I think you ought to get a life.

The film's irrelevant, no matter how good or bad it is. All box office records (and this thread) are only in existence because Ledger died.

Exact same thing happened with The Crow after Brandon Lee's death.

Another example of how media hype creates such a shallow public.

Ah, a Troll.. out for it's morning forage. Lets feed it a little breaky.

I think you ought to get some manners. Noone will feed you if you're being rude.

Brandon's death was followed by some media coverage but it hardly propelled The Crow to the same box office figures. Crow has made a gross of $55m since 1994, while the "irrelevant" Dark Knight has clocked up $195m globally in it's first weekend. I guess other high grossing films in the same genre (Batman Begins, Spiderman 3, et al) are also "irrelevant" ? Oh, but they didn't have a dead Heath Ledger in them so I guess it must have been some other random drivel that made them so popular in the media and at the box office. If you haven't seen the film, which you obviously haven't (as it's "irrelevant"), I don't see how you can comment.

The acting in the film, by a very talented young actor, is worth the respect it commands. Dismissing it as "irrelevant" is just nonsense.

Al

So do you like film then bigAPE?

I've not seen the film and probably won't but BB has one point I kind of agree with. The opening weekend and following week would have been high grossing without a doubt because word was out that Heath Ledger was superb. However I don't believe the records would have been anywhere close to what they were, had he not died. I'm sure that once people had seen it and recommended it it would have gone on to be massive success though, just not so much initially.

Saying that, the rest of his post was unnecessary and IMO rude

I think a film's opening is mainly down to the advertising hype. The Dark Knight has been hyped for about a year now with teaser trailers on at the movies for all that time... I think Heath's got something to do with it but the majority is down to the advertising spin.

It's only taken 4 million more than Spiderman 3 and that didn't have Heath in it, or indeed anyone I know of who died...

It's entirely possible that dead actors drag in a few people. Or maybe his high profile death has introduced more people to his work, so this raises the film profile more, perhaps.

But do not underestimate the amount of Batman fans out there... esp when a film portrays the original darkness of the comic books.
Big fan myself.

Yeah, I did actually. I thought they captured the essence of the Joker very well. The constant lying, the total disregard for human life, changing his life story with every conversation (e.g. the story of his scars changed with every telling in the comics and this was reflected well in the Dark Knight). Of course a lot of this was down to the writing and the adaptation of the mythology of the Joker and Harvey Dent from the original comics. The effects were excellent but I am biased in that a close friend of mine was an effects consultant on the project (couldn't work on it full time due to commitments on Hairy Potter).

I had read interviews with Ledger during the making of the film regarding how deeply he had prepared for the role, however his death wasn't a major contributing factor in my watching the film, I would have gone anyway.

The opening box office take will almost always be down to hype, what major "blockbuster" film and cash cow isn't hyped these days ? However, I don't believe that it's down to Ledgers death. Remember he died well after post-production while he was actually making another film.

I think the real test will be the films longevity. How will the box office figures stack up globally after the first year, excluding merchandising/licensing revenue. Personally I believe the film has legs on the sell through market, even though it's not as family friendly a "WHAM BAM" type blockbuster like Iron Man or Transformers.

Exactly and IMHO Dark Knight is a much better script and the execution is 20 times better.

Al

I am really looking forward to seeing it.

How much....



that much ?

That would just about sum it up, yes.

I do apologise, wont be one for you to burn then?

How's your Mum?

I saw it last night. Heath was spectacular. Audience gave him a smattering of applause after the film ended. Nice credit to him.

The film was bloody excellent but by god, nearly 3 hours. Saw the 9pm showing and was nearly asleep at the end. I just can't take it any more.

Too long.

Yeah my wife commented on the length, but if it was any shorter I don't think they would have captured the air of foreboding just right. It was a long film, but there was a lot of relevant plot in there.

The only pretty much irrelevant scene that I can think of was the bit in Hong Kong which I think was probably added to spice the stunt/effect count up a bit.

Al

Is that why you're called bigape

PS. Tell Gill her picture looks fantastic in my hall

Yes, I agree with you. It was well edited. Excellent film though.