Originally Posted by Deadline

Warner Bros sources tell me now they’re seeing no decrease in movie ticket grosses for The Dark Knight Rises. “What happened in Colorado is a tragedy, make no mistake about it. But East Coast numbers are coming in like nothing ever happened. We grossed half a million dollars by 10 AM just in Manhattan.” One reason for that is because most of today’s grosses, and a good portion of this weekend’s, consisted of $30M in pre-sales. So whether moviegoers show up or not to the theaters doesn’t matter: they still paid for their tickets. The real-time effect of the Aurora movie theater shooting likely won’t be felt at the box office until Saturday at the earliest and more likely Sunday and next week and next weekend as pre-release sales decrease. “One incident, as horrific as it is, does not necessarily cause people to want to change their patterns,” a Warner Bros exec explained to me. “Young people still want to go to movie theaters and they still want to see this movie.”

Meanwhile, the official North American midnights number for The Dark Knight Rises is public now: it opened with $30.640M from 3,825 locations (for $8,010 per location). Included in the overall total are IMAX grosses of $2.232M from 330 locations (for $7,041 per location). This 2D midnights number shatters the $18.4M midnights generated by 3D Marvel’s The Avengers earlier this summer. Still, with international grosses from 9 countries totalling $10.4M, that’s already $71M worldwide for the mega-pic before it’s even in wide release today. Remember that the largest grossing 2D North American opening weekend ever remains 2008′s The Dark Knight at $158M – and there’s no doubt The Dark Knight Rises will beat that. (Not adjusted for inflation or higher ticket prices). But can it beat Avengers‘ all-time $207.4M collected from 2D, Digital 3D, RealD, and IMAX 3D theaters?

At its widest release, The Dark Knight Rises will debut in 4,404 domestic theaters from Friday through Sunday, including 332 IMAX locations. Hollywood now believes chances are slim that The Dark Knight Rises now can beat The Avengers weekend record because of the fear, panic, and security concerns resulting from today’s movie theater shooting. [And, yes, I know it seems callous for me to post about the tragedy in relationship to box office. But this is an entertainment business website that tracks movie grosses.]

Originally Posted by LosingMyMind

Thread title should have been "The Dark Knight gases the competition and kills his way to victory."

Originally Posted by Groucho

I'm guessing that most people pre-ordered their tickets for this weekend.

Originally Posted by The Valeyard

WARNER BROS. PULLS "DARK KNIGHT RISES" TV SPOTS

During Thursday's midnight release of "The Dark Knight Rises" at Century 16 Movie Theaters in Aurora, Colorado, a masked gunman entered the theater and opened fire, resulting in 12 fatalities and 59 injuries. According to ABC News, the tragic incident is the largest mass shooting in U.S. history, and although Warner Bros. initially stated that the shooting would not hinder the release of the anticipated summer blockbuster, a red carpet premiere and cast interviews in Paris have already been cancelled. Now, Variety reports the studio has pulled TV and radio spots advertising the film that were scheduled to run over the weekend.

Warner Bros. is expected to communicate with media partners about long-term plans for the highly anticipated final chapter in director Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. The tragedy has caused the studio to reevaluate its entire marketing campaign, pulling millions of dollars worth of advertising in a move which may be indicative of how much the shooting will affect what is arguably Warner's biggest film of the year.

Sources report that in some cases, "The Dark Knight Rises" television spots will be replaced by advertisements for other Warner Bros. or Time Warner products
Comic Book Resources

Originally Posted by fumanstan

That just seems like a move to say "look at us, we're being respectful!" given that everyone is going to see the movie regardless of advertising at this point.

Originally Posted by Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: I’ve just been told by a Warner Bros spokeswoman that the studio may do this “out of sensitivity to people”. Through midday today the studio was reporting The Dark Knight Rises grosses internationally and domestically as usual. Now it may suspend its box office reporting all weekend for Christopher Nolan’s final Batman trilogy installment. A final decision has not yet been made. It would be a highly unusual step for a company in the movie business that’s part of publicly owned Time Warner. And it is certainly the studio’s right to stay mute the rest of the weekend. However, the numbers will still get out because every Hollywood studio follows Rentrak’s reporting of grosses. So rival studios will tell reporters like me how The Dark Knight Rises is doing.

Originally Posted by fumanstan

That just seems like a move to say "look at us, we're being respectful!" given that everyone is going to see the movie regardless of advertising at this point.

Originally Posted by KillerCannibal

Reports are saying this did around $80-85m today. By comparison, The Avengers did $62.1m on its first Friday.

Originally Posted by Mr. Cinema

Where did you get that $62.1 mil figure? BOM has $80.8 million for The Avengers' Friday opening.

Originally Posted by Deadline

FRIDAY 6 PM, 9TH UPDATE: No major changes to report except that The Dark Knight Rises is running less today than Marvel’s The Avengersbut had more midnight business. So the two films are running neck and neck. Here are the Top Five films as of 6 PM:

1. The Dark Knight Rises (Legendary/Warner Bros) NEW [4,404 Theaters]
Friday $80M, Weekend $180M

2. Ice Age 4 (Blue Sky/Fox) Week 2 [3,886 Theaters]
Friday $7.5M, Weekend $25M, Cume $93.4M

3. The Amazing Spider-Man (Columbia/Sony) Week 3 [4,318 Theaters]
Friday $4M, Weekend $14M, Cume $231.7M

4. Ted (MRC/Universal) Week 4 [3,214 Theaters]
Friday $3.6M, Weekend $12M, Cume $182.4M

5. Brave (Pixar/Disney) Week 5 [2,899 Theaters]
Friday $2.5M, Weekend $8.5M, Cume $211.2M

Originally Posted by d2cheer

195 mill for the weekend... not going to hit $200 mill...

Originally Posted by RichC2

Only a $180m opening? Somebody's getting fired.

Originally Posted by Dragon Tattoo

Even if it doesn't hit the Avengers numbers, won't it still have technically done more business, since it doesn't have 3D artificially inflating its ticket prices?

See, this is what I don't get. It will no doubt have more viewers than The Avengers, but someone it won't be seen as a success for some ridiculous reason like 3D ticket prices.

Originally Posted by Dragon Tattoo

Even if it doesn't hit the Avengers numbers, won't it still have technically done more business, since it doesn't have 3D artificially inflating its ticket prices?

See, this is what I don't get. It will no doubt have more viewers than The Avengers, but someone it won't be seen as a success for some ridiculous reason like 3D ticket prices.