nAlkaline

While discouraging to say, there is nothing they can do in this situation. If anyone has the inclination, smuggling firearms into a theater is no harder than buying popcorn.

I believe that the highest early estimates were 80-85M, but I may be mistaken. Someone correct me if that's the case.

Let's not be misleading. The Variety article says 75-80M, not 75M. I definitely agree that 75M would be a lower than expected number, but I think we may be jumping to premature conclusions.

I disagree. I don't believe that the BO performance of this, or any film, will be altered by anything more than 1% or so, if that. Time will tell in the upcoming month...should be very interesting to track.EDIT: I want to clarify and say performance after this weekend, which may be slightly changed.

While I agree that the film will indeed have good WOM, the midnight/early morning crowd presents self-selecting bias. People going to see this movie on opening day are more likely that the average audience to be the most ardent Batman/Nolan fans, so excellent WOM is to be expected. The WOM of the more casual crowd is what will propel this movie to greater (or not) heights in terms of BO performance.

Fair enough. Agree to disagree. Let's see if it posts some stronger than expected holds over the next few weeks to substantiate or invalidate the presence of the shooter effect.

Ok. What kind of effect, number wise, do you think it had? I personally think it MAY have altered the day's gross negatively by 1-2M at the most.

Of course, some unknown power gives your opinion more validity than someone who believes the shooting had little or no effect. Good logic. I also believe people are commenting that it was a combination of Ledger's death and the iconic Joker character that propelled TDK to even greater than expected heights. There is a difference. I believe both sides may have a point, but neither has any definitive evidence at this time.I honestly don't understand how some people are claiming complete and irrefutable evidence of a shooter effect. It baffles me.

This will, of course, degenerate into a fruitless debate about the effects of the shooting vs. the Heath Ledger factor in attempting to explain the overall runs of the two films. Personally, going off a conservative 180M OW estimate, I see this hitting around 500M. WOM, even if it's generally accepted to be a bit beneath TDK, will still be excellent and should help this along. The loaded upcoming release schedule won't however.

In terms of quality or box office performance?

TDKR isn't in 3D...not exactly a fair comparison especially given the fact that TDKR burned a lot more demand from the midnight shows. You can't just equate the two numbers.

It seems that people are forgetting that TDKR is bound to be a bit more frontloaded than TDK given the critical reception of the latter. It will, of course, have better legs in comparison to something like a DH2, but a 50M+ number off a 30M midnight sounds just about right. It already burned off a ton of demand from midnight shows. I personally think that expectations were just too high for a film that lacked 3D or a Heath Ledger factor to seriously challenge the absurd Avengers OW.Great number in either case. 185M or so looks right. i don't think the shootings made the smallest difference and as of yet, most people in the industry more qualified than anyone here seems to agree.

Easy...A. A stunning ending to, in my opinion, the most ambitious filmmaking endeavor of all time.

I miss Tennant...can't really get into this season.

150M/600MI could see it remaining relatively flat or increase overseas...would be "shocked" with anything under 1.5B. Ridiculous that we're even taking about numbers this big.

Nice to see other Game of Thrones fans...I watched the first season recently and am completely hooked. I'm starting to read the series (I'll read the books as I finish the respective season). Looking forward to the second season immensely.

Might as well call this thread Star Wars vs. LOTR, haha...I had to go with the one ring personally.