Posts with tag The Dark Knight
Posted Oct 6th 2008 12:40PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Warner Brothers, Fandom, Newsstand, Home Entertainment, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
When
The Dark Knight hits DVD on December 9th, it will cause hysteria not seen since ... well, it hit theaters on July 18th. Part of it will be due to those devoted fans who
were buying tickets on eBay, but also be due to it receiving one heck of a release.
DVD Active gives us a few details on the DVD, and you can scope out some photos of this year's hottest stocking stuffer below.
First comes the standard 1-disc edition, for those buyers who just don't care about flashy extras or DVD art. There will be no bonus features on the one-disc, so buy carefully. True fans will be opting for the 2-disc set, which includes these delightful extras:
- Gotham Uncovered documentary
- Featurettes (Batman Tech: The Incredible Gadgets and Tools, Batman Unmasked: The Psychology of The Dark Knight)
- 6 episodes of Gotham Cable's Premier News Program
- Galleries (The Joker Cards, Concept Art, Poster Art, Production Stills)
- Trailers and TV spots
And if that wasn't enough, the 2-disc DVD art will feature alternate art under its cardboard sleeve -- it seems the Joker savaged each and every one of them with markers and crayons (see gallery below).
There's also a third edition the
really hardcore among you will be standing in line for, and that's the limited edition pictured above. It doesn't come with additional features, but is secured in a steel DVD case and accompanied by a replica Batpod. As it's not actually big enough to ride or pivot on walls, it's useless to me. But it's ideal for those of you with lots of desk space!
In related news: The brand new edition of
Production Weekly lists
Batman 3 as going into pre-production this February, with Christopher Nolan directing.
PW is a pretty reliable trade source, though it's odd to see news like that hit there before arriving in, say,
Variety. As always, more info when it develops ...
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Posted Sep 11th 2008 5:02PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, RumorMonger, Fandom, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
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With the success of
The Dark Knight in both IMAX and conventional theaters, chances are our next big superhero movies will take a page out of Christopher Nolan's playbook and shoot a few scenes in IMAX. Not only does it look hella cool, but it's also a great marketing tool. Beyond that, it won't be long before we're watching our first live-action Marvel flick in 3-D too, and if
Jon Favreau has his way,
Iron Man 2 might just be that film.
Speaking during a mini press conference for the
Iron Man DVD, Favreau addressed a few questions regarding the highly-anticipated sequel.
Collider tells us this: "... the highlight was Jon saying he'd love to do
Iron Man 2 in 3D! He also called the IMAX
Dark Knight footage a game changer and he said he'd love to shoot part of
Iron Man 2 in IMAX. Regarding the 3D, he said it's all about the cost, but if they can make it happen he'd like to do it. He talked about getting to see the armor in 3D and how cool it would be."
Personally, I'm not so sure I'd want to see
Iron Man 2 in 3-D. That, coupled with the whole IMAX what-to-do, just feels a little too gimmicky for me. I'd rather see them concentrate on creating a sequel that's more entertaining than the first, with a better story, engaging characters and awesome fights. I'll take the IMAX scenes, sure, but hold back on the 3-D for now.
But what do you think?
Iron Man 2 is scheduled to hit theaters on April 30, 2010.
Posted Sep 11th 2008 9:02AM by William Goss
Filed under: Action, Drama, Thrillers, Awards, Mystery & Suspense, Warner Brothers, RumorMonger, Box Office, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
In a combined effort to boost its box office receipts enough to become the highest-grossing film of all time (which it won't) and boost its awards profile enough to garner some Oscars (which it might), That Juggernaut Which We Call The Dark Knight will be re-released this coming January, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
It's the month when the awards rush is high and the mainstream competition is low, and any chance to see it in the IMAX format (had ye missed it, for shame) should be relished regardless of the DVD's December arrival.
And no, even if it doesn't best Titanic, director Christopher Nolan and the Brothers Warner are still looking at the cusp of a billion bucks worldwide. Yeah, so far as consolation prizes go, I've actually heard of worse. Hell, with numbers like that, maybe they could still sway Phillip Seymour Hoffman to climb aboard -- or at least help Michael Caine get his story straightened out...
Posted Sep 8th 2008 12:03PM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: New Releases, Box Office
Jeepers, it was a slow weekend. I'm not even two sentences into this post, and I'm already bored. I'll keep this short.
