“Dark Knight Rises” Falls 60% from Last Weekend, Hurt by Aurora Tragedy
Despite my 18 year old friend Anna telling me she’s seen “The Dark Knight Rises” three times, the Christopher Nolan trilogy finale is having trouble at the box office. This weekend it fell 60% from last weekend, even though it took in $64 million. “TDKR” now has a total of $289 million domestically after 10 days, but it’s $32 million off the pace of “The Dark Knight” after the same number of days. Comparing its second Saturday to the second Saturday of the earlier film, “TDKR” is also off by about $3 million. I’m surprised that people are still afraid of going to theaters after the Aurora tragedies. It was a one time event, perpetrated by a lone, crazy guy. It’s not going to happen at your local cinepelex. “TDKR” is a major hit, but it’s simply not breaking the records it should have as the culmination of Nolan’s trilogy. It must be frustrating for him and for Warner Bros. Everyone should follow the example of Anna, who enters Barnard College next month. But New Yorkers will brave anything. Someone put out the bat signal.
Meantime. “The Watch,” which cost around $80 million all in, took in a meager $13 million in its first weekend. The reviews were terrible. The movie is a wash, basically. The foreign rollout begins next week, but I wouldn’t expect much unless non English speaking audiences are really starved for entertainment.
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News. Friedman previously wrote the Intelligencer column at New York Magazine, He writes for Parade magazine and has written for Details, Vogue, the New York Times, Post, and Daily News and many other publications. He is the writer and co-producer of a film about R&B Music called “Only the Strong Survive,” which was released by Miramax in 2003 and was a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals.
jp
This movie has already made over $500 million worldwide, and it is headed towards $1 billion dollars. I don’t see this a bad thing.
Teresa
In my opinion it’s not fear that is keeping people away from this movie. It’s the taint of the horrible circumstances under which it premiered and the terrible aftermath and horrifying results. This movie and any Batman movie will be forever associated with the reprehensible and cowardly acts of an evil mass murderer. People go to the movies to escape and lose themselves in the story for a few hours.They don’t want to be reminded of this massacre which is inevitable if you go see it and the experience is just too creepy and uncomfortable.