The Official MovieSet Blog
Posts Tagged ‘joker’
Great Halloween costumes
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Yeah, I know Halloween was almost one whole month ago but Cinematical just got around to publishing their winners for their best movie themed Halloween costumes. They’ve got 10 picks for best kids costume and 10 picks for best adult costume and all of them are wonderful, fantastic and awesome — but my favorite kids costume is this little darlin’ all done up like The Joker from The Dark Knight. How creepy would it be to see this on your doorstep asking for candy?
If you liked this costume go look at the rest of them — there’s an amazing Optimus Prime and a pretty cool Stay Puft Marshmallow Man!
Posted at 2:31PM by Patrick
Dark Knight on December 9?
Friday, October 10, 2008
Amazon.com is now taking pre-orders for The Dark Knight on DVD/Blu-ray and they’ve pegged the home video release date as December 9. While Warner Bros. hasn’t made an official announcement for when they plan on rolling out their superhero megahit on DVD, 12/9 seems like about the right time. Plus, when have you ever known Amazon to be wrong about major DVD release dates?
Amazon isn’t listing any specs for the 2-disc Dark Knight disc but rumor has it that there isn’t that much in the way of bonus material on the release besides a couple of featurettes, a documentary and six episodes of a fake Gotham City news show. My guess is that the director’s audio commentary et al will come our way in a year or so. Ah, the joys of double dipping.
Posted at 6:44PM by admin
Dark Knight to be re-released
Thursday, September 11, 2008
So word is Warner Bros. is going to do the right and smart thing and re-release The Dark Knight come January 2009. Lest you believe that the sole motivation by WB is so that they could try and make the box office tally of TDK soar past Titanic’s $600 million dollars, I actually believe that the Warner suits aren’t motivated by greed. Is there anyone out there that doesn’t think that the DVD/Blu-ray sales for The Dark Knight won’t be astronomical? No, I think that they’re gunning for the glory: for a superhero movie to win Oscars outside of the special effects/make-up/sound effects categories.
In the nearly 30 years since Christopher Reeve starred as Superman, superhero movies may have proved to be lucrative revenue generations and franchise creators but they haven’t earned the critical respect given to dramas or thrillers. Remember back to 1991 and how The Silence of the Lambs, which I remember being marketed as a horror, suddenly became a psychological thriller? Oscars went to the two lead stars, the director, the writer and the film won Best Picture for the year. Could The Dark Knight be poised to do for the superhero genre what Silence of the Lambs did for horror? Personally I can’t see TDK winning Best Picture but I could see the picture getting a nomination as well as Chris Nolan get ting one and possibly even win depending on how the fall/winter movie season’s line-up of films play out. Of all the Oscar categories, I’d consider Heath Ledger is a lock; depending upon how WB wants to submit his role, Ledger could stand more chance if he were considered for Best Supporting Actor and not Best Actor. Or — consider this my “go for broke” scenario — WB plays out Ledger for the Best Actor category and Aaron Eckhart could be marketed under the Supporting category. I’d also give the film a healthy point spread for an original screenwriting nomination, not counting the technical department noms. Best case scenario: it’s a weak awards season and The Dark Knight picks up 5 or 6 Oscar wins including ones for Ledger, Nolan, the writers, music, sound and something like costuming or editing. Likely case: TDK wins a few technical awards and Ledger or Nolan take home the night’s single non-technical Oscar. I think it’s going to go down that way.
Posted at 7:47PM by admin
The Dark Knight is tops again
Monday, August 11, 2008
In a feat that hasn’t been matched since New Line Cinema’s release of Peter Jackson’s ‘The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King‘ in 2003 the latest Batman film, The Dark Knight reigns supreme at the box office for the fourth week in a row. The weekend saw the film take in another $26,117,030 bringing the total U.S. box office since it opened to an amazing $441,628,497 putting the film third in all-time grosses behind only Star Wars at number two, a goal still attainable by The Dark Knight at $461 million, and Titanic at number one with $600 million.
Global grosses are even more impressive for The Dark Knight at a whopping $704,728,497 (and no I haven’t written that wrong).
Also of note was the opening of the Seth Rogen stoner flick, ‘Pineapple Express‘ capturing the number two spot for the weekend at a respectable $23,245,025.
Posted at 11:12PM by admin
An early look for “Dark Knight” Joker
Friday, August 08, 2008
With The Dark Knight now the highest grossing superhero film of all time and Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker now safely resting in the nightmares of everyone, here’s an interesting look at an early concept for Batman’s penultimate villain. Doesn’t this version look even more freakier than what was in the film?
The image comes from the new Dark Knight art book which shows off all of the movie’s conceptual designs from the Batpod (that motorcycle thingy) to Two-Face’s scarred mug.
Three more looks at this early idea for The Joker can be looked at here.
Posted at 6:44PM by admin
Piracy Prevention for The Dark Knight
Monday, July 28, 2008
Movie piracy - we’ve all heard about it, and sadly, many of us participate in it. With the advent of almost ubiquitous high speed internet, easy file sharing and advances in video compression, Hollywood’s bottom line is under attack. The ready availability of shabbily shot amatuer video made by people in movie theaters with cheap portable miniDV cameras, strange as it may seem, has become the movie viewing standard by some.
So how, other than changing an entire business model, which is another discussion entirely, does a studio like Warner Brothers prevent an epic film like The Dark Knight, with a $180 million dollar budget and buzz to spare, from arriving on the internet filmed by some joker (pun fully intended) with a video camera in a darkened theater in the deepest darkest reaches of who knows where?
According to this article on the LA Times website Warner Brothers undertook an unprecedented approach in the six months between post production and the film’s release which is almost as epic as the film itself. Tracking prints with OJ-esque ‘chains of custody’, staggering shipping and delivery methods, patrolling popular file sharing sites and random spot checks to ensure video cameras were not present during screenings. They even went so far as to supply night vision goggles given to exhibitors in Australia to detect bad guys.
What did all this effort get them? Warner execs gave themselves a pat on the back stating that all of their counter-piracy measures gained them 38 hours before The Dark Knight showed up on file-sharing sites making $158 million on its record breaking opening weekend.
Well done. I guess.
This ’solution’ is just a bandaid on a gushing, nearly mortal, wound. Perhaps it’s time for the troglodytes (my word of the day) in Hollywood to realize the potential of this thing called the internet.
Dear studios,
Stop with the Frankensteinien, “Fire bad!” thinking and develop a business model that is at least late 20th century.
Your BFF,
Mike Browne
Posted at 11:24PM by admin
