Weekend Report: 'The Dark Knight Rises' stays atop with $62.1 million

After Friday’s Olympics opening ceremony and last week’s mass shooting, moviegoers returned to theaters, keeping The Dark Knight Rises’ on the top but left The Watch and Step Up Revolution in the dark. Because of the Olympics' opening on Friday, Saturday’s numbers were up for most films but the new Batman film had a strong 39.3% jump from Friday-to-Saturday, reinforcing its superhero status.

In its second weekend run, The Dark Knight Rises remained the top-winner of the weekend with an estimated $62.1 million that places its domestic haul at a great $287.1 million—the third highest 10-day gross. IMAX accounted for 14.5 percent of the weekend revenue which is higher than the 11.8 percent of its opening weekend. Even with a healthy second weekend, the superhero tentpole is still pacing behind its predecessor by a considerable 9 percent.  On its second weekend, The Dark Knight dropped 52.5 percent while Nolan’s bat-finale dropped 60.2 percent.  Recent polls and statistics suggested that 20%-25% of moviegoers are still hesitant to go to the theater. Assuming there is a direct proportionality to box office revenues, if 20% of The Dark Knight’s 2012-adjusted second weekend gross were removed, the film still passes the finale by more than 6.8 percent. Although the shooting and Olympic Ceremony has had its toll on The Dark Knight Rises, the film itself seems to be the problem; it seems to lack what its predecessor had. Even several critics conclude that although it may still shine as a film, it never meets the high standard set by its predecessor. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that the film will reach or pass its predecessors record breaking final domestic gross of $533.3 million. Expect a North American gross of $430-450 million.

In comparison to another finale, The Dark Knight Rises second weekend drop is below that of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (72.0 percent) which eventually grossed more than $375 million domestically. The Avengers, which was released earlier this year, broke many records, including opening weekend and second weekend records. The ensemble superhero film scored a record shattering $103.1 million second weekend gross and experienced a relatively good drop of 50.7 percent.

Unlike its domestic run, The Dark Knight Rises is doing great business overseas where it has already garnered $248.2 million, most of which is just less than 60% of the international market. Summing its domestic and international numbers, The Dark Knight Rises currently holds a powerful $537.3 cume. With this much enthusiasm both internationally and domestically, The Dark Knight Rises should easily pass the $1 billion mark sometime in the next 2 weeks.

Newcomers The Watch and Step Up: Revolution were easily fended off. The Watch, an ensemble comedy, opened to a flaccid $13.0 million, which is once again a disappointment for Ben Stiller. Tower Heist is another Ben Stiller comedy that failed this year. Compared to other R-rated comedies, The Watch loses most of its sight. For example, Ted, a month ago, opened to an incredible $54.4 million and has hitherto grossed $194 million, which is currently the fourth highest-grossing film for an R-rated comedy and the 11^th highest-grossing film for a R-rated film.

Step Up: Revolution, the fourth installment in the Summits’ dance club franchise—Step Up, grossed an underwhelming $11.8 million, which is 25.3 percent less than the $15.8 million debut of Step Up 3D. Its opening is also lower than all the other Step Up movies: Step Up opened to $20.7 million and Step Up 2 debuted to $18.9 million. Clearly, movie-goers, in this case mostly females, have lost interest in the dance moves of the Step Up franchise. With such an opening, Step Up 4 should become the lowest-grossing film in the Step Up franchise with anything around $32.5 million. Internationally, Step Up 3D grossed a decent $116.9 million  and now its only chance at success is if it grosses anywhere above $100 million.