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MONDAY AM: Bigger… Bigger… BIGGEST! The Dark Knight‘s weekend tally was more than first thought — a record-setting $158.3M, according to Warner Bros. That comfortably beats Spider-Man 3‘s $151.1M for best-ever 3-day non-holiday weekend. The latest Batman installment’s Sunday take of $43M was down only -8% compared to Saturday’s and set the best-ever Sunday total for its 9th record. Its 10th record will beat the all-time first week tally.
SUNDAY 8PM UPDATE: I’ve just been told by unofficial sources that Warner Bros’ The Dark Knight is playing to packed Sunday performances for over $40M and maybe as high as $43M. That would mean a 9th record since Spider-Man 3‘s Sunday take in 2007 was a best ever $39.9M. It’s also now abundantly clear that the Warner Bros caped crusader will crush the old 3-day weekend non-holiday record set by Spidey 3 last year. So rival studios were wrong to question whether Warner Bros’ Sunday numbers were too aggressive! Also, Dark Knight should break its 9th record by beating the all-time weekly tally. Meanwhile, in its first six days, DK will have grossed more than the entire run of Batman Begins.
See my previous, ‘Dark Knight’ Breaks Eight Film Records.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Andre, so what if Spider-Man 3 had like a 45 ticket better average? what about its 2nd weekend? It’s grosses went down by almost $100 million from 1st-2nd weekend cuz everyone told everyone they knew that it sucked. The Dark Knight will sell more total tickets. Bank on it.
Oh, and prices have only went up $0.25 where I’m at, and they are like $9 at night with $6 matinees
So when do we start guessing what next weekend’s gross is going to be? Maybe $54 million?
Actuals are in.
158,411,483
So much for the accusations of WB padding the estimates. And that probably is enough to cover the modest increase in ticket prices over the past year as well.
Saw _Dark Knight_ sunday, LOVED IT. Anyone talking it down is an imbecile or has an agenda. And if you bring your underage kids to it, you’re _definitely_ an imbecile. It’s a hard PG-13, but def not an R (though I can imagine a DVD having an R cut)..
And yeah, this has been a pretty good movie year for me.. Wall-E, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Hellboy 2, TWBB, NCfOM, Iron Man (twice!).. Fingers x’d for The Spirit and Pineapple Express..
Anonymous: My results were based on the numbers Nikki provided us. The official numbers are finally out – and The Dark Knight did indeed sell more tickets… 3 more per theater LOL.
The Dark Knight: $158.4M in 4366 theater = $36282.00 per theater. $36282.00 / $7.08 (that’s the average ticket price now according to Media by Numbers) = 5124 tickets sold per theater.
Spider-Man 3: It averaged $35540.00 per theater. $35540.00 / $6.88 = 5121 tickets sold per theater.
TheaterFan: I’m obviously only taking about factual data, not what is going to happen next weekend. I agree with you that Spider-Man 3 was a bad movie and the word of mouth did indeed hurt the film in the long run. “The Dark Knight should have no problem making more money overall than Spidy 3.
But one thing is for sure: Revenge of the Sith sold more tickets for its midnight opening day than The Dark Knight. $16.5M from 2900 theater for Sith ($5690 per theater) compared to $18.5M from 3040 theaters for The Dark Knight ($6086 per theater). Back in 2005, the average ticket price was $6.21 giving Revenge of the Sith an average of 916 tickets sold per theater. The Dark Knight averaged 860 tickets sold per theater (anaverage of $7.08 for a movie ticket nowadays).
Wow, Andre
You really react to a movie in your gut, don’t you?
I was going to see Dark Knight tonight, but now I find that Revenge of the Sith (that masterpiece) sold more tickets for its midnight opening day than the Dark Knight, I may have to think again. Because these figures are what matter, aren’t they?
Andre, what exactly does per theater tell us that matters? It has no bearing on how good the movie is and also no bearing on the financial success of the movie. So why the hell should anyone care?
Might not see it now: LMAO I didn’t care for Revenge of the Sith one bit. I think The Dark Knight is a much better blockbuster film than any of the ones that got their records broken. I just care more about how many people see a movie than how much money it made. Some European markets I think rank their lists by the number of tickets sold instead of gross receipts. It makes more sense to me
Goshee…the hype never stops for this soso DK film. I suppose it can have it bragging rights until the next Spiderman entry comes out and then we will have a new champion. One thing for sure. Hopefully the studios paid close attention to WB and the maneuvering they did to get all those extra screens and of course they need to fit it into the IMAX venue and I won’t go into the deceased actor bit….
Last I heard TDK sold fewer tickets than last year Spiderman. Dollars were up because the average price of a ticket is now 7.08 as compared to some 6.00 plus last year. But that was when they were figuring the total volume to be at 155m. Now that it is 158m….humm…
This was was beyond a Comic-Book movie, it engaged the audience to care and think about its characters even The Joker. There are so many layers to this Film that i think it can even be beneficial to kids 9 and older. This film isn’t about fighting, it isn’t have very much blood if any from i can remember, and has no sex. This movie is about the Human Condition, its about the choices we make weather right or wrong and how we deal with the aftermath of it. There something special here, and i think people can get something out of if not already. It may very well be the Film of this Decade just like Titanic was in 97′, with considering theater inflation prices still has the ALL-Time Record still. Will The Dark Knight be able to DeThrown that film who knows, but I strongly believe everyone Should Push for OSCAR CONSIDERATION!!
I am sure there will be another Batman Film but I hope they do not use another actor to play “Joker” no one can do what “Heath Ledger” has done. I say they should bring in another like “Catwoman” maybe “Kim Kardashian”? She is Prett Hot IMO.
Holy Hollywood Money-Making Machine, Batman!
Batman is a fantastic character. It’s great to see him as popular as ever.
What I like about Batman, among many other things….is his no-kill philosophy.
That shows true super-hero qualities.