The weekend's top film and the only new wide release -- Lionsgate's
Bangkok Dangerous earned a whopping $7.8 million. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking: Gene, when was the last time a #1 movie made that little money? The answer is: precisely on the same weekend of the year back in 2003, when
Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star took first place with $6.7 million.
Here's
Box Office Mojo's chart on the subject.
Bangkok Dangerous duked it out with
Tropic Thunder, now in its fourth weekend, for the top slot.
Bangkok won by less than half a million, and
Tropic Thunder is headed for $100 million by next weekend.
The House Bunny turned out to be the weekend's strongest holdover, going from fourth place to third in its second weekend of release. With box-office receipts generally on the decline, resilient performers
The Dark Knight and
Mamma Mia! look to finally be taking some bigger hits.
That's about it I think. The full numbers after the jump.
Continue reading Weekend Box Office: 'Bangkok Dangerous' Wins the Zzzzzzzzzzzz...
Posted Sep 4th 2008 10:02AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Warner Brothers, Fandom, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
Dark Knight Spoiler Warning ...No more speculation, no more talk of ret-con and false funerals -- Harvey Dent
is officially 100% dead. It comes straight from the mouth of
Aaron Eckhart, who revealed his character's fate in no uncertain terms to
ComingSoon.net "He is dead as a door nail. He ain't coming back baby!"
And lest you doubt that he knows the mind of Christopher Nolan, well, Eckhart asked him whether Two-Face would ever be coming back. "I asked Chris [Nolan] that question and he goes, "You're dead" before I could even get the question out of my mouth. 'Hey Chris, am I?' 'You're dead!' 'Alright, cool.'" There's no chance it will be rewritten or retconned, as he was never even contracted for a third film. "No, I'm not coming back. I think unfortunately, Heath [Ledger] was supposed to go on and that didn't work out. I'm nobody. I'm a cog. I have no say over this sort of stuff. I'm sure that there's so many other characters that they could whip together. I heard Angelina Jolie was going to be Catwoman or something like that. I thought that was a great idea. I'd like to be in that one."
Dent's death has now been confirmed via the novelization, the script, the actor, and the director. Though I would say that's as definitive as it gets, fanboys and girls across this great Internet refuse to accept it -- they just believe in Harvey Dent
too much. But since we do live in a world where no comic character stays dead, where 299 Spartans can rise again, and Chev Chelios survives a fall from a helicopter, I guess you can hardly blame them.
Posted Sep 2nd 2008 9:02AM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: New Releases, Box Office
The most exciting news from Labor Day weekend at the box-office -- traditionally a slow period -- is that America seems to have caught on to the scam that Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer have been running for... what is it now? Almost three years? (I'm not counting the
Scary Movie franchise, which always retained some redeeming value despite their idiocy.) Anyway, their latest travesty,
Disaster Movie, opened to $6.9 million over four days, just over a third of the (nearly identical to each other) first three-day weekends for
Date Movie,
Epic Movie and
Meet the Spartans. Could that be the end of that?
Not that any of
Disaster Movie's competitors did spectacularly better. The strongest of them -- the poorly-reviewed sci-fi flick
Babylon A.D. -- only managed second place and a $12 million four-day. Don Cheadle's
Traitor came in fifth with $10 million, which I actually think is robust for an barely-marketed film opening on just over 2,000 screens.
College crashed and burned, landing outside the top 10 with $2.6 million. The best explanation is that there simply wasn't any reason to see it.
The holdovers did well.
Mamma Mia!, now in its seventh weekend of release, continues to lurk in the bottom half of the top 10; its take actually
grew compared to last weekend, even if you use the 3-day numbers. It's up to $133 million.
The Dark Knight barely lost steam, going from fourth place to third and breaking the $500 million threshold.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona also continues to do very well on under 700 screens. And of course,
Tropic Thunder managed a third weekend atop the charts, leapfrogging past
Pineapple Express.
The full estimates after the jump.
