In addition to the box office figures, media and audience word of mouth was almost unanimously positive.
On a local rating website called Douban, the film has maintained a perfect score of ten since it opened. For a movie that has just been released, this is an extremely remarkable achievement.
Although Douban has always had a favorable bias toward Hollywood films, the quality of The Dark Knight is simply too high, so its high rating is entirely normal.
Over there, the night gradually gave way to daylight, while on the North American side, the midnight screenings officially began.
Because of the massive wave of positive reviews from the media beforehand, combined with Gilbert's many years of accumulated appeal and the Batman IP, a huge number of moviegoers ignored the dangers of going out at night and chose to enter theaters.
Throughout the long night, for all theaters screening The Dark Knight, this was destined to be a grueling night.
IMAX theaters in particular were packed. Even people across the Pacific in China knew how good the IMAX viewing experience was—let alone North American audiences.
All 187 IMAX theaters were completely sold out. Even so, many people who couldn't get tickets made a commotion.
"How are all the tickets sold out? I didn't even get a chance to see them."
"Exactly, can you add more tickets? I don't mind watching while standing."
"Yeah, yeah, we can stand. It won't affect anyone else."
Paul, an IMAX company investigator, was stationed at an IMAX theater in New York to observe audience reactions. When he heard these conversations, he wrote in his notebook that films in IMAX format were extremely popular.
Because of IMAX's cooperation with theater chains, Paul didn't need to buy a ticket to enter the IMAX auditorium and observe the audience.
When he entered the theater, he saw that the audience was completely focused on the giant screen, unable to spare even a glance at the people around them.
They stopped drinking their soda, stopped eating popcorn, didn't even hold their girlfriends' soft hands—every bit of their attention was drawn to the big screen.
Clearly, The Dark Knight in IMAX format radiated a captivating charm, and the effect was truly excellent.
After coming out, Paul called headquarters. "Hello, Thomas. I suggest that all IMAX theaters in North America add more screenings. Yes, it's best to start showing it from six in the morning.
"I'm telling you, the audience has gone crazy. If they can't see The Dark Knight in IMAX format, they're going to protest."
IMAX headquarters was brightly lit, with all executives staying at the company instead of going home.
"So, how is it? Are the numbers out?"
"We've got them. The occupancy rate reached one hundred percent, and a single theater generated 63,255 dollars in box office revenue, setting a new North American single-theater box office record."
"How much? What did you say the occupancy rate was?"
"One hundred percent."
"Excellent. I propose we raise a toast to The Dark Knight and to Gilbert!"
The outstanding data made IMAX executives extremely excited. The Dark Knight could help IMAX break through its bottleneck. Choosing to cooperate with Gilbert in the first place was precisely for this moment.
Of course, IMAX theaters were only a small portion. Other theaters also produced rather astonishing figures.
Warner's theater chain investigators visited cinemas across regions and cities. Almost everywhere in North America that mattered had The Dark Knight showing.
The purpose of theater surveys was to report detailed data back to the film company, allowing it to decide on marketing strategies based on word of mouth and box office performance.
Without a doubt, The Dark Knight's theater survey data was exceptionally strong and received widespread praise.
"I give this film an A+. Gilbert's visual language and action scenes are always so full of tension. This is the best superhero movie I've seen in a long time—without question."
"Gilbert is extremely good at filming men. Even Heath Ledger in Joker makeup was shot with incredible charisma. I give it an A+."
"There's simply no reason to give it a low score. I think this film completely elevates the standard of superhero movies. Heath Ledger absolutely deserves an Oscar. I give it an A+."
Of course, it wasn't all praise—there were also negative reviews.
The criticism mainly focused on it being too heavy and oppressive, and not making people feel happy. However, even audiences who gave negative reviews couldn't really find fault with the plot itself.
"At present, we've collected 65,338 theater survey reports. It's very clear that ninety-one percent gave an A+ rating, six percent gave a rating below C, and the remaining three percent fell in between."
Obviously, there were more positive reviews than negative ones, and the number of negative reviews was higher than the middle ratings, showing a polarized trend. But the vast majority of viewers still gave positive feedback, proving how explosive The Dark Knight was.
Warner Bros. CEO Kelly Ross frowned slightly. She was very happy that The Dark Knight was selling so well, after all, it was a blockbuster released during her tenure as CEO.
But she was also unhappy, because this was a film directed by Gilbert, and she wanted to eliminate Gilbert's influence within Warner Bros.
But was that even possible? Warner Bros.' performance this year might well depend entirely on The Dark Knight.
Just thinking about how, at the celebration banquet, she would still have to represent Warner Bros. to congratulate Gilbert and raise a toast to him made Kelly Ross feel nauseous.
But what could she do? Gilbert had already shown her that Hollywood was not a place where you could survive by petty tricks, scheming, or throwing tantrums.
What mattered most here was profit. Whoever could bring in profit was the movie studio's real boss.
The current situation was that Kelly Ross did not want to continue propping up Gilbert, the big boss of Warner Bros. Therefore, the most urgent task was to find a new boss, and Kelly Ross set her sights on Zack Snyder.
Although Zack Snyder also came from Melon Studio, compared to Christopher Nolan, Zack Snyder was easier to poach.
Moreover, Zack Snyder's 300 had performed well at the box office, making him a promising director in Hollywood.
Kelly Ross also secretly thought that Gilbert's debut film had only earned just over one hundred million dollars at the box office, while Zack Snyder had already achieved over five hundred million dollars.
Kelly Ross was just like LeBron James fans, who only looked at statistical charts and completely ignored real-world context.
Gilbert's films were made in the 1990s, when a movie breaking one hundred million dollars was already an incredible achievement. Even Tom Cruise would hold a celebration banquet when one of his films crossed the hundred-million mark.
Moreover, The Shallows had a production cost of only 3.5 million dollars, while Zack Snyder's 300 had a budget of 75 million dollars.
However, once someone harbors prejudice, it is very difficult to change their way of thinking.
It was just like how LeBron fans always blame Kobe to save LeBron—purely driven by impressions. By the way, this year the Lakers brought in Gasol and were preparing to contend for the championship.
Meanwhile, young LeBron had been swept by the Spurs last year, with Duncan starting to rack up stats against him.
Gilbert's Thunder team still had a very poor record this year, but the rookie they selected last year, Kevin Durant, performed well. So far, he was averaging 20.4 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 3.1 assists per game, and the Rookie of the Year award was basically secured.
To motivate Kevin Durant, Gilbert even took advantage of the moment when Scarlett was taking a bath and filled a bottle with water from her bathtub, bringing it to the game venue.
Of course, he only let Durant look at it—there was no way he was going to let him drink it.
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