Can Batman save Hollywood?

“Holy blockbuster, Batman!” said Joshua Rich in an Entertainment Weekly blog. Not only did The Dark Knight haul in $155.3 million “to score the biggest three-day opening in box-office history,” it also “set new standards in just about every category imaginable.” It’s pretty safe to say that “everyone in Hollywood will sleep well tonight.”

It’s refreshing to see a Hollywood blockbuster this “ambitious and daring” do so well, said The New Republic’s blog The Plank. The movie is “extremely dark,” “brilliantly crafted,” and very “compelling.” So does this mean Hollywood will start taking more chances? Probably not. As long as “massive ad campaigns assure major business in the first week after opening day,” what’s the “point of making sure the product is high quality?”

The latest Batman movie may have broken “box office records left and right,” said Scott Gwin in the blog Cinema Blend, but Hollywood shouldn’t get too comfortable. The Dark Knight “entertained mass audiences on Friday night,” but ticket sales “dropped sharply on Saturday,” which suggests that “the early wave might not promise anything about the movie’s future success.” Word-of-mouth still matters.

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And one movie alone might not be enough to rescue Hollywood from its financial troubles, said Michael Cieply in The New York Times. The Dark Knight’s stellar opening helped boost the “domestic box-office total for the year to $5.36 billion,” but that’s “still down about 1 percent from last year, and the number of theatergoers is down 3.7 percent.”