And it's on pace to challenge Titanic for the highest grossing box office total of all time. The only problem is that Titanic does not really hold the title.
Batman Still Behind Titanic's Box Office
James Cameron’s epic tragedy about the doomed passenger liner raked in over 600 million dollars in North America during its theatrical run, far ahead of the 460 million by second-place Star Wars.
But the people writing these bold box office headlines forget that these numbers do not factor inflation in the final total. Titanic made 600 million between 1997 and 1998, a time when both the value of the dollar and price of a movie ticket differed greatly from today.
Rise of Movie Ticket Prices Helps Dark Knight
According to the National Association of Theatre Owners, the average ticket price for 2007 stood at $6.88, and it is has only risen since then. Compare that price with the average 1997 price of $4.59. The Dark Knight got over two dollars more per ticket than Titanic.
And this is only the average. The average ticket price is New York City sits closer to eleven dollars for a non-matinee showing. Then there is IMAX. The Dark Knight currently plays in over 90 IMAX screens across the country, and those tickets are over 15 dollars each. With The Dark Knight playing to sell-out IMAX crowds, the extra cost gave a small but important boost to its overall cume.
However, if the record books ignore the ten-year difference in ticket prices, The Dark Knight would not be first even if it passed Titanic’s 600 million. There is also inflation.
Inflated Box Office Records
Adjusted for inflation by boxofficemojo.com, James Cameron and Leo fangirls might be shocked to know that Titanic would only be sixth all-time. The real victor is Gone with the Wind. In today’s money, the classic film would have grossed 1.4 billion to Titanic’s 908 million.
Both numbers are out of reach, even for a more as wildly loved as The Dark Knight. One reason belongs to a business where theatre attendance had declined every year since 2002. Another might involve the lack of box office stamina with most current movies.
Event movies from the past few years tend to be frontloaded, with its most anxious fans rushing to see the film as soon as humanly possible. The opening weekend is now a banner headline in newspapers across the country. If a highly-publicized movie fails to break box office records on its opening weekend, it might be considered a failure.
This wasn’t always the case.
Opening Weekends Now Cause for Most Ticket Sales
Terminator 2: Judgment Day stands as a good example. It opened on the Fourth of July weekend in 1991, not considering inflation, to 31.4 million in 2,274 theatres. This translates to a per-screen average of almost 14,000 dollars.
These aren’t eye-popping numbers, but it also did not rely on its opening weekend for the majority of its gross. It got steady business over a long theatrical run, and the film managed to make over 204 million in 1991. Its opening weekend accounted for 15 percent of its gross. Spiderman 3, the former owner of biggest single box-office weekend, received 45 percent of its gross from its opening weekend.
Today’s films make most of their money in the first three weeks. The Dark Knight may have had a terrific ten days, but it seems most likely that it won’t be attacking anymore records.
Realistically, Batman and The Joker should run out of gas, far below Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara, the true box office champions.
