Facing the unstoppable momentum of Batman: The Dark Knight, every other film released in the same period this summer became completely insignificant side attractions.
After the record-breaking opening day, countless people both inside and outside Hollywood kept their eyes glued to this blockbuster's daily box office numbers.
Opening day: $23.76 million.
Saturday: $24.33 million.
Sunday: $20.39 million.
In just the three days of the opening weekend, Batman: The Dark Knight's cumulative box office quickly climbed to a high of $68.38 million.
As it moved into the weekdays, the film's box office momentum showed no signs of slowing.
Finally, when the first week from June 7 to June 13 ended, Batman: The Dark Knight created a brand-new weekly box office record without any suspense and achieved an unprecedented first-week gross of over $100 million.
$102.07 million.
This was the seven-day opening week box office for Batman: The Dark Knight.
In just seven days, Batman: The Dark Knight leaped straight to second place on the 1991 North American box office chart, second only to Home Alone, which had already been nearing the end of its run and had grossed $118 million during the early Valentine's Day period.
Facing this blockbuster's astonishing first-week box office of over $100 million, most people in Hollywood felt a strong sense of powerlessness.
There had been a time when any film that managed to reach $100 million in domestic North American box office was enough for everyone to celebrate properly. Yet somehow it now seemed as if breaking $100 million had become so simple.
Most people actually understood that this was merely an illusion.
1991 was already nearly halfway through, and North American theaters had so far only produced two films that crossed the $100 million domestic mark: Home Alone and Batman: The Dark Knight.
It was just that Batman: The Dark Knight's box office momentum felt truly unattainable to far too many people.
No one had not imagined that after the stunning opening of Batman, the Batman series or the entire DC Movie Universe might head toward failure. The whole project had invested $160 million, something that would have been unimaginable just a few years earlier.
Even with the first film's popularity as a foundation, the sequel had no problem recouping its massive costs through full-channel operations. However, if the film's theatrical run stretched on too long, the project was destined to be considered a failure.
Now, everyone who had held onto such hopes was left only with disappointment.
With a first-week gross of $102 million, Batman: The Dark Knight's domestic box office was almost certainly not going to fall below $300 million.
$300 million was exactly the break-even line where this blockbuster would recoup its entire budget through domestic box office alone.
Based on the first-week data, few people doubted that the project would not only recover its full budget through North American theatrical release but also achieve some profit.
At the same time, various types of Batman: The Dark Knight-related toys, posters, records, and video games went on sale across all channels.
This sequel had destroyed the Batcycle, Batmobile, and Batwing from the opening car chase all the way to the final scene where the dirty bomb was carried away from the city, leaving many fans heartbroken.
However, the film had also introduced other character props specifically developed for merchandise.
Even Cindy Crawford's cameo had led to the release of a figure based on her character in the film. Since no one had predicted the supermodel's popularity in the movie, reports of stockouts came in from various retail channels just two days after release.
According to rough statistics, in just one week since opening, total sales of all types of merchandise for Batman: The Dark Knight reached $170 million.
Compared to the $130 million at the same stage for Batman, sales had increased by more than 30 percent.
In addition, in the 21 overseas countries and regions releasing simultaneously, which included major markets such as the UK, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Spain, and Australia, the first-week box office after calculations also reached $130 million.
Thus, in just the opening week, Batman: The Dark Knight's global box office reached $230 million.
In the early 1990s, the World Trade Organization had not yet been established, and film markets in various overseas countries were relatively closed.
However, on average, for a popular blockbuster like Batman: The Dark Knight that overseas theaters competed to import, the revenue share recouped from overseas markets could generally be maintained at around 35 percent.
According to the stepped revenue-sharing rules signed between the U.S. domestic distributor and theaters, the approximate profit margins from merchandise sales, and the average overseas box office share, comprehensive calculations showed that after just one week of release, Batman: The Dark Knight was expected to recoup $140 million from all channels.
Recouping $140 million in seven days, although the box office drop in the second week was quite noticeable, the project was already destined to quickly turn profitable.
Casual observers were only focused on Batman: The Dark Knight's box office data, but industry professionals familiar with the details of Hollywood film project operations could clearly see that this $160 million investment had already shown strong signs of massive profits in just over a week.
