The Dark Knight Rises Opening Weekend Box Office: Six Reasons It Could Top The Avengers

Back in April, before The Avengers opened, we looked at five reasons why The Dark Knight Rises could beat The Avengers at the box office. Of course, The Avengers went on to set an opening weekend record of $207 million at the U.S. box office and has racked up $614 million total so far this summer. The Avengers has set the bar very high. Does The Dark Knight Rises have any chance of breaking the opening weekend record set by The Avengers? Of course, the lack of 3-D ticket prices and the longer running time than The Avengers will put The Dark Knight Rises at a disadvantage. However, there is still a very good chance The Dark Knight Rises could top The Avengers. Here are our top five reasons revisited with an additional bonus reason added for a total of six. 6. Christopher Nolan's Fan Base – Nolan has a strong track record of producing excellent movies, and his fans thoroughly trust him to deliver a good product. Christopher Nolan is one of those rare directors who has the box office drawing power of a big name Hollywood star. People will go see a Nolan movie just because he's the director. In fact, his fans are so supportive that Rotten Tomatoes had to turn off their comments due to the backlash over the very few negative reviews posted about The Dark Knight Rises. 5. IMAX Will Boost Ticket Dollars – While The Dark Knight Rises isn't being released in 3-D, a large part of the film was shot in IMAX. Die-hard fans will have no problem shelling out the higher ticket fees to see The Dark Knight Rises in IMAX. The Dark Knight Rises is opening in a record 332 IMAX locations. Most of which will likely sell completely out of tickets. It's virtually a foregone conclusion the film will break all previous records when it comes to IMAX ticket sales. 4. Last Movie In Trilogy – While The Avengers had been set up by previous Marvel Studios films, it was the first Avengers movie. On the other hand, The Dark Knight Rises is the last of a trilogy. The last Harry Potter movie proved that no one wants to miss the last film in a series. Nolan's Batman films are an established product with a large fan base that has been built up over time. 3. Batman Is Bigger Than The Avengers – The Avengers are big, but Batman is bigger. After Superman, Batman is probably the best known superhero in the entire world (even though an argument could be made for Spider-Man). There were four big budget Batman movies before Nolan even rebooted the franchise with his trilogy. 2. Critical Acclaim – Critics are notoriously vicious when it comes to reviewing comic book films, but Christopher Nolan is the exception to the rule. While there have been a smattering of bad reviews, the overall reviews have been overwhelming positive. Some early reviews already have people talking a possible Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards. 1. Huge Midnight Screening And Opening Day – While The Avengers opening weekend record of $207 million was astounding, the film failed to break Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2's opening day record of $91 million. One thing that worked against The Avengers on opening day is that most kids were still in school, making a Thursday night midnight screening a burden for parents. The Dark Knight Rises is opening when kids are out of school, so look for it to crush the opening day of both Harry Potter and The Avengers. Dare we say that The Dark Knight Rises could even break the $100 million opening day mark?