The final chapter in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy did not disappoint at the box office this past weekend. While it didn’t match the ridiculously high opening weekends of The Avengers or Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, The Dark Knight Rises set a new benchmark for 2D films with its $160.8 million debut.
It’s true that many (including myself) expected a bit more from The Dark Knight Rises, but looking back, I think we were carried away by the success of The Avengers, thinking that this other, longer (21 minutes more, so fewer showings in a day), 3D-less superhero flick could match those numbers. We were obviously wrong but make no mistake; $160.8 million is an incredible opening for this very dark and serious take on the capped crusader. Among other things, The Dark Knight Rises scored the 3rd biggest opening day of all time ($75.7 million), behind only The Avengers ($80.8 million) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($91 million), both shown in 3D. It was also the 3rd film to have a weekend debut above $150 million in 2012, a new record.
Now whether or not The Dark Knight Rises can match the $533.3 million raised by The Dark Knight 4 years ago, we’ll have to wait at least a few more days to see how the new film performs in its 2nd weekend. At this point I’m gonna say not, but it should bring in a very sizable total all things considered, and will probably end up as the 3rd highest grossing superhero flick of all time.
In 2nd place Ice Age: Continental Drift took a bigger hit then I was anticipating, down 56.2% to $20.4 million and a 10-day total of $88.8 million. The box office prospects of this film in North America are getting grimmer by the day as it’s already way behind Ice Age 2 and 3 and about even with the original, but losing ground fast. At the rate Continental Drift is going right now, even $150 million at the end of its run sounds like a pipe-dream. For the fans out there, don’t worry, the film is making crazy amounts of money around the world so I doubt Fox will stop this franchise anytime soon.
The Amazing Spider-Man in 3rd was probably the film that suffered the most at the hand of The Dark Knight Rises this weekend, down a terrible 68.6% with a lousy $10.8 million. So far the reboot has made $228.6 million after 20 days, running $66.5 million behind Spider-Man, $76.7 million behind Spider-Man 2 and $59.3 million behind Spider-Man 3. But then again, none of those had to face-off against the juggernaut that is The Dark Knight Rises. The Amazing Spider-Man seems to be headed for $260-270 million now.
Ted was also hit pretty hard in 4th, down 55.3% with $10 million and a new total of $180.4 million. Knowing Universal and how much they need hits like this one, Ted 2 is certainly something that will happen in the not-so-distant future.
Brave rounds out the top 5 with $6 million for $208.7 million so far, making this the 10th Pixar animation to cross the $200 million milestone. As far as original films for the studio go, Brave is currently their 7th biggest one yet, unadjusted for inflation.
