God,the numbers game, the numbers game! Not much to anyone’s surprise (though we didn’t really think it would break the $130 mill mark), ‘Dark Knight’ shattered all kinds of records this weekend including taking in a $155 million at the box-office breaking the all-time record previously held by “Spider-Man 3” of $151 mil. Although Nikki Finke is reporting that some studios are having issues with Warner Bros. ticket reporting, which is pause for some concern considering WB just got busted for juking the stats back in May when they wanted “Speed Racer” to look less like a disaster (and hoped it would at least outgross a stupid Ashton Kutcher romcom which it failed to do). Though some comic- book inclined sites are dismissing Finke as they don’t want to acknowledge anything other than rah, rah, rah, Batman jingoism.
We must say we don’t get the fan site super vested in the ‘Dark Knight’s success and totalitarian take over of the pop culture landscape. Yeah, we predisposed to liking certain films too, but we don’t actively root for them to become number one or go gangbusters. We just want good films to be continued to be cranked out, and we want them to make enough money so whoever directed them gets enough to make another movie, but the fanboy movie sites are a little much and going over the top with the self-interest in depicting this film as the most popular film of all time and the best film ever released. So it’s currently ranked #1 on IMDB right now. Congratulations? And? That means what exactly? It couldn’t possibly have possibly shot up there just now cause it just came out now could it? It couldn’t possibly go further down that ladder in the following weeks now could it? (like it matters regardless). Maybe it’s the difference between fans and reporters.
We liked “The Dark Knight” as much as the next guy, but like all things that get too loud and noisy, they start to become obnoxious and we could stand to never hear about this film for a few weeks. That said, their will be further pieces to write we’re sure. It’s hard to ignore the zeitgeist, and it would be sort of irresponsible to do so, but c’mon, give us a little breather please. This reminds us that we still haven’t yet seen “Spider-Man 3” and frankly, we still maintain little interest in doing so. The experience of ‘SP2’ was fun and even exhilarating at times to be sure, but that film doesn’t even hold have the gravitas of a paper weight.
Download: Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard – “Like A Dog Chasing Cars”