Continue reading Weekend Box Office: The Labor Day Lull
Posted Aug 26th 2008 5:03PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: The Geek Beat
I had planned to do a column ranking the boys of summertime the way I had with the women – but as I've been plotting it out, I realized it wasn't going to work. The roles men are given are infinitely more heroic, interesting, and complex, and any ranking would quickly become a list of
favorites rather than best. And it's predictable – Tony Stark, Wall E, Harvey Dent, end of story, and totally boring. The more I tried to make it less so, the more slippery the concept became, and I realized it was all a thinly veiled excuse to write about one of the characters in particular: Harvey Dent. And with Devin Faraci's
call to analytical arms, it's like a sign from the movie gods to get into meatier territory.
The most highly anticipated element of
The Dark Knight for me was also what ended up being the most disappointing – Harvey "Two-Face" Dent. In the afterglow of opening weekend, people looked askance at me when I voiced this aloud before half-heartedly defending Christopher Nolan's vision. But in all the is-he-isn't-he-dead debate of late, it's became apparent that more people agreed with me than not.
Continue reading The Geek Beat: Believing in Harvey Dent
Posted Aug 26th 2008 9:03AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Casting, Warner Brothers, RumorMonger, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
Although we're chalking this up to the overeager and rarely reliable British press (England & Scotland, I love you, but your tabloids are
crazy), it bears reporting anyway. According to
The Telegraph,
Cher is said to be in talks with
Christopher Nolan to play Catwoman in the third Batman film.
Says some anonymous studio executive: "Cher is Nolan's first choice to play Catwoman. He wants to her to portray her like a vamp in her twilight years. The new Catwoman will be the absolute opposite of Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry's purring creations."
The same article also reports
Johnny Depp as having signed to play the Riddler -- and we all know that isn't true. No one knows which villains will appear in the third film. Even Nolan's participation is still up in the air, despite all of this breathless casting speculation, fan art, and fierce "Will they work in Nolan's gritty real-world setting?" debate.
Now, don't get me wrong -- I actually love Cher and I think she could make a pretty cool Catwoman. But if Nolan does do a third film, and if he does include Catwoman, I want an actress that's closer in age to Christian Bale. I'm not trying to be ageist, it's more that I see Catwoman's career as being a parallel to Batman's, much like the Joker. I want that
Batman: Year One story. But should they ever make
The Dark Knight Returns (and there was much chatter after Comic Con that Frank Miller and Zack Snyder were at some kind of unofficial agreement on making it, so who knows), I nominate Cher to be the retired Selina Kyle. An older Catwoman deserves someone as awesome as Cher to play her -- not the broken down wreck she was in the book. What do you think, readers? Cher for Catwoman and Nolan, or do you prefer the Angelina Jolie fantasy casting?
Posted Aug 25th 2008 1:03PM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: New Releases, Box Office
There were no big surprises at the box office this weekend. To officially ring in the fall, it was the first weekend since April when no film debuted to more than $20 million. The best opener was the tolerably-reviewed Anna Faris vehicle
The House Bunny, with $15.1 million.
Interchangeable Jason Statham Movie, a.k.a.
Death Race, followed with an estimated $12.3 million -- among Statham's weakest showings and the worst ever for director
Paul W.S. Anderson (not counting the indie
Shopping, which played on one screen).
Neither
The House Bunny nor
Death Race could dethrone
Tropic Thunder, which held up fairly well to stay on top with a $16.1 million second weekend. It looks to have better legs than
Pineapple Express, and should pass that film before all is said and done. In other holdover developments:
The Dark Knight fell to fourth, but should reach $500 million by next weekend;
Star Wars: The Clone Wars fell an unsurprising 60%+, and will top out around $35 million -- still not bad for a cartoon, I think.
Two more wide release debuts fared poorly.
The Longshots -- the Ice Cube/Keke Palmer football drama directed by Fred Durst -- made a predictably tepid $4.3 million bow. But boy was I ever wrong about
The Rocker, which was heavily advertised and promo-screened, but landed out of the top 10 with $2.8 million and an under-$1000 per-screen average. Color me surprised -- it's a decent flick, too. I guess
Rainn Wilson not only can't open a movie, but affirmatively turns people off.
Hamlet 2 opened on 100 screens before going wide next weekend. Its $435,000 gross -- around $4,200 per screen -- isn't terrible, but doesn't inspire confidence for the expansion.
The full estimates after the jump.
