Anticipated Profits on Latest Batman Project Are No Joke

By Phil Villarreal, The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson

Jul. 10–You don’t need a bat signal to tell you it’s a good idea to get your tickets early for the new Batman film.

“The Dark Knight,” the much-anticipated follow-up to 2005′s lauded franchise reboot “Batman Begins,” is poised to challenge “Iron Man” and “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” for the title of the top-grossing film of the summer.

Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker is already drawing Oscar buzz, and early reviews have hailed the 152-minute film as one of the top comic book movies to date.

Midnight screenings Thursday (technically 12:01 a.m. July 18) are on sale now on fandango.com for Century Park Place, Century El Con, Century Park and AMC Foothills and have not yet sold out. To purchase advance tickets to Harkins Tucson Spectrum visit harkinstheatres.com, and for Tower Theatres visit mytowertheatres.com.

Tower Theatres managing partner Kent Edwards says he doesn’t expect sellouts at the midnight shows.

“We’re getting three prints so I’m hoping we’ll be fine,” he said. “There’s a lot of anticipation and I think in the first two days we’ll definitely fill the theaters up pretty quickly. I know they’ve talked about record advance sales back East.”

You can also buy advance tickets at the theaters.

The New York Times reported that theaters in larger cities are screening the film at 3 and 6 a.m. after the midnight showings. Edwards said he hasn’t decided if Tower will follow suit and said he’ll wait for direction from Warner Bros.

Edwards doubts “Batman Begins” will be the biggest movie of the summer but acknowledges that it could be.

“I expect opening weekend to be quite a monster, but I don’t know if it will do as well as Indy, although I certainly hope it does. I don’t know if it has the legs, but it should beat the $205 million ‘Batman Begins’ made.”

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