The Dark Knight, the new Batman movie, brought in a record-breaking $66.4 million in its first day, according to Warner Bros, the film’s distributor.
That’s an impressive $6.6 million more than Spider-Man 3 took in during its first day of release in setting the previous record last summer.
Two factors appear predominant in the film’s record-setting pace: one, the strongly positive audience response to Batman Begins, which delighted audiences despite its liberal employment of action film cliches (or perhaps precisely because of that), and two, curiosity about Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker.
Regarding the former, I can confirm that the film is a very, very good one of its kind, and in fact better than Batman Begins.
Regarding Ledger, I can confirm that his performance is absolutely brilliant. The creativity, ingenuity, intelligence, sensitivity, and realism (yes, there is powerful realism in his portrayal of the character’s motivations) is truly astonishing and does indeed merit acknowledgment with a posthumous Academy Award. I suppose it’s possible someoe will turn in a better supporting performance this year, but it’s certainly not likely. Ledger’s portrayal of the character is that good.
Reuters reports that the quality of Ledger’s performance may not matter enough to bring him the Oscar, because Oscar voters are afraid "to hug the dead," according to columnist Tom O’Neill as quoted in the story.
If so, that’s another of the many great reasons to ignore the damn Oscars.
Thanks for the excellent comments, Edmond. I agree that the themes of order vs. chaos are prominent, and I think that their prominence suggests some real theological implications, to which I hope to attend in further comments on the film.
You are exactly right about Ledger’s performance; It is extraordinary. He is the personification of evil; chaotic, nihilistic and seductive. The Joker is an example of brilliant writing brought to “life”. A true act of creation.
I think the film also works because it is thematically interesting. The Joker (chaos) battles Batman (order) which is a universal theme but is taken beyond its usual limits as the picture examines the reality that for order to defeat chaos it has to get itself dirty to some degree and fight chaos on its own territory. The tension comes in seeing how far the forces of order are willing to go.
But even here the film might not have worked but for the fact that director/writer Nolan and his cast make the “comic book” characters into real people who we believe as completely as any film characters yet depicted. As in the real world we just don’t know what we could lose next. And Nolan doesn’t shy away from real loss.
Even if the film wasn’t about a man who dresses up as a bat this would be pretty thrilling stuff.
And to disagree with you on one minor point: I think Ledger might actually wind up with the Oscar. His death has really resonated with people and he seems ready to take his place with some legendary stars who met an early end. The emotional pull of his loss just might be enough to get him the Oscar…which, the performance deserves anyway.