LOS ANGELES, July 30:
Batman sequel “The Dark Knight Rises” topped movie box office charts this weekend with nearly 64.1 million dollars in US and Canadian ticket sales, a 60 per cent drop from its debut last week in the wake of a fatal shooting in a Colorado movie theater.
The reduction in ticket sales for the movie starring Christian Bale as the comic book crimefighter trailed the performance of its 2008 predecessor “The Dark Knight,” which fell 53 per cent in its second weekend to earn 75 million dollar.
The drop also proved weaker than this year’s huge summer hit, “The Avengers,” which opened to roughly 207 million dollar in its first weekend and fell about 50 percent to 103 million dollar.
On July 20, a gunman burst into a movie theater at a midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora, Colorado, and opened fire, killing 12 people and injuring 58. It has been difficult to pin down just exactly how the massacre impacted business for the movie, which cost the Warner Bros. Studio around 250 million dollar to make and tens of millions more to market.
But overall, “Dark Knight Rises” played well through the week and now has amassed 289 million dollar total US and Canadian ticket sales, and other films with huge opening weekends have fallen off more than 60 per cent in the past. The domestic box office for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part II,” for instance, fell 72 per cent from 169 million dollar its first weekend to 47 million dollar in its second.
Among other titles in theaters, animated children’s film “Ice Age: Continental Drift,” about animals on a global adventure, retained the No. 2 spot on box office charts by earning 13.3 million dollar at domestic theaters.
“The Watch,” a new comedy in theaters this week, brought in $13 million to land in third place. The film stars Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and Jonah Hill as men who start a neighborhood watch group and battle aliens.
“The Dark Knight Rises” was released by Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc. News Corp’s 20th Century Fox film studio distributed “Ice Age: Continental Drift” and “The Watch.” (agencies)
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