Hollywood had never lacked followers.
Facing the success of the DC Movie Universe, other studios subconsciously began looking for similar projects.
Then, everyone discovered once again that the two major North American comic giants, whether DC or Marvel, were already out of their reach.
Marvel Comics had been completely treated by Simon Westeros as a gold mine kept firmly in his hands. Not only did he have no intention of mining it himself, he had no intention of letting other studios do it on his behalf either.
Having lost Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, DC Comics, which had nearly been sold off in the 1980s, now showed a strictly guarded attitude toward its own superhero copyrights. Every studio that attempted to approach Time Warner for rights had ended up hitting a wall without exception.
Due to the long-term slump in the comic industry, besides Marvel and DC, there were really no other sizable comic companies in the U.S. at this time. The dark horse comic companies and Image Comics that would follow Marvel and DC many years later were either still in their early development stages or had not even been established yet.
Although many people understood that the key to the DC Movie Universe's success lay not in "DC" but in "Universe."
Moreover, Daenerys Entertainment's film production technology and concepts, which far surpassed the era, were also key to the DC Movie Universe's success.
However, after failing to secure rights from Marvel and DC, Hollywood studios all began searching for small comic companies, intending to nurture some original comic content themselves.
When Batman: The Dark Knight's first-week box office was released, the third installment in the series, Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, was officially greenlit and began early preparations.
In fact, from the very beginning of the project, Simon had already planned out the entire trilogy's storyline.
Now, Jan de Bont had proven that he was capable of supporting the series' production, and the male and female leads along with the other main cast had all signed long-term contracts, so there was no need to haggle over salaries due to the film's huge success. Therefore, the launch of the third film basically began with practical processes such as supporting cast selection and location scouting.
In just two Batman films, a large number of actors who were either unknown or lukewarm had been propelled to fame. With the start of the third film, any role planned for the series had become a target that major Hollywood agencies were desperately fighting to secure.
Of course, plans could never keep up with changes. It was necessary to make certain adjustments to the third film based on the accumulation from the first two, but the main storyline would not change.
Compared to the post-credits scene in the second film, Batman: The Dark Knight Rises would officially become a crossover film.
A crossover between Batman and Wonder Woman.
The film's villains would follow a similar pattern to the previous two: one main boss plus one or two smaller bosses.
In addition to the Joker, the third film would introduce the series' first major female villain: Poison Ivy.
Simon would certainly not create the version like in Tim Burton's produced film where Uma Thurman wore a cheap-looking Cosplay-style Poison Ivy outfit. Instead, he planned to reference the character design from the game Batman: Arkham Knight in his memory, just like with Catwoman: a red shirt fastened with only one button, barefoot, long legs, and green skin truly covered in fine vines.
It carried a strange yet irresistibly wonderful sensuality.
In Batman: Arkham Knight, Poison Ivy had ultimately almost become the savior of Gotham City by using her plants to purify the nerve toxin released by Scarecrow.
In Nolan's The Dark Knight, the focus was on the Joker's manipulation of people's hearts, but in the comic setting, the Joker was actually a poison expert on a level that surpassed Scarecrow.
According to Simon's setting for the trilogy, first film establishing himself by taking down gangs, second film saving the city, third film saving the world, scaling from small to large, the Joker in the planned Batman: The Dark Knight would be an existence attempting to destroy the world.
Batman would team up with Wonder Woman, who came to Gotham searching for a Mother Box, and Catwoman. Together with a finally awakened Poison Ivy, they would confront the Joker's conspiracy.
Compared to the rushed and unplanned DC Movie Universe in his memory, this time the three Mother Boxes would become the key connecting the entire DC Movie Universe in advance.
At the same time, because the third film involved the true superpowered Poison Ivy who could control plants, as well as the Joker's transformation influenced by the Mother Box at the end, the use of special effects would reach another level.
Batman's own equipment would also be upgraded again, with the powerful Bat Armor making an appearance.
Daenerys Effects' CG technology was already far ahead of the original timeline, but in order to realize these planned special effects as perfectly as possible, Simon planned to allocate three years for the third film.
Three years of continuous development would be enough for Daenerys Effects' CG technology to advance another step.
Of course, this also meant that Batman: The Dark Knight Rises would be released in the summer of 1994.
