Why Ask Why?

"Why is The Dark Knight so successful?" The ways that people have found to answer this question astound me. Like there has to be this great, insightful reason. The very people who cry out against Hollywood's slavish passion for formula are perhaps not trying to decipher the puzzle, but are none the less asking the question. And that's dangerous business. Hollywood doesn't need any help thinking this way.

Do you want to know why The Dark Knight is so successful? Because Batman Begins was a good movie. And as people talked about it (there's is no better publicity than word-of-mouth), anticipation for The Dark Knight grew. And you know what happened? It was even better than Batman Begins. My guess is word-of-mouth is just now getting people to the theater.

Another thing: people actually want good comic book movies. That will come as a shock to many. Everyone seems so surprised that movies based on comic book characters are suddenly doing so well when they once did so poorly, the general exception being Superman. Everyone looked at the data and said, "People don't like comic books movies." No. People don't like bad comic book movies. And generally, between Superman and Spider-man, there were nothing but bad comic book movies. Did you see what happened when Spider-man succeeded? A whole bunch of comic book movies! Suprise!

"People like comic book movies!" Well, yes. But what are you going to do with this information? "We're going to put out every comic book movie we ever even thought about developing." Um, have you thought about the quality? "Huh?"

Did any of them do as well as Spider-man? No. And some did pretty poorly. Why? They weren't good. Sure, Fantastic Four did OK. Because people like comic book movies.

I'll tell you another thing. People just like good movies. This certainly isn't hurting The Dark Knight either. However, our society runs on instant gratification, so when we gather statistics, we tend to analyze them with this bias. Hence the importance placed on opening weekend box office receipts. Unfortunately, this emphasis has basically ruined the possibility of there ever being a true sleeper hit. One that may never win a weekend but simply chugs along and outlasts the others. I still believe that if Shawshank Redemption had been allowed to stay in theaters, it would have eventually been an enormous hit. It seems like every other person I meets says it's their favorite movie.

You know that if The Dark Knight beats Titanic for reigning box office champ (something I still doubt will happen), it's meaningless. Box office lists don't account for inflation. Really, we should be counting attendance. Here's the most recent article I could find about movie attendance. It's from 2002. As noted in my last post, Gone With the Wind reigns supreme. And most likely always will. The most recent film in the top 10? Titanic. At number six.

But attendance don't fill the coffers, so who cares? So quality is the last thing that comes to mind. Oh, how I wish it were the first. But with so many bad movies winning opening weekend, and that being the only statistic anyone looks at, I guess this is what we're doomed to. So, expect another glut of bad comic book movies. After that, it's only a matter of time before Christopher Nolan decides he's moving on and Brett Ratner is hired as funeral director.