Holy bat box office!
Warner Bros. opened “The Killing Joke,” an animated R rated Batman film on Monday and made $3.1 million. Sounds good, right?
On Tuesday, “The Killing Joke” had its punchline: an 81% drop off from the day before, with just $600,000.
The audience was gone.
A 45 on Rotten Tomatoes didn’t help, but it’s worse. “The Killing Joke” is full of sex and violence. Batman and Batgirl have sex, reportedly. Last week, as fans filed out of a preview in New York, I asked them if that part was true. The fan boys came out of the screening heads in hands, nearly sobbing. They were not going back.
“The Killing Joke” is based on a graphic novel. Originally it was going to be released just on home video. But for some reason, someone at DC Comics got the idea they should put it in movie theatres for a couple of weeks. “The Killing Joke” hits DVD and Blu Ray on August 2nd. That’s a week from now. It’s going to be a long, long week.