Continue reading Weekend Box Office: Ben Stiller Beats Up on 'The House Bunny'
Posted Aug 21st 2008 2:02PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Action, Fandom, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, Images
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An Australian artist by the name of Josh McMahon has created some very cool fan art for the Batman universe. Above, check out an image of
Kristen Bell as Harley Quinn. While I'm not so sure the actress would do wonders with that role, I think this doctored-up photo is damn pretty to look at ... and it kinda puts me in the mood to see Quinn in the next Batman flick. Over on McMahon's gallery (which includes several other fan-inspired images), he says that, originally, he planned to use this image as an April Fools Joke and team with a bunch of websites to trick the world into believing Kristen Bell had a small cameo in
The Dark Knight. All I'll say is that would've been a fun couple of days right there ... We've included three images in the gallery below (larger version of Bell, a sample image from
Batman 3 with
Marion Cotillard as Catwoman and another with
Anne Hathaway as Batgirl), then
head on over to McMahon's page to see a whole bunch more.
Whaddya think? Kristen Bell as Harley Quinn? Marion Cotillard as Catwoman?
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[via
Slashfilm]
Posted Aug 19th 2008 9:02PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Action, Deals, Fandom, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Peter Jackson, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
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Today will be partly cloudy with a chance of kick ass!
The Hobbit: Not long ago
Guillermo Del Toro told fans that his next move was to begin work on
The Hobbit script very soon. Well guess what? To our complete shock and surprise, the dude actually followed through on all this "writing script nonsense" and -- wait for it -- started
working on the script (along with
LOTR partners Frank Walsh and Philippa Boyens). YES! And this is, like, the BIGGEST news online today. "NEWSFLASH: Del Toro is on page 12 and he's already introduced 750 new creatures!" I give up ... call me in 12 years when the film is finally complete and ready to hit theaters.
The Dark Knight: You've watched the movie countless times, followed hundreds of viral sites, read thousands of stories on Heath Ledger and why he deserves to square off against Jesus up in heaven for a chance to be God's new (and much more well-liked) son -- so, what's left? Well, if you still haven't overdosed on The Dark Knight and/or are in desperate need of another Batman fix, feel free to feast your eyes on the film's script. Yes,
JoBlo managed to snag a copy of the entire thing (
read it here) for you to save, print out and do whatever it is you freaks do with stuff like that. Personally, I enjoyed reading it to see where they trimmed and cut and called Wonder Woman a whore. Kidding! Just wanna make sure you're paying attention.
Poltergeist remake: Because in this one she's watching a reality show, gets pulled into the television and subsequently bores herself to death. [Writes down notes for
Poltergeist 2 pitch ...] Anyway,
THR tells us that
Boogeyman writers Juliet Snowden and Stiles "I wonder how many
Teen Wolf jokes he got growing up" White will pen the script for the remake of this classic spooky flick. "Too soon!" yelled a nobody movie blogger, but alas it was too late.
Posted Aug 17th 2008 8:02PM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: New Releases, Box Office
In a weekend glutted with new releases battling the aftershocks of
The Dark Knight earthquake,
Tropic Thunder debuted below expectations -- but well enough to steal the top spot from
The Dark Knight in that film's 5th weekend. The R-rated comedy's $26 million weekend and $37 million 5-day was roughly on par with
Pineapple Express' performance the previous weekend, but I think
Tropic Thunder was predicted to have broader appeal. In retrospect, the advertising may have emphasized the film's inside-baseball aspects a bit too much.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars did okay in third place with $15 million -- weak for a purported
Star Wars film, but not bad for a Saturday morning cartoon. The woeful
Mirrors took in a relatively paltry $11 million, a wuss-out signaled by the 11th hour press screening cancellation. Contrast
The Strangers, the summer's other major R-rated, non-Shyamalan horror film, which debuted to almost twice as much despite not having as nifty a high-concept.
The Dark Knight, meanwhile, continues to edge toward $500 million. Its 5-weekend total stands at $471 million, enough to top
Star Wars' unadjusted numbers.
Titanic still looks out of reach, even setting aside the apples-and-oranges aspect of comparing a 1997 release to a 2008 one.
Pineapple Express fell 57% in its second weekend, putting $100 million out of reach. On the other hand,
Mamma Mia! continues to be popular, suffering drops of around 20% each week thanks to good word-of-mouth and likely repeat viewings.
