When there is a recession, Cinema usually cheers everyone up and the movie industry seems to go through something of a renaissance, and so it may appear with a number of this Summer’s movie, in particular the Batman sequel, The Dark Knight, which broke all box office opening weekend records reaching $158 million compared to Spider-Man 3’s $151 million.
Interestingly a week or so later it has almost doubled that, with a second week almost as big as its first, mostly because it is getting a huge verbal recommendation. A year prior to Spider-Man was the turn of Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man’s Chest, to take the Summer prize. Although all three opened at over 4,000 Cinemas, the number each year is always slightly higher and the Dark Knight opened at 4,366 on its first weekend, and brought in an average of over $36,000 for each place it opened, according to figures from Box Office Mojo.
Part of the appeal was critical acclaim, which obviously came too late for Heath Ledger who played the Joker, who died of an accidental drug overdose after filming the part. Another part of the appeal will be the way the film was marketed, and some of this will be down to a miserable US economy, when everyone wants to forget and go to the pictures.
The next best hits this season are Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal skull, and Iron Man, which both came out back in May and did only around $100 million for their opening weekends. This season then drops a long way to Wall-E, on $63 million, Hancock on $62 million and Kung Fu Panda on $60 million for their opening weekends, all less than stellar, and this Summer is not looking like a record period.
The question that emerges is how long will it be before this number is beaten again, given the conditions of the US, just entering a property and banking based business collapse means that less money may be risked on a blockbuster, and we may be approaching a new ceiling of what’s possible in terms of the number of cinemas that can logistically open at once with the same film?
Is this the last hurrah of the golden age of film? We think yes. To beat these numbers, and these circumstances it will need a hell of a film, and it will have to open in cinema chains that go outside of the US, in a school holiday (which are different in other countries) at a time when people still have money, but when the general business economy is miserable. It will also have to be a time when the exploitation chain of major films takes in the internet, and DVD during their first weekends, a time that is rapidly approaching. Watch the numbers ‘ next summer.