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UPDATED: The studio is waiting for China’s grosses to announce it officially today. But the Warner Bros’ and Legendary Pictures’ Batman trilogy finale from Christopher Nolan has hit a milestone believed out of reach just a month ago. Despite the tragic start of its run in North American theaters, The Dark Knight Rises has now grossed $431.4 million domestic and $577.7 million international for a total $1.010+ billion through Sunday. That’s ahead of the trilogy’s second installment The Dark Knight, which maxed out at $1.0003 billion worldwide in 2008 (not adjusted for inflation or higher ticket prices). Meanwhile Warner Bros is insisting that TDKR is only the 11th film to reach $1 billion in its original theatrical run – not the 12th as some charts show. Because the studio is refusing to count any asterisk-worthy extra grosses from 2D films released theatrically years later in 3D like Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. (I happen to agree… so that’s why Deadline also is counting this as only the 11th.) In terms of just 2D films, TDKR moves even higher in the rankings to 5th place since all the others benefited from 3D premiums.
Related: ‘Marvel’s The Avengers’ Passes $1.5B Mark
Hollywood even believes there’s more moolah ahead for TDKR which is still solidly in the Top 10 grossing films even now. That’s because the Aurora movie theater shooting on July 20th depressed those all-important first weeks of the movie’s ticket sales in North America. TDKR has done more business overseas than here compared to TDK which grossed $533M domestic and $469.7M abroad. On the other hand, that’s in keeping with current trends for film franchises. Meanwhile, the losses of Batman and Harry Potter make two less franchises in Warner Bros’ immediate future and puts pressure on the movie studio to come up with more new ones like The Hobbit.
For more estimates listed by title, see box office results here...Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Considering how much I loath 3D, I am thrilled that this will soon be in the top 10 of all time. Well deserved as well.
Anyone have a new franchise to bring to Warner Brothers?
They could succeed with Justice League if they take their time with it. Will they? Probably not. I guess we will see how Man of Steel turns out. However even if it’s a smash, it seems like both Nolan brothers are done with comic books for now. WB got incredibly lucky and chose extremely well on the Batman franchise. Let’s see if lightening can strike twice.
Hmm, tentpole franchise…weren’t they talking about some Tower series before passing? Oh well.
And Nolan joins Cameron as the only directors with 2 billion dollar movies under their belt.
Now who will be the director that joins Cameron with 2 two billion dollar movies?
Fantastic for The Dark Knight Rises. Perhaps the very best film of the summer. (Yes, even ahead of the Avengers!)
But think twice before rushing into a Justice League movie, Warner Bros. Marvel had to build up to the Avengers. You might want to think of employing a similar strategy.
After Green Lantern I don’t think they’ll wait to see how all the individual films do first.
The problem with that is — what happens if Justice League underperforms? Do they continue with individual spin-offs, or not?
And I hope they don’t expect the individual spin-offs to make more. I hope Marvel knows that, too. Thor 2 and Captain America 2 aren’t going to come remotely close to The Avengers.
I know I sound negative, but it’ll actually be rather exciting to see how it all shakes out now that Marvel’s strategy has paid off so massively.
Thor 2 and Captain America 2 will preform significantly better then their predecessors but neither will make 1 billion
They will do better than their processors i believe as well, but nowhere near ‘Avengers’ numbers, but they don’t have to. I see ‘Iron Man 3′ having the pontential to reach between 800-900 mil worldwide, possibly 1 billion eventhough that’s a more long shot. I think ‘Thor 2′ and ‘Cap 2′ have the potentiall to top 600+ mil worldwide, ‘Thor 2′ probally has a bigger global ceiling than ‘Cap 2′, so we’ll soon see.
Oh i agree with you there, and i believe Marvel definantly realizes that. No way the solo films can come close to touching ‘Avengers’ box office numbers.
TDKR has still made half a billion LESS than The Avengers. It wasn’t even a close contest. Who would have believed that at the start of the summer?
Lots, I believe, because Avengers is far more family-friendly, and TDKR’s longer running time assured fewer showings per day.
