Dark Knight vs Titanic

Just
last week, some people were actually saying that THE DARK KNIGHT was
overhyped or that it wouldn’t live up to expectations, but what a
difference one week makes. As of this writing, only 6 days after its
initial release, KNIGHT has already made over $222M in North
American alone, beating BATMAN BEGINS’ entire domestic run
from 2005 ($205M). The film will most likely become the
highest-grossing movie of the year any day now, and continues to
break records this week, becoming the
film to reach the $200M the fastest of all-time (it took only 5
days to reach that mark…the previous record-holder was PIRATES OF
THE CARIBBEAN 3, which hit that mark in 8 days).

Pundits
(that’s schmucks like us) are predicting that by the end of next
weekend, THE DARK KNIGHT will have grossed over $300M in its
first 10 days of release, which again, would break the previous
record of 16 days, held by that PIRATES flick. More impressive is
that it took INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THOSE CRAZY MONKEYS 39
full days before it reached the $300M plateau, and IRON MAN…48
days. All that to say…this film is a-smoking!!!

So
let’s start predicting whether or not you believe that it
will beat the highest grossing movie of all-time, TITANIC,
which has held the record since 1997 with a touch over $600M. I
personally don’t think that THE DARK KNIGHT would be able to
maintain this same rhythm all the way toward that record, but then
again, you never know. It’s to note that TITANIC actually started
somewhat "slowly" back in its opening weekend, with only
$28M in its first three days of release (compared to $158M for TDK).
In fact, it took TITANIC 25 full days to reach the $200M — and
remember, it took THE DARK KNIGHT only 6 days to reach that!

The
main difference between the 2 films, of course, is that TITANIC had
"legs" and "legs" and "legs" (speaking
of legs, CHECK
THIS SHIT OUT). The James Cameron film actually spent 15
consecutive weeks at the #1 spot at one point. I repeat: it
spent close to 4 months in the #1 spot back in 1997! The movie
marketplace isn’t the same as it was back in 1997 either, with major
movies coming out every week, including 2 more this coming weekend
and then a bunch more in August.