"The Dark Knight' sweeps across the box office, breaking records and creating miracles—the strongest opening in history is born."
"Duke Rosenberg sets a new benchmark for box office legends and the superhero movie genre."
"Darkness shrouds North America Batman dominates the North American box office rankings..."
Likewise, on Monday, other media outlets were also hyping up the news. Although the massive box office success of "The Dark Knight" during its opening weekend was closely tied to increased ticket prices, the film's nearly 28 million viewers during its first weekend set a new record for weekend movie attendance in North America.
Some media outlets even began speculating that "The Dark Knight" might challenge the legendary box office numbers of "Titanic" in North America.
Duke was well aware this was nothing more than a fantasy. Without even mentioning other factors, just the promotional and distribution strategy of "The Dark Knight," as well as the number of IMAX and 3D screens, already made such a feat impossible.
Especially the former the intense pre-release buzz had driven too many viewers into theaters during the first week.
This was largely a good thing, but it would inevitably impact the film's longevity in theaters.
In fact, according to Duke and Warner Bros.' own forecasts, "The Dark Knight" was expected to set an unmatched box office record in its early weeks. After all, this unique superhero film brought an entirely new kind of thrill, but once audiences became accustomed to the style, its heavy themes would make it hard for them to return to the theater again and again.
Another factor that couldn't be ignored it was an extremely competitive summer movie season.
So, once the peak weeks passed, the film's box office performance was bound to take a steep dive.
And signs of this began to show as early as Monday, although still subtle.
Compared to Sunday's $59.23 million, "The Dark Knight's" first weekday saw a 54% drop, earning $27.25 million on Monday alone. On Tuesday, the box office continued to decline, bringing in $24.49 million.
The film's opening week figures were simply too high even with a slightly sharp decline, the numbers remained astonishing.
By Wednesday, "The Dark Knight's" North American box office had smoothly passed $250 million, and external predictions began to converge: the domestic box office was expected to surpass $300 million by the end of the week.
With the new weekend approaching, "I Am Legend," produced by Sky Film Studios and distributed by Disney's Buena Vista Pictures, was set to release. The film had strong preview buzz, so Duke and Warner Bros. ramped up their promotional efforts for "The Dark Knight."
Especially in the crucial North American market, Duke led the cast and crew in constant appearances on the internet, TV, and newspapers doing everything possible to maintain public attention.
When they arrived in New York on Wednesday, Duke and the crew gave an exclusive interview to NBC. IMAX took over from Heath Ledger and charity shows as the new promotional focus.
"'The Dark Knight' is an ambitious story. I needed a grand, majestic dimension to present it. So, the IMAX format was my best—even my only—option."
Facing the camera, Duke lavished praise on IMAX. "An IMAX film frame has ten times the area of a standard 35mm frame. The amount of visual information it holds far surpasses 35mm, and this scale makes images incredibly sharp, bright, and more majestic."
He looked into the lens and said seriously, "It recreates the feeling of watching a movie for the first time as a kid that awe and trembling before the big screen. That feeling is hard to reproduce later in life. So I needed the biggest screen possible."
However, when the reporter asked about John Schwartzman, Duke's cinematographer offered a slight complaint.
"Due to the unimaginable screen size, viewers tend to overlook the cinematography. But they should feel it—excellent cinematography is the foundation of the image."
He explained, "Duke used a lot of long takes and sharp editing techniques. He wanted to make audiences notice the IMAX details—it's a subversion of traditional action movie editing. On IMAX, you can even see below the horizon. You can see the reflection of external light sources in Batman's eyes—something you won't see in regular theaters or at home."
"Shooting in IMAX format is difficult even in terms of equipment alone. An IMAX camera weighs 135 pounds by itself, and its huge size makes it very difficult to move."
As the only female member of the post-production team and the film's first assistant director, Anna Prinz also drew attention during the program. "Sometimes, when filming downward angles, we couldn't even hold the camera steady. IMAX's production costs are three times that of standard 35mm film, and the high expenses left the crew no room for sloppiness."
"There's only one lab in the entire world capable of making IMAX playback equipment."
This was a morning show with limited time, so at the end of the interview, Duke added, "Each IMAX reel can only shoot for three minutes and even those three minutes can't be completely filled. Some leeway must be left. This process of changing film every three minutes feels just like filming on Super8 as a kid. And each time we changed film, it took a full week of post-production work."