And don’t forget the fact that The Avengers was released in 3D. Nice try by Schloop, though.
But it’s a win-win situation for comic book films as a whole. We’ve never seen a year where one film passed 1.5 billion and another crossed 1 billion, man that’s amazing. And the quality of these films only makes it resonate more as far as i’m concerned, so congrats to ‘Avengers/Marvel/Disney’ and ‘TDKR/DC/WB’ on their success. Hell ‘TASM’ ain’t too damn shabby either with over 730+ million domestic, the best year by far for comic book films financially.
This type of article is infactual. You can’t just take away grosses because you do not like that they made more than your film. So you took away “Star Wars I” because of 2 releases, and “Avengers, Harry Potter 8, Transformers 3, Toy Story 3, Pirates 4, and Alice in Wonderland” because they are 3D. OK, Why don’t your exclude Avatar and Titanic because they clearly have a “James Cameron” advantage (& Titanic’s rerelease) and all others because there was no shooting the weekend they opened. Now Dark knight is #1!!! We need to stop blaming everything on the Aurora shooting. The film did incredible buisness. It was never going to be the next Avatar.
Ignoring more than one release is absolutely fair. Warner Bros. could spend plenty of money re-releasing TDKR every few years until it passes $1.5 billion, but then records would be skewed and reality would have to be accounted for. These milestones aren’t etched in granite somewhere. She fully explained why she, personally, wasn’t counting Star Wars Episode 1. So what’s the problem?
I do agree that the film did incredible business. Without the shooting, there definitely would’ve been a bit more upfront demand and a bit less demand in later weeks. Its current numbers seem just about right compared to pre-release expectations.
Nah, the domestic numbers would have been higher without the shootings.
TDKR was tracking at $190 million going into the weekend of its release. It made considerably less than that on opening weekend when normally I believe such tentpole pics tends to make more than the tracking estimates. For example didn’t Avengers make around $20 to $30 million more than its tracking? Also TDKR blew away the reoord for the midnight showings; the showings that occurred just before, during or just after the Aurora shootings. In other words signs were strong that it was heading towards an even more amazing weekend before the deaths in Colorado put a cloud on things nationwide. And not just for the first three days…for about the first fourteen or more. It is not out of the question the movie could have lost between $75 million to $100 million over those 14 plus days. I don’t have proof of that but isn’t it at least very possible.
I’m convinced at the very least the flick lost $50 million that it never recuperated. It is foolish to suggest that all the people who avoided it initially just ended up seeing it weeks later. That is not necessarily how human nature works, at least not when it comes to movies. When you find reasons to hold off seeing something initially it gets progressively easier to keep holding off as time goes by and the pomotion hype subsides. That’s how it was for me in terms of Spiderman, and that film did not have the burden of the Aurora shootings to scare people away. Some folks simply decided that they and their families could see the film later on Blu Ray or DVD. This is a limited sample but at work I know of three people out of five who were ready to see it week one but never got around to seeing it at all (unless they went this past weekend) after all the negativity surrounding those murders dampened their enthusiasm.
Even worse for TDKR potential fans got another strong option a week later with the start of the Olympics. Not only did the past Olympics do ridiculous ratings, it was heavily reported as being the reason for a box office malaise for at least two weekends, affecting even TDKR to an extent in the process.
Last of all TDKR did not have the advantage of getting a possibly $100 million dollar domestic boost from 3D ticket prices. And because it runs almost a half hour longer than even an already long movie like the Avengers, there were much less showings per theater, per day.
All of the reasons above may sound like “excuses” but be fair and ask yourself did the Avengers face any of the challenges/obstacles I just mentioned above? And if not doesn’t that fact give the avengers a clear advantage?
Actually, I believed that since Avengers is 7 superheroes compared to just Batman, who’s just one. But still, the proper comparison would be Justice League vs Avengers and who would make the most money there.
Read through the line here, Nikki. Which one(s) is truly Oscar worthy?
