The Dark Knight

[Zahveed]

The score has been disqualified.

[criddic3]

Guillermo del Toro (who, btw, has yet to direct a major box-office hit)

--MovieWes

I beg to differ.

Blade II grossed $82, 348, 319 domestically
Hellboy II grossed $75, 791, 785 domestically

according to boxofficemojo.

The original Hellboy grossed under $60 million domestically, and all his other movies considerably less. Still he does have two major hits, unless we now only count $100 million+ as being a major hit. By that standard, you'd be correct.



Edited By criddic3 on 1226584137

[Sabin]

Warner Bros. is starting their 'Dark Knight' campaign. You can now download the entire screenplay at http://warnerbros2008.warnerbros.com/assets....pt.pdf.

[Heksagon]

I saw the film some time ago. I think it's better than the dreadful Batman Begins, but that isn't much. Ledger is good, and overall the film is enjoyable, but it should be more than that.

[MovieWes]

This is hilarious. What a fucking moron...

Mayor of Batman sues WB, Nolan
Southeastern city in Turkey fights for name

By ALI JAAFAR

Batman has a new adversary: Batman.
The mayor of an oil-producing city in southeastern Turkey, which has the same name as the Caped Crusader, is suing helmer Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. for royalties from mega-grosser "The Dark Knight."

Huseyin Kalkan, the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party mayor of Batman, has accused "The Dark Knight" producers of using the city's name without permission.

"There is only one Batman in the world," Kalkan said. "The American producers used the name of our city without informing us."

No one from the town of Batman has explained why it took so many years to take legal action. Batman first appeared as a comicbook character in 1939 and the "Batman" TV series started in 1966. Tim Burton's first bigscreen rendition for Warner Bros. came out in 1989. Undoubtedly the fact that "Dark Knight" is about to pass the $1 billion mark at the B.O. played a part in stirring the ire of the Turkish hamlet.

The mayor is prepping a series of charges against Nolan and Warner Bros., which owns the right to the Batman character, including placing the blame for a number of unsolved murders and a high female suicide rate on the psychological impact that the film's success has had on the city's inhabitants.

Former natives of Batman are also said to have encountered obstacles when attempting to register their businesses abroad.

The mayor is working on gathering evidence he claims will show that the city of Batman predates the 1939 debut of Bob Kane's superhero in DC Comics.

"We are only aware of this claim via press reports and have not seen any actual legal action," a Warner Bros. rep said in a statement.

While the town of Batman has suddenly shown great interest in the property, there's no evidence that the citizenry has ever shown much loyalty to the Caped Crusader -- not even on Halloween.

[Greg]

Accoridng to boxofficeguru.com, The Dark Knight is closing in on $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales.



Edited By Greg on 1226443232

[Damien]

Finally got round to seeing it.

It's good early on, with some interesting character interactions and moral ambiguities going on. But then here we go - tedium set in as car chases and repetitious (and somewhat incoherent) action scenes take over. Nolan also tried to add more nuances to the characters than a film like this can handle. Ultimately, just another disposable summer flick -- except that it has a great performance by Heath Ledger. Can't wrap my mind around the fact that this was the same actor from Brokeback Mountain and Lords of Dogtown. What a sad loss. As the Joker, he reminded me of the awful Republican senator from Minnesota, Norm Coleman.

[MerryKarma]

so do you think they should go into franchise mode with tolkein's stories? like james bond for a new generation, where every few years there is a new film set in middle earth telling stories tolkein never intended.

Oh, yuck! I hope not!!!

[Bog]

You and Pen will get along just fine...

[MerryKarma]

May I bring this topic back to The Dark Knight?

I finally was able to see it today. I got off work early, and nothing else I wanted to see was playing nearby. I've seen the first Batman movie and maybe the second, and then I kinda lost interest...and the only reason I saw this one was the Oscar buzz generated by Heath Ledger's performance.

I really liked what Ledger did for the role of the Joker. The movie overall - not so much.

Now, I will wade through the 13 pages of this post...

[Zahveed]

I still think that we should move this debate to The Hobbit thread instead of hijacking the thread for The Dark Knight, but whatever.

The Dark Hobbit?

Think about it. I think it has franchise potential.

[flipp525]

I still think that we should move this debate to The Hobbit thread instead of hijacking the thread for The Dark Knight, but whatever.

I agree.

[MovieWes]

I still think that we should move this debate to The Hobbit thread instead of hijacking the thread for The Dark Knight, but whatever.

The Silmarillion is a very dense and long-winded book that takes place over the course of several thousand years. It's really unadaptable, regardless of how Biblical or Romantic some of the stories in it are. And, in a way, your description of it being Biblical only kind of re-inforces my point, as the Bible is also a very dense and long-winded book that also takes place over the course of several thousand years. Films have been made concerning individual stories in the Bible, most of which have concerned either Moses or Jesus (The Ten Commandments, The Passion of the Christ, The Greatest Story Ever Told, King of Kings, The Prince of Egypt, etc.), but there has never been a complete adaptation of the Bible, be it a film or TV miniseries. I guess John Huston kind of attempted to adapt The Bible into a movie in the '60s, but all he got through was the first half of Genesis and the movie was a piece of shit.

My point in all this is that maybe individual stories of The Silmarillion could work in the context of a film or TV miniseries, but it would almost be impossible to adapt the entire novel into either format. The only way that I could see an adaptation of The Silmarillion working would be to make an actual TV series out of it. Not a mini-series, but an actual series with maybe 10-15 hour long episodes per season with a total life of about 3-4 seasons. It might work that way, but it would still be super-expensive and probably unfeasible considering that it would be difficult for the network to re-coup their investment, especially if it's a network like HBO which relies exclusively on subscribers (and, to a certain extent, DVD sales) instead of advertisers to pay their production costs.

I also think that it's worth noting that The Silmarillion will probably never happen under any circumstances since Saul Zaentz has tried for many years to acquire the rights to it, which Christopher Tolkien flat-out refused to sell.

Also, from here on out, I'm going to post all replies to this debate in The Hobbit thread.



Edited By MovieWes on 1221775156

[Zahveed]

Mix Romantic Epic and Biblical Epic and you might have something truly amazing...

That description could also turn people off.

[OscarGuy]

I disagree on the Silmarillion. If done right, it could be astounding. Think of it in the context of a Biblical epic. It's not just about the creation of Middle-Earth, but it's about man's fallibility, the ability to share love across racial lines and the persistence of the human spirit when love is at stake. It's almost a romantic epic. Mix Romantic Epic and Biblical Epic and you might have something truly amazing...