Are we giving Shatner's appearance at a con credit for Batman's box office numbers? As I recall, that movie did crazy box office everywhere.
You misunderstand me. Normally a presentation like Tim Burton's one for Batman would have put about 2000-2500 people in the room, with about a third leaving immediately afterward because the next presenter was "only" Harve Bennett. But because Shatner followed Bennett, no one left, while an extra 1000 or so were there early and saw the Batman presentation. The volume of people in the room mushroomed until is was SRO, something that convention had rarely experienced up to that point.
Because so many were present for the Batman presentation, the word of mouth about it in Denver was phenomenal, with several local reviewers having to do research on the character far beyond the typical "Bang Pow, it's the TV Show on the Movie Screen" crap that superhero movies had gotten up to that point. One local reviewer in fact was raked over the coals for misidentifying the character of Vicki Vale as having been created for the film, when she had been part of the Batman cast since 1942.
None of this would have happened if Shatner hadn't been a presenter at that convention, with Batman coming out that summer. So yes, in a sense,
in Denver, Shatner boosted the box office for Batman.