Woody Allen's
Vicky Cristina Barcelona came in at #10, with $3.7 million on 700 screens, Woody's second-best opening ever. Two spots below that, the poorly-reviewed 3-D spectacle
Fly Me to the Moon made $2 million on 450 screens.
The full estimates after the jump.
Continue reading Weekend Box Office: 'Dark Knight' Dethroned at Last
Posted Aug 15th 2008 5:03PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Casting, RumorMonger, Fandom
As we all know from
The Dark Knight commercials, Two Face makes his grand, grotesque entrance. But there's an interesting twist in the whole story now.
Beware of spoilers ahead ...
... spoilers below ...Did he die -- or didn't he? That's the big question. He sure looked like he did, but then again, there was that whole spiel about how falling such a short distance won't kill a man. Why put that in there if there's no point? And couldn't the lovely Commissioner Gordon have lied to save the hopes of Gotham's populace?
I like to believe he lived, for a myriad of reasons. But if a few new tie-in books are to be believed, the dream is completely dead, and the nightmare won't continue.
IGN reports that in the new novelization, it says: "Dent was sprawled, neck twisted, the mutilated side of his face exposed, his left eye open and staring sightlessly. He was obviously dead." This is joined with the shooting script, which says: "Dent lies at the bottom of the hole, his neck broken. DEAD."
I am not entirely convinced. There's just something about using the word "obviously" that seems too redundant for it to be accurate. All of the emphasis of his death just makes it seem like they are trying too hard to convince us. But maybe that's just my hope to see more
Aaron Eckhart.
What say you?
Posted Aug 14th 2008 8:03PM by Jessica Barnes
Filed under: Universal, Scripts, 20th Century Fox, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
No matter how you look at it, one group of dedicated fans aren't going to be very happy about this. In an
interview with MTV Movies blog, writer/director
David Goyer dropped the hint that his
X-Men origin flick
Magneto may be taking a back seat to his
Invisible Man update -- not the choice I would have made, but maybe Goyer is a little 'Superheroed' out. Goyer tells MTV that
Magneto, "may be next," but he wouldn't confirm which film is going to get priority on his schedule, saying, "So it could be 'Magneto,' or it could be 'The Invisible Man' next." -- Gee Dave, thanks for clearing that up.
Goyer's
Invisible update is just the latest in a series of adaptations of the classic H.G. Wells
story on the big screen. Universal famously adapted the novella in 1933, with
Claude Rains as the invisible Jack Griffin, and don't forget about the embarrassingly bad
comedy version starring
Chevy Chase back in 1992. Goyer told MTV that his story, "involves Scotland Yard getting their hands on the current Invisible Man and basically saying, 'Wow, you'd be a really good secret agent to send into Imperial Russia right now,'" an enthusiastic Goyer said of the plot. "It starts off from there." -- I'm suddenly having flashbacks to
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and that is not a good sign.
So the real question is: What does this mean for
Magneto? We all know that there is no danger that the film won't get made (No please, don't bring that dump truck full of money to the studio doors), but his work on
The Dark Knight earned Goyer the reputation of 'Patron saint of comic book movies' (well, until
Watchmen is released anyway), and it will be hard to top that; you can't blame the guy for wanting a break.
Stay tuned to Cinematical for the official word on which film will cross the finish line first.
Posted Aug 14th 2008 3:02PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Action, Fandom, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, Posters
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Here's a piece of coolness that's been making its way around the internets today. From our friends at
First Showing (via
Superhero Hype) comes what appears to be a fan made poster for
The Dark Knight Returns (click to enlarge
), a sequel to this summer's
The Dark Knight. No, a third Batman film has not been announced yet, so don't go gettin' your knickers in a twist thinking they've already started promoting the next film. (God, please don't tell me they've already started promoting it -- I think I speak for all us online movie dudes when I say we need a few months off to recover from this puppy.)
That said, can you spot the two new characters this poster introduces? Yes, one of them is Riddler, but the other is a bit harder to locate. (Hint: Look at the newspaper articles.) No one knows exactly what direction the next Batman movie will head in, except for the Nolan boys should they decide to pen the script. Riddler is a cool character, but is he too close to Joker? Should they take a chance on Catwoman? Should they dip into a lesser known villain, or create a brand new one? One thing's for sure: You folks will not get tired of
this debate anytime soon ...
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