What Will TDK's Final (Domestic) Box Office Total Be?

[Frontier]

Dark Knight is basically a lock to surpass Spider-Man and become #1.

Already has.

You can't count inflation. If you count inflation with box office intake, you must count inflation with salaries, production budget, gas prices, food prices, et cetera.

You can't even count based on ticket sales, as habits of people change towards motion pictures over the years.

You've got to just count it as it is. TDK has made the most of any comic book or superhero film. Period.

 

[Galactus]

Ok for arguments sake, let's say everything else you say is true, how in the world can you not want to count ticket sales. That is the one number that tells you exactly how many people went to see your movie. That is the real number that tells you how popular your movie was with the movie going public.

 

[Lumen]

Dark Knight is basically a lock to surpass Spider-Man and become #1.

Already has.

You can't count inflation. If you count inflation with box office intake, you must count inflation with salaries, production budget, gas prices, food prices, et cetera.

I think that's silly economically. In every other industry, and for every other reliable index or measure we want to use for anything important, we always adjust for inflation. Numbers become meaningless otherwise.

You wouldn't need to adjust for inflation of salaries, production budget, gas prices, etc., because all of that is built in to ticket prices; markets embed inflation expectations. Likewise, you don't need to account for income growth or anything like that, because wage growth is built in to normal measures of inflation. $3 million when the average person earned $10/day is obviously not the same $3 million that The Dark Knight made on Tuesday. To use an example, it makes little sense to say that artist salaries have increased by (for instance) 1000% in the last two decades than it does to index that number against inflation, and the same is true for box office numbers. And it might make even more sense not to index artist salaries against inflation, but against the size of the industry, since any increases in nominal salaries will be exaggerated by any industry-growth that exceeds the economy as a whole.

But I digress.

You can't even count based on ticket sales, as habits of people change towards motion pictures over the years.

I think you just have to accept that people's habits change. Realistically, there are only so many things we can adjust for. The purchasing power of the film's gross, the actual value of what it took in, seems like a reasonable thing to adjust for. Ticket sales don't reflect as much information, IMO, because they don't convey how much people were willing to pay to see the film.

Most measures use ticket price inflation specifically, but I disagree with that. With varying ticket prices, using actual inflation makes more sense to me; then you've got easily accessible measures of how many people saw the movie and how much people were willing to pay, relative to the purchasing power of their money at that time, to see any movie. That's why I don't feel ticket sales mean much.

You've got to just count it as it is. TDK has made the most of any comic book or superhero film. Period.

It looks like it'll get there either way, and this isn't really an important issue. I'm probably one of the few people this matters to.

 

[chrisspringob]

Dark Knight is basically a lock to surpass Spider-Man and become #1.

Already has.

You can't count inflation. If you count inflation with box office intake, you must count inflation with salaries, production budget, gas prices, food prices, et cetera.

You can't even count based on ticket sales, as habits of people change towards motion pictures over the years.

You've got to just count it as it is. TDK has made the most of any comic book or superhero film. Period.

I do count inflation with those other things. What's your point? You're right that people's habits change towards movies over time, but that's an argument for not comparing movies released in different years at all. If you are going to compare them, you should at least index for inflation, so that you have a consistent metric. Using, say, 1989 dollars for one movie, and 2008 dollars for another movie makes no sense.

 

[Tulin]

Have you seen "Pineapple Express"?

No.

Regardless of the rest of your answer, I wonder how you would respond to someone who judged The Dark Knight without seeing it? Say...by saying they don't like comic book movies? Honestly...

Damn you and your logic.

 

[Jax]

"The Dark Knight" did not deserve to fall to second behind any film entitled "Pineapple Express" - let alone a film of limited intelligence.

Have you seen "Pineapple Express"?

I hate it when people think Comedies can't be good movies and that all movies should be serious and intelligence. Movies are for all of us to relax and indulge ourselves with (what ever genre you like).

 

[Frontier]

Ok for arguments sake, let's say everything else you say is true, how in the world can you not want to count ticket sales. That is the one number that tells you exactly how many people went to see your movie. That is the real number that tells you how popular your movie was with the movie going public.

In 1939, "Gone With the Wind" sold a massive amount of tickets. Thing is, in 1939, there was no TV. No DVD. No Video. No Computer. In short, very very very little to do for pure "entertainment" in the same vein as going to a movie. How many of those tickets sold where people seeing the film again and again and again because it was more or less a monopoly on the market for entertainment at the time?

Look at sports records. They've all pretty much been broken by people pumped up with chemicals. But they've still been broken. To compare/contrast, and say, "Well, this guy did this, but he didn't have this, so this is really fair, and..." blah blah. You'd never get to a consensus. You would never break a record. You would spend years going back and forth debating who really broke what and when you decided, half the people would disagree with you.

Which is why they don't count inflation and such at the box office. Counting inflation is only done as a "hypothetical" - a "what if" scenario. It's not meant to be a true measure.

I hate it when people think Comedies can't be good movies and that all movies should be serious and intelligence. Movies are for all of us to relax and indulge ourselves with (what ever genre you like).

Correction. I do not think modern comedies reliant upon crude and/or drug and/or sex and/or bodily function humor are good. A true comedy film can be fantastic and on par with any drama. It's just no one has really made a true comedy in about 15-20 years. It's all fart jokes, ejaculation jokes, fuck jokes, pot jokes... it's sad, really.

