shattered by a film that has survived a host of challenges to become the highest-grossing Warners release of all time ($489.4 million and counting).
“No one could have anticipated this kind of success,” Horn reflects. “It surprised us. And, once in a while, it is kind of fun to be surprised on the upside.”
- from and read more at THR
Superhero summer heads for $4 billion box office
Hollywood studios are nearing the end of their summer of superheroes with domestic box office receipts expected to roughly match last year’s record $4.18 billion sum despite lower movie attendance.
Led by the blockbuster Batman sequel “The Dark Knight,” U.S.-Canadian weekend ticket sales since May 2 are running just ahead of last summer, up 1.2 percent, according to box office tracking service Media By Numbers.
But with the number of actual admissions down nearly 3 percent from a year ago, the gain in revenues is fueled mostly by higher ticket prices.
With no other huge hits on the horizon before the U.S. Labor Day holiday on September 1, the 2008 vacation season will likely draw to a close at about the same level as last year’s summer tally, which crossed the $4 billion threshold for the first time, box office analysts said.
Brandon Gray of the Web site Box Office Mojo said Hollywood suffered in the second half of summer from a mediocre film slate propped up almost entirely by the record-breaking strength of “The Dark Knight,” now closing in on $500 million.
“If ‘Dark Knight’ failed to perform way above expectations, this would have been a decidedly down summer,” Gray said.
- from Reuters