America gains both fame and fortune

Chapter 444: Crushing Various Records
After the premiere, The Dark Knight opened in 4480 theaters in North America, setting a new record for the North American film market.

Not only Warner Bros., the market is also full of confidence in the Dark Knight.

The quality of the film is excellent, the publicity and marketing are strong enough, and the audiences of this era are much more tolerant than they were a decade ago when they were bombarded with all kinds of complex information and became exhausted.

On Thursday night, every theater showing The Dark Knight was packed with moviegoers.

Some smart vendors smelled the business opportunity.

In the bustling commercial district of North Hollywood, street oil painter Lisa came to the vicinity of the theater with her carefully prepared tools and set up her stall in a car. The carefully selected location ensured that she could see the Joker poster above the theater door as soon as she turned her head.

Lisa put up a display board with the business details and prices written on it.

Before the display was set up, two young men came over. The one with long hair looked at the display, pointed at the theater and asked, "Can you draw me as a clown?"

Lisa said, "Of course."

Long hair sat on the folding chair: "Come on."

Lisa just picked up the makeup brush when another young man said, "And me."

Two dollars fell into a box on the side.

Before Lisa finished painting the first person, another couple came in. They were also going to the cinema. The man looked at the pale clown makeup with long hair that was almost completed and said, "I want to be a clown, too."

"It will take a while." Lisa said.

The man glanced at his phone: "There's still some time until the midnight show. We can wait."

Lisa hurriedly busy herself with the work at hand, and when she looked up again, she found that there were a few more people, all of whom wanted to become clowns tonight.

This is a bustling city that never sleeps. If it were anywhere else, Lisa wouldn't dare to stay alone so late.

Ten minutes later, there were six or seven people queuing up here at Lisa's place to draw clowns.

As time went by, not only the cinema, but even Lisa's stall was surrounded by people.

The box where Lisa collected money was filled with various small-denomination U.S. dollar bills.

As the showtime of The Dark Knight approached, the people surrounding Lisa disappeared almost at the same time, as if they had made an appointment.

Lisa quickly collected the money and various tools and put them in the car parked on the side of the road.

She planned to go back and rest early and come here again tomorrow. Seeing how hot the business was tonight, this business would last for at least a few weeks.

That clown is easy to paint with oil paint, and the money is easy to make.

Lisa made a lot of money by riding on the popularity of the company. She thought of a few friends and took out her cell phone to make some calls: "I found a good business..."

Before she could finish her call, the other end said, "Lisa, you know what? I made nearly $300 tonight in Burbank by painting the clown, the clown played by Martin Davis!"

Lisa realized her friend wasn’t stupid and said with a smile, “Me too, let’s continue tomorrow!”

On this night, there may be hundreds of thousands of clowns appearing all over the United States, and some street painters are making a lot of money.

In an AMG Cinema in the San Francisco Bay Area, the night manager, Cook, saw that everyone in the theater had left and asked the ticket seller, "Are all the tickets for the three theaters sold out?"

"All the tickets for the largest theaters 1 and 2, where the Dark Knight is being shown, are sold out," the ticket seller said quickly. "Half of the tickets for Mamma Mia in the ordinary theater 3 are sold out."

This weekend, not only "The Dark Knight" is released, but also "Mamma Mia" starring Meryl Streep.

The large theaters 1 and 2 were packed, and Cook was a little worried, so he told the ticket counter and went over there to take a look himself.

He specifically checked the security doors and security passages of the two cinema halls, and found they were unobstructed.

I walked around to the front door and took a look into the corridor of the theater. Against the backdrop of the blue and black tones of the movie, it was crowded with heads of people.

There were too many people watching the midnight showing of The Dark Knight.

Suddenly, a person sitting in a nearby seat turned down, probably to go to the toilet, and rushed there in a hurry, almost bumping into Cook head-on.

Cook saw a pale face and a bloody mouth, and subconsciously let out a cry.

The sound attracted many people around to look over.

There were more than a dozen pale and blood-red faces densely packed together, all of them were damn clowns.

Cook quickly left the theater, unable to say much to these crazy fans.

…………

In the Avalon Bar on Sunset Boulevard, Nolan untied his tie, raised his glass, and clinked glasses with Martin: "Cheers."

Martin clinked glasses with Charles Rowan next to him: "Together."

The three grown men drank the whiskey in their glasses.

Nolan took the initiative to pick up the bottle and poured wine for the three people one by one. In the past two years, he had been under tremendous pressure and needed to vent at this moment: "Martin, Charles, to success!"

Charles laughed: "Cheers to our great success!"

Martin said loudly: "We are going to break the North American weekend box office record!" Feedback from all sides was all good news, so the three of them came out to celebrate and wait for more good news.

