Made in Hollywood

"The Dark Knight is on a tear, creating miracles in succession, and the strongest opening in history was born."

"Duke Rosenberg Creates New Heights of Box Office Myth and Superhero Movies."

"Darkness covers North America, and Batman captures the North American box office charts..."

Also on Monday, other media were also hyping the news. Although the first weekend of "The Dark Knight" was a big sell, it was inseparable from the increase in ticket prices, but the number of viewers of the film was nearly 28 million in the first weekend. It also set a new North American weekend viewing record.

Even, quite a lot of media began to talk about the "Dark Knight" can challenge the box office myth created by "Titanic" in North America.

Duke is very clear that this is just a fantasy, not to mention other things, just the promotion and distribution strategy of "The Dark Knight", as well as the number of IMAX theaters and 3D screens, doomed this to be an impossible task.

Especially for the former, the pre-screening campaign drove too many viewers into theaters in the first week.

That's a good thing in more ways than one, but it also affects the long run of the film.

In fact, according to Duke and Warner's estimates, the first few weeks of "The Dark Knight" will create an unparalleled box office myth, after all, this particular superhero movie brings a whole new excitement, but when audiences get used to it In this style, too heavy themes make it difficult to return to the theater and watch it over and over again.

Another point that cannot be ignored is that this is an extremely competitive summer season.

Therefore, when the hottest weeks pass, the box office trend of the film will definitely experience a major decline.

And this situation showed some signs on Monday, but it was very inconspicuous.

The Dark Knight slumped 54 percent on its first working day from $59.23 million on Sunday, raking in $27.25 million on Monday and $27.25 million on the following Tuesday. The box office continued to decline, earning $24.49 million in a single day.

The base number created in the first week of the film is too high, and even if the decline is slightly larger, the box office figures obtained are still amazing.

By Wednesday, the North American box office of "The Dark Knight" successfully exceeded 250 million US dollars, which was widely expected by the outside world. This week's North American box office is set to exceed $300 million.

Duke and Warner Bros. have also stepped up their interest in The Dark Knight due to the new weekend's release of "I Am Legend," produced by Sky Studios and distributed by Disney's Buffalo Films, and the film's good test screenings. "Propaganda.

Especially in North America, which is a top priority, the crew led by Duke kept appearing on the Internet, TV, newspapers and other media, doing everything possible to continue to win the attention of the public.

When he arrived in New York on Wednesday, Duke led the crew in an interview with NBC. IMAX took over the class of Heath Ledger and the public welfare show and became a new publicity point.

"The Dark Knight is an ambitious story, and I needed a big, majestic dimension to express it. So, the IMAX format was my best, if not my only, choice."

In the face of the camera lens, Duke naturally complimented IMAX. "IMAX's negative film area is 10 times the area of ​​a typical 35mm film, and the capacity of the visual information it carries is far greater than that of 35mm film, and this scale of film makes the image extremely sharp, bright, and more majestic."

He looks at the camera. Seriously, "Is this a replica of the experience of watching a movie for the first time as a child? - the curiosity and tremors of the big screen. This experience is very difficult to reproduce in the future. So, I need a big screen. "

However, when the reporter asked about John Schwartzman, Duke's director of photography made a small complaint.

"Because of the unimaginable screen size. The audience will ignore the photography of the film, but they should feel it, and good photography is the foundation of the picture."

He explained, “Duke used a lot of long takes and aggressive editing, and he wanted to draw attention to detail on IMAX — it was a subversion of action movie editing. On IMAX, you even You can see below the horizon. You can see the flickering of outside light sources in Batman's eyes, and you don't see that kind of detail in a regular movie theater or at home."

"To shoot IMAX movies, it is difficult to prepare and use the equipment. An IMAX camera weighs 135 pounds, and the huge size makes it difficult to move the camera."

As the only female member of the post-production team and the film's first assistant director, Anna Prinz is also the focus of the show, "Sometimes when shooting down shots, the machine can't be pulled at all. The cost of IMAX production It is three times that of ordinary 35mm film, and the high cost also makes the crew not dare to neglect it in the slightest.”

"Only one laboratory in the world has produced an IMAX recording and playback device."

This is a morning show with a limited duration. At the end of the interview, Duke added, "Each reel of IMAX can only be shot for three minutes, and the three minutes can't be full, and there must be plenty left. This kind of every three minutes. Just changing the film once felt like shooting Super8 when I was a kid, and every time I changed film, it took a week of post-processing.”