Watching the trio being interviewed on television, Stephen frowned. The film's box office and reviews were simply too astonishing especially the latter. As a die-hard fan of "The Godfather," he felt deeply threatened.
Every morning when he woke up, the first thing Stephen Callagher did was check IMDb's ratings and the Top 250 rankings. This had been ruining his mood day after day. Thanks to the tireless efforts of him and a group of others, "The Dark Knight" had finally dropped to a 9.7 rating—but "The Godfather's" rating was falling even faster.
This morning, "The Godfather's" IMDb score had already fallen to 9.1. Even a fool could tell that something fishy was going on.
Before last weekend, "The Godfather" had just 1.4% of its votes at 1 star. Now, that had risen to 3.7%. Clearly, someone was manipulating the numbers.
Without thinking too hard, Stephen already knew who was behind it. It had to be Duke Rosenberg and the diehard fans of The Dark Knight.
He turned off the TV. Stephen opened his computer. Since there was still some time before heading to work, he sent out another mass email, urging the Godfather fan club he belonged to to intensify the attacks. The goal: to pull The Dark Knight down from its pedestal as soon as possible.
Sending emails wasn't enough. On his way out the door, he was still making phone calls.
"Gibbs, you have to mobilize everyone around you to vote for The Dark Knight. Remember! Only give it one star!"
"Miranda, get all your friends involved…"
Meanwhile, in an office in Los Angeles, Norman Shiller had just received a new email notification. He opened and read it, then smiled and nodded.
"Norman, I've already gotten in touch with the heads of film fan associations in Chicago, Seattle, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. They've all called on their members to go vote on IMDb."
What's been lost must be regained!
That was Norman Shiller's belief. Ever since The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King lost its top IMDb spot, he had been waiting for a chance to strike back. In the past few years, though Duke's films were decent, there hadn't been a true masterpiece. Now, with The Dark Knight, they could finally rally their forces.
A full-blown fan war over IMDb had erupted.
With the explosive opening of The Dark Knight, the film's IMDb rating remained sky-high. At its peak, it even hit an astonishing 10.0. Countless Duke fans emerged from the woodwork. These people didn't care at all how Godfather fans felt. While worshiping The Dark Knight as a divine masterpiece, they were also subtly belittling other works.
The Godfather fans had fought hard to reclaim the TOP 250's top spot from The Return of the King and were naturally unwilling to give it up. Using the same tactics as before and under the rallying of people like Stephen, all users with eligible IMDb accounts flocked to give The Dark Knight one-star ratings, hoping to knock it down as quickly as possible.
Duke had been making films for over a decade and had built up a large fan base. Hardcore fans like Norman Shiller were by no means rare. Especially in major cities across the U.S., there were Duke Rosenberg or "Explosion Maniac" fan clubs almost everywhere. Under the coordination and mobilization of their leaders, hundreds of thousands of fans surged toward The Godfather. Their goal was singular: to drag the film's rating lower and lower until it could no longer threaten The Dark Knight even pushing it below The Return of the King.
Although IMDb ratings appear to be the most democratic metric, even without professional bots, there's still considerable room for manipulation in the hands of ordinary fans.
There are many factors that affect the IMDb Top 250 ratings, the most important being the number of votes.
There's an interesting phenomenon on IMDb: a movie with only a dozen or so votes—seemingly unimpressive often has an extremely high rating at first. Of course, such scores usually don't last long. It's hard not to suspect that this is a marketing tactic by production or distribution companies.
So, the rankings added restrictions requiring a minimum number of votes and only counting those from active users, to maximize fairness and accuracy in the Top 250 rankings.
But when it comes to films at the level of The Godfather, The Dark Knight, and The Return of the King, these restrictions don't actually have much effect.
You can imagine: when a diehard Duke fan walks out of a dazzling and passion-filled film like The Dark Knight, engulfed in euphoria, it's hard for them to make a calm and rational judgment of the movie's quality. And the people who vote on IMDb right after seeing a film are often the most hardcore fans. So it's not surprising that The Dark Knight initially shot up to a perfect 10.0.
On the other hand, there's a deeper force at work—"collective unconsciousness." Amidst the feverish praise or condemnation, it's difficult for most people to maintain their own judgment. When it comes to The Dark Knight, under the pressure of overwhelming A+ reviews and sky-high IMDb scores, it's hard for most to say "no" to it.
.....
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