Nolan drank a lot of wine, and with the pressure relieved, he said: "Next time I see people who looked down on me, I will ask them one question: Do you know how much the Dark Knight's first-week box office was? Whether he knows it or not, I will tell him an astonishing number in person."

Martin put his arm around Nolan's shoulders and said, "Well, Chris, am I right? We..." He was about to say two, but when he saw Charles Rowan, he changed his words temporarily: "The three of us work closely together, and we will be successful in everything we do. We can shock the world!"

Charles slapped the table and said, "Well said, The Dark Knight is the first time the three of us have worked together, but it will definitely not be the last!"

The three people's cell phones rang almost at the same time.

Martin took it out and took a look. The most eye-catching number on it was: 1993 million US dollars!
Nolan laughed wantonly, slapping the table with his hands almost frantically. He didn't care even if the bottle fell over, letting the whiskey fall to the floor.

Only those who have truly endured the pressure of an investment of more than 3 million US dollars can understand the relief he feels at this moment.

Here are the midnight box office results for The Dark Knight.

Martin's face was also full of smiles. He couldn't help but be happy because he signed a salary model with a guaranteed minimum salary plus profit-sharing.

Nolan looked up and asked, "What was the previous record for midnight shows?"

Martin specifically checked: "Star Wars: Episode 3 took $1690 million, we had $300 million more than them!"

Nolan actually knew, but he just wanted to confirm it, so he pounded the table and said, "We beat Star Wars!"

Charles said, “We are going to set a record!”

Martin pumped his fist vigorously and shouted, "We'll beat Spider-Man 3 again tomorrow."

The single-day box office record in North America belongs to Peter Parker.

Charles continued, "Not only tomorrow, we will surpass Spider-Man in the next three days of the weekend!"

Martin stood up, pulled Nolan and Charles up again, and said, "Change places, let's celebrate the second half."

Nolan was surprised: "How to celebrate?"

Martin led the way and walked forward: "You will feel tired after being excited. I will take you to wash your faces and refresh your mind."

Charles had vaguely heard of it: "Night Club?"

The three of them came out from the back door, got into Charles' car, and headed straight for the Nightclub.

Today, Wes Kress is getting older and rarely goes out. The two French directors Aja and Zomi have temporarily left Hollywood. The only truly active members of the Face Gang are the Asshole Trio.

When the opportunity is right, we should also recruit new talents. Even if we can't become like Nicholson and Leonardo, at least we can help each other in our careers.

Halfway through the journey, Martin called Nicholson and said, "Jack, come out and wash your face."

Meryl Streep's voice came from the receiver: "It's so late, who is calling? Do you have a sense of justice?"

Martin had been drinking and was excited by the good news. He immediately raised his voice and said, "Jack, didn't you say that this was the last time you were with Meryl at METGALA?"

"I mean the last time of that month." Nicholson said calmly, "Wait for me, I'll come to you right away. We've done what we need to do. It's time to wash our faces and sober up."

Not long after, the four of them met up at the Night Club and enjoyed the facial cleanser service.

Nolan and Charles soon became addicted to it.

I even made an appointment with Martin and Nicholson to come back when I have time.

After setting a new midnight box office record, "The Dark Knight" was released in 4480 theaters in North America on Friday morning, and there were queues for tickets in many commercial theaters.

Now is the hottest summer season in the North American film market. The pre-screening publicity is strong and effective, and the post-screening word of mouth is booming.

Among the nearly 98 film reviews included on the Rotten Tomatoes website, almost all of them received positive reviews. The freshness rating on the first day of its release was as high as 92%, the MTC media comprehensive score was 9.6 points, and the IMDB score was temporarily as high as .

All of these combined naturally created a box office myth!
After its North American premiere, "The Dark Knight" grossed $7287 million, breaking the North American single-day box office record of $3 set by "Spider-Man 5984."

The popularity and success of this film are unstoppable.

More and more clowns appeared on the streets of cities in North America. Most people's attention was focused on the Joker, and Batman became the Joker's tool as expected.

There are countless praises for Martin on major film websites and media.

"Martin created the first villain in film history!"

"Hats off to Martin, he brought us a classic character!"

Of course, the overwhelming praise must be accompanied by outstanding box office, otherwise the praise is meaningless.

Three days into the weekend, The Dark Knight unsurprisingly surpassed Mamma Mia, which was released in the same period, and took the top spot on the North American box office chart.

And the box office is an astonishing number!

The Dark Knight opened with $1.72 million in its opening weekend, surpassing Spider-Man 3's $1.51 million, setting a new North American weekend box office record!
In the extremely competitive North American film market, the Dark Knight has become the most popular one!
Star Wars, Spider-Man and Pirates were all defeated by him.

(End of this chapter)