I think some fans see this movie's success as a referendum on their notion that many superhero comics (in particularly Batman) should be "dark serious" and that any film versions should be less Raiders/Pirates/National Treasure/Rocketeer and more Citizen Kane/Amadeus/Les Mis/Ran/Million Dollar Baby.

Of course the prophets Miller and Moore showed us the dark light/knight and Batman can only be that way.  I remember one comic book pundit really believed that Watchmen would be the Lisan al-Gaib that would lead comics to literary paradise (my words) and that if The Dark Knight Returns was followed like a religious text should be during the making of Burton's Batman, comics on TV and film would be redeemed.

I really wish Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, Dwayne McDuffie (N.F.C), Alan Burnett and their cohorts could get a shot at writing a live action Batman movie that actually made it to the big screen.

Not to get anymore OT, but I saw that the budget listed for The Longest Yard was over 80 million dollars. I saw this movie, and it wasn't a bad remake, but where the hell did the 80 million bucks go? This movie had a prison set and a football field, and one explosion. I hope this money was given to the actors, because this movie should have cost about 20-30 million bucks at most. For 80 million they could have shot this movie and the sequel and had money to spare.

This to me is the great question that might be answered by Batman Begins at the box office.  It's very well written and well acted and hasn't generated a lot of fanboy hate, so how much it makes may show just how much of an audience there is for super-heroes done in the "adult" and "realistic" style.  I'd be shocked if it totally collapsed like Hulk, but it wouldn't surprise me at all to see BB fall substantially short of the 200 million dollar mark.

Mike

Doesn't Adam Sandler get $20 million a film? And I am sure Burt Reynolds and Chris Rock get a few million.

Zaki Hasan wrote: I wonder if it's coincidental that USATODAY was less-than-glowing in its review of BATMAN BEGINS?  Here's what's interesting about the opening.  It fell right into line with the other openings in the series, which is important to note because to the world at large, this is movie number five in a 16 year old series.  Any expectation that it would compete with REVENGE OF THE SITH seems ridiculous, considering even the first film in '89 didn't do that kind of business, and it was the number one movie of that year.  All three sequels did between 100 and 200 million. Not just that, but the five-day and opening weekend pattern of BATMAN BEGINS follows the EXACT same pattern as PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, with both films taking in 71 mil for the Wed-Fri window and 47 mil for the Fri-Sun window.  Additionally, they both carried budgets of 135-140 mil, and they both received glowing reviews (PIRATES: 80% on RottenTomatoes.com, BATMAN: 82%).  Word of mouth eventually powered PIRATES to 300+ million, so here's hoping BATMAN continues to follow a similar pattern. To start tossing off comments like "We wonder if the movie will recoup its budget," just seems like shoddy journalism to me on the part of USATODAY.

Precisely my opinion on anything printed in The McPaper.

Let's not forget that Warner Brothers/DC will potentially make more money from merchadise than the movie itself.  The Hulk movie barely broke even after adding international box office and DVD sales - Universal has no intention of making a sequel.  Marvel is firm that there will be a Hulk sequel because it sold so many action figures and video games for them.

But, Batman Begins was amazing, and I will certainly see it again in the theater.  It's the first movie I recall where as soon as it ended, I wanted to see it again IMMEDIATELY.