 

[Galactus]

It would also be like saying, how well would this movie had done if one of the main actors had not died a tabloid death, overdosing, nude, in his apt, and the first person called was not another tabloid darling, hmmmm.

 

[chrisspringob]

Ok for arguments sake, let's say everything else you say is true, how in the world can you not want to count ticket sales. That is the one number that tells you exactly how many people went to see your movie. That is the real number that tells you how popular your movie was with the movie going public.

In 1939, "Gone With the Wind" sold a massive amount of tickets. Thing is, in 1939, there was no TV. No DVD. No Video. No Computer. In short, very very very little to do for pure "entertainment" in the same vein as going to a movie. How many of those tickets sold where people seeing the film again and again and again because it was more or less a monopoly on the market for entertainment at the time?

Again, I would say that's an argument against comparing movies from different eras *at all*. But if one insists on comparing them, one might as well use a consistent metric. Ticket sales is one metric. Inflation adjusted dollars is another such metric. Non-inflation adjusted dollars is a stupid metric (IMHO), which doesn't really mean anything.

I'm not even trying to compare movies from as far back as 1939. I was saying that The Dark Knight hadn't yet caught up to Spider-Man (from just six years ago) in inflation-adjusted dollars. Comparing a 2008 movie to a 2002 movie in either ticket sales or inflation-adjusted dollars is invalid, but comparing them in non-inflation-adjust dollars is somehow OK? You've lost me there.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Ok for arguments sake, let's say everything else you say is true, how in the world can you not want to count ticket sales. That is the one number that tells you exactly how many people went to see your movie. That is the real number that tells you how popular your movie was with the movie going public.

In 1939, "Gone With the Wind" sold a massive amount of tickets. Thing is, in 1939, there was no TV. No DVD. No Video. No Computer. In short, very very very little to do for pure "entertainment" in the same vein as going to a movie. How many of those tickets sold where people seeing the film again and again and again because it was more or less a monopoly on the market for entertainment at the time?

Do you honestly think people weren't entertained before movies were invented?

Books, theater, music, sporting events, traveling, among many other things were there to entertain long, long before movies. The only thing you got going for you in that argument is the novelty factor.

 

[CorporalClegg]

^
I don't that that's what he meant.

I'm pretty sure he was speaking specifically of movies.

 

[Frontier]

It would also be like saying, how well would this movie had done if one of the main actors had not died a tabloid death, overdosing, nude, in his apt, and the first person called was not another tabloid darling, hmmmm.

Wow. You've just got not class, do you?

Why the bug up your butt over this film being successful? Who are you, Tim Burton? Sam Raimi?

 

[Dream]

It would also be like saying, how well would this movie had done if one of the main actors had not died a tabloid death, overdosing, nude, in his apt, and the first person called was not another tabloid darling, hmmmm.

Wow. You've just got not class, do you?

Why the bug up your butt over this film being successful? Who are you, Tim Burton? Sam Raimi?

Maybe he is just sick to death of the hype?

 

[Frontier]

It would also be like saying, how well would this movie had done if one of the main actors had not died a tabloid death, overdosing, nude, in his apt, and the first person called was not another tabloid darling, hmmmm.

Wow. You've just got not class, do you?

Why the bug up your butt over this film being successful? Who are you, Tim Burton? Sam Raimi?

Maybe he is just sick to death of the hype?

So, because he's sick of the hype, he can be crass and callus?

Because he's sick of the hype, what, we shouldn't talk about it?

If he's so sick of the hype, maybe he should stop reading topics about it.

 

[Tulin]

It would also be like saying, how well would this movie had done if one of the main actors had not died a tabloid death, overdosing, nude, in his apt, and the first person called was not another tabloid darling, hmmmm.

It was nice knowing you.

 

[JacksonArcher]

It would also be like saying, how well would this movie had done if one of the main actors had not died a tabloid death, overdosing, nude, in his apt, and the first person called was not another tabloid darling, hmmmm.

Wow. You've just got not class, do you?

Why the bug up your butt over this film being successful? Who are you, Tim Burton? Sam Raimi?

Maybe he is just sick to death of the hype?

I'll remember that when you die.

 

[Dream]

Wow. You've just got not class, do you?

Why the bug up your butt over this film being successful? Who are you, Tim Burton? Sam Raimi?

Maybe he is just sick to death of the hype?

I'll remember that when you die.

Why so serious?

 

[Galactus]

It was not my intention to be crass or callus, I was just stating the facts. TDK may be a great movie, maybe the best movie ever made, but that is not the reason it is making a lot of money. Plenty of movies have made a lot of money, but that doesn't mean they were good.

I think TDK is making a lot of money because it is a movie that Batfans can absolutely go crazy over and love, and it has that X-factor that makes the rest of the public want to go see it.

The hype of the movie doesn't bother me at all. I wish I could get a movie like TDK of the things I like such as Superman (guess I have that), Transformers, GI Joe, just to name a few.

At this point I just want to see what the final tally will be.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

The Dark Knight made an estimate of $5 million on Friday, which is a bit higher than I expected, so my earlier prediction of $12-$15 million seems very likely.

Tropic Thunder and The Clone Wars made $8.2 million and $6.25 million, respectively.

 

[Frontier]

^ Ah well, guess it couldn't stay number one forever.

At least it sort of required 2 new films to take it down. If even 1/3rd of the people seeing Clone Wars had opted for Dark Knight, it would still be a tight race, and TDK might have even held on against Tropic Thunder alone.