Watching the trio being interviewed on TV, Stephen Carragher frowned. The box office and word of mouth of this film were simply amazing, especially the latter, which made him a die-hard fan of The Godfather. threaten.

The first thing Stephen Carragher does when he wakes up every morning is to pay attention to IMDB's score and TOP250 ranking, which directly causes him to be unhappy every day. After his struggle with a group of people, "The Dark Knight" finally dropped to 9.7 , but The Godfather's ratings dropped even faster.

This morning, The Godfather's IMDB rating has dropped to 9.1, and even a fool can see there's something wrong with it.

Before last weekend, "The Godfather" had only 1.4 percent of the vote, but now it has risen to 3.7 percent. It is clear that someone is doing something.

Don't think about it carefully, Stephen Carragher also knows who is doing the tricks, it must be Duke Rosenberg and the "Dark Knight" fan.

Turn off the TV. Stephen Carragher turned on the computer, and while there was still some time left for work, he sent another mass email, calling on his "Godfather" fan group to continue to intensify their attacks and to remove "The Dark Knight" from the altar as soon as possible. Pull up and down.

It's not enough to send an email, when you step out of the house. He kept making calls.

"Gibbs, be sure to mobilize the people around you to vote for The Dark Knight, remember! Only one point!"

"Miranda, mobilize your friends..."

Meanwhile, at a company in Los Angeles, Norman Shearer had just been alerted of a new email, and he opened it and read it. He smiled and nodded.

"Norman, I've reached out to the heads of fan associations in Chicago, Seattle, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and many other cities, and they've called on their members to vote on IMDB."

What is lost must be brought back!

This is Norman Shearer's idea. From the day that "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" lost the IMDB No. 1 throne, he has been waiting for the opportunity to fight back. It's just that Duke's films in the past few years have been good, but no real masterpieces have appeared again. This time, "The Dark Knight" can finally bring their strengths together.

A fan battle over IMDB broke out.

With the explosive start of "The Dark Knight", the film has a high rating on IMDB. At the highest time, it stayed at an incredible ten, and countless Duke blows also came into being. These people don't care about the reaction of fans like "The Godfather", and while "Dark Knight" is regarded as a masterpiece, they are also secretly belittling other works.

The fans of "The Godfather" managed to grab the top 250 position from "The Lord of the Rings 3: The Return of the King", and naturally they refused to give it up. They continued to use the previous method. Under the call of Stephen Carragher and others, all people with corresponding IMDB permissions went to give "The Dark Knight" a point, wanting to pull this film down as soon as possible.

For more than ten years, Duke has also accumulated a large number of fans, and there are not a few hardcore fans like Norman Shearer, especially in large and medium-sized cities in the United States, there are basically Duke Rosenberg or Blast Maniac The Film Fan Association, under the concatenation and mobilization of the leaders of various associations, hundreds of thousands of fans rushed to "The Godfather" like a tide. It can no longer pose a threat to The Dark Knight, even pulling below The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Although the IMDB score seems to be the most democratic method, a simple score can be manipulated in the hands of ordinary fans even if it does not require professional navy.

There are many reasons that affect the IMDB TOP250 score, the first of which is of course the number of votes.

There's an interesting phenomenon on IMDB, where a movie that doesn't seem to be doing well with only a dozen votes tends to start off with a super high score - which usually doesn't last long, of course - and it's hard not to let It is suspected that this is a propaganda tool for the production and distribution parties.

Therefore, the list has added a limit on the number of votes and only the votes of active users can be counted in the ranking, so as to ensure the fairness and pertinence of the Top250 ranking to the greatest extent.

With films like The Godfather, The Dark Knight, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, that restriction doesn't really matter much.

As you can imagine, when die-hard Duke fans are engulfed in ecstasy after watching a movie as gorgeous and passionate as The Dark Knight, it's hard to make a more sober and rational judgment about the quality of the movie. And after watching a movie, most of the people who voted in IMDB for the first time are the diehards of the movie. It is not difficult to understand that the score of "The Dark Knight" soared to 10 at the beginning.

On the other hand, there is also a deeper "collective unconscious" factor at play. In the midst of a frenzy of Acura or derogation, it is difficult for most people to stick to their own judgments. As far as "The Dark Knight" is concerned, it is difficult for most people to say "no" to it under the oppression of the audience's A+ praise and the high applause of IMDB. (To be continued ~^~)

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