The Joker Is More Popular Than Everybody but Satan
August 13th, 2008 | 8:58 am est |
As industry watchers continue to debate whether or not Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight will surpass Titanic’s 600 million dollar domestic box office total, it is important to keep in mind that the Titanic number is from 1997. Had it been released in 2008, James Cameron’s epic would gross over 900 million dollars. So while you can argue that Batman and Joker will never be the cultural phenomenon that Jack and Rose were, there is another factoid about The Dark Knight’s financial success that might be even more historic. Box Office Mojo has a list of all time box office champions and adjusts their totals for inflation. Dark Knight will surpass Blazing Saddles on that list this week, making it the second biggest money maker in the history of Warner Brothers. Only The Exorcist, which took in 232 million in 1973 - a total that in today’s dollars equates to 782 million, surpasses Nolan’s movie.
Warner Brothers made their name on gritty gangster films in the thirties and forties, specializing in realistic urban films, as compared to the splashy, glossy musicals of MGM. The studio is responsible for some of the most frightening villains in movie history. That said, it’s rather interesting that the bad guys in the studio’s two biggest hits are both pure evil. Satan and The Joker might actually be a more financially successful combo than Jack and Rose.
There are some key criteria here.
I actually have been keeping up with the inflation list at Box Office Mojo. It’s really interesting. I was surprised at how much money the top film, Gone with the Wind, would have made in today’s money. It’s crazy. I also find it nuts that The Dark Knight got pushed down to the 40’s when it is in 3rd place without inflation (or is it 3nd now?). I wish movies still costed a quarter to go see.
Here’s the thing:
I think Titanic would have made the 600 million in today’s market, but that’s it. It wouldn’t have made more than that because the state of things was different 10 years ago. At that time, it was the riskiest endeavor because nobody was making 3-hour entertainment films. I want to leave my opinion of Titanic out of this as this will skew things too much. From an objective viewpoint, there are far riskier films making money in the market now, especially The Dark Knight. The fact that a film as dark as that one can be the second-highest domestic gross of any film says a lot about what people expect nowadays. The Dark Knight would have been passed over 10 years ago as overindulgent, an adjective that would have fit for Titanic in today’s market. If one is to look at just the numbers, then Seibert’s assessment in his first two sentences are accurate. However, factoring in the timing of each film and the current tastes of the era, this would probably not be the case.