…and no 3D ticket prices
Without the 3D uptick, it’s not that big a difference and honestly not surprising at all. Also, family friendly versus a darker drama? I really don’t get the surprise.
Honestly, it’s impressive that Batman the character is the only Superhero with billion dollar films under his belt, without the help of a team or 3D.
This isn’t me attacking Avengers, just pointing out how popular Batman really has become today.
just pointing out how popular Batman really has become today.
Batman’s popularity isn’t anything new, though. The original Batman tv show was as much of a pop culture phenomenon as The Dark Knight- if not more so- inspiring everything from dances to hairstyles.
The same is true for Tim Burton’s `89 film. Today we’re used to just about every new movie having massive hype and buzz, but that wasn’t the case 20 years ago. Batman `89 stood out for being the one movie everyone HAD to see that summer.
It’s also easy to forget just how dominant the subsequent Batman movie franchise was during the 1990s. Batman was the only superhero that made other tentpole movies clear out of the way, and each one of those films were major, AAA productions. (Unlike the Superman franchise, the budget for each Batman sequel was progressively larger.)
And it still isn’t actually all that great a film.
It’s amazing that such an overblown and at times poorly constructed mess can have people calling it a masterpiece but these days it seemingly doesn’t take much.
Or perhaps your opinion isn’t objective fact, and many people simply have a different view of the film than you do…
“It’s amazing that such an overblown and at times poorly constructed mess can have people calling it a masterpiece but these days it seemingly doesn’t take much.”
That’s how I felt about folks here who went around showering 2016: Obama’s America with praise. TDKR though, was actually a great film, IMO.
Are you serious? An overblown mess? Really, I have to say that it amazes me to read these comments outside of the oafish AICN site. The movie was well-written, well-acted, fast paced with great direction, and compelling movie making that kept most of the audience on the edge of their seats. I saw several viewings that ended in spontaneous applause by the audience. How you think it was a mess is beyond me unless you have your own agenda, like working for Disney or Marvel.
Well people having a different opinion on a film would stand to reason Ben, as I alluded to. So, apart from signs of sour grapes someone doesn’t think it’s all that I’m not sure what your point was.
However, if it soothes you – IMO it still isn’t all that great a film.
Very good point!!!!
A mess? Hardly if you have an attention span above the third grade level.
Oh I agree Batman has always been popular, but I don’t think he’s ever had this much worldwide popularity like right now, I mean even with inflation, TDK outgrossed Burton’s Batman.
Never again will a super hero ever be in a series of great films. Every film from here on out is going to be interconnected to have a shared universe. This is great from a financial standpoint but not an artistic one. Nolan could do what he wanted with the characters and didn’t have to worry that it would interfere with 3 other directors. Additionally, his films where actually about something, and where not merely setting up set pieces.
Guys …. TDKR still has a chance to beat The Avengers. It’s is awaiting the official numbers from China and I am hoping the numbers come between 300-500m
True Blue – It’s precisely because I have an attention span I can see that it isn’t at all as solidly built as it’s supposed to be.
And no – I don’t work for Marvel or Disney either Under Scrutiny because The Avengers and TDKR are tonally too different to be Apples to Apples comps. Apart from having superheros in them their approaches are very different. No agenda.
So it’s a mess because YOU said so. I don’t think so. I think the box office speaks for itself, especially in the wake of the Auroa shootings. Frankly, I think it’s success just proves what a great film it was and I don’t work for DC or Warner Bros.
Ramraj, there is no way the numbers from China will be enough for it to catch Avengers, early numbers there have it opening #2 behind Spider-Man this week.
Anyway, since the “billion list” doesn’t account for inflation, I have no problem including Star Wars Ep. 1 as it actually sold more tickets than some of the films that are passing a billion now, and then you could argue The Dark Knight shouldn’t really count as while it may not have officially closed, it was only with an Avengers style expansion/re-release in the holiday season that it was able to get past a billion.
I don’t understand how someone can loath 3D? Apparently u have never seen an IMAX 3D