What was expected to be the highest grossing movie of the year (and possibly all time) has fallen somewhat below expectations.’The Dark Knight Rises’ had a 60% drop at the box office this weekend in comparison to its opening weekend. Now, don’t sound the alarms, the film isn’t in any real financial trouble, it’s just a bit lower than what most people anticipated. On opening weekend ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ garnered approximately $160M, an extremely large amount for any film, but it was lower than earlier estimates. This weekend the film topped the box office with $64.1M – again a huge amount for any film on it’s second weekend – bringing the 10 day domestic total to $289.1M. So what’s the problem here? Well, this number is lower than what ‘The Avengers’ and ‘The Dark Knight’ had taken in at this point in their run. Both of those films had crossed the $300M mark within 10 days.

As I stated earlier, I don’t think anyone at Warner Bros. is really that concerned, it is still going to be one of the highest grossing films ever, but if you had asked my prediction just two weeks ago, I would not have seen this coming. Many have put the blame on the devastating Colorado shootings that took place at a midnight screening of the film last week, but there really is no way to know that for sure. If that is the true reason it is a real shame because the film is truly fantastic and a wonderful close to an outstanding trilogy.

Why do you think ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ is earning less money at the box office than its predecessor ‘The Dark Knight’?