However, during this period, Daenerys and Warner Bros would jointly release The Flash, Wonder Woman, and a reboot of Superman.
Therefore, although fans would have to wait three years, the progress of the DC Movie Universe would not stall.
Given the commercial potential shown by the Batman series, slowing down the pace and polishing each installment more carefully would be far better than rushing out more films, squeezing the market potential, or even causing audience fatigue.
After the first week, the second week of release from June 14 to June 20 also quickly came to an end.
The number of new films opening this week had decreased to one: Disney's youth comedy Vacation Girls, which told the story of a group of girls during the holidays who, after their elderly babysitter unexpectedly passed away, hid the news to avoid their parents' restrictions and the various events that followed.
Compared to the previous week's new releases, Universal's Jungle Fever and Fox's comedy, both of which had opened on fewer than 1,300 screens combined, Vacation Girls opened on 1,806 screens. This was a clear increase compared to Disney's usually conservative distribution strategy.
The entire Hollywood was probably increasingly appreciating the benefits of wide release or even saturation release.
However, just like the two new films from the previous week, even though Batman: The Dark Knight experienced a noticeable drop in its second week, under the overall trend, Vacation Girls still remained nothing more than a side show.
In the end, Batman: The Dark Knight's second week saw a 41 percent drop, adding another $60.18 million.
After two weeks of release, the film's cumulative box office reached $162.25 million.
Although it did not match the reverse drop trend of the second week for Batman, this was entirely within everyone's expectations.
A first week over $100 million, if there had been no significant drop in the second week, the series would have been truly heaven-defying.
In fact, compared to the typical second-week drop of over 50 percent for saturation-released commercial blockbusters in his memory, Batman: The Dark Knight's 41 percent drop in the second week was still quite remarkable.
The two-week total of $162.25 million was basically on par with the first film's second-week data, which had achieved a reverse increase.
As long as the subsequent box office drop narrowed again, it was entirely possible for this sequel to once again challenge the $400 million domestic box office mark.
For two consecutive weeks, influenced by Batman: The Dark Knight's massive commercial success, Time Warner's stock price had been steadily rising.
To build momentum for the upcoming stock issuance, at the end of the second week of Batman: The Dark Knight's release, Time Warner eagerly announced that it would hold a grand celebration party on June 22.
The date was actually the Saturday of the third week of the film's release.
During these days, Daenerys Entertainment's film business and the integration of Daenerys and MCA kept Simon busy from morning till night almost every day.
However, as the creator of the DC Movie Universe and the series' ultimate icon, Simon naturally could not miss the celebration party for Batman: The Dark Knight. Otherwise, rumors would definitely spread about uneven profit distribution between Daenerys and Time Warner or possible changes to the DC Movie Universe plan.
In fact, similar talk had never completely disappeared.
After all, the interests involved in the DC Movie Universe were simply too enormous. A single Batman had already delivered an expected net profit scale of over $1 billion, equivalent to the annual net profit of a top-tier Fortune 500 company.
From all publicly available data, Batman: The Dark Knight's profit scale would not be much lower than the first film's.
Even if Time Warner could take half the profits this time, many people still felt that the Batman IP had originally belonged to Warner. In this deal with Daenerys, Time Warner had always been the one getting the short end of the stick.
In reality, it would be lying to claim there were no grievances in the cooperation between Daenerys and Time Warner on the DC Movie Universe.
However, Simon had used perfectly balanced profit distribution, including joint projects with Warner outside the DC Movie Universe, to keep those grievances from worsening.
Interests naturally moved people's hearts.
However, if the cost of turning against each other was likely to result in total loss for both sides, while staying cooperative still brought very good returns, any slightly rational person would probably choose to keep things as they were.
As the absolute controller of Daenerys Entertainment, Simon had proven during the original soundtrack incident with Arista Records that if a partner did not play by the rules, Daenerys Entertainment would only be tougher.
As a publicly listed company, and with Steve Ross currently under heavy pressure from external shareholders and internal factional executives, Time Warner simply could not afford to make any overly drastic moves to break relations.
Because Simon had already proven in the original soundtrack incident that if partners did not follow the rules, Daenerys Entertainment would only push back harder.
[GodOfReader: Sorry for the delay!]