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RIP, Heath

Kim Hollis: Let's address the elephant in the living room. How much do you think Heath Ledger's shocking death impacted the box office of The Dark Knight?

Max Braden: I think there's a 'perfect storm' at work regarding his death, his role, and the movie's success. Had he died right after Candy or I'm Not There, there would not have been a noticable box office difference. After Brokeback Mountain, probably, and with The Dark Knight I would say there was a significant box office response to this final performance. But if one of the other cast members had died the same way (even Bale), I don't think the response would have been as great as is was for Ledger (however immeasurable that is), which indicates that it was Ledger uniquely and what he did in this particular role rather than his death that was the dominant factor.

Pete Kilmer: Max hit the nail on the head...Ledger's performance and the fact that he passed away led to that perfect storm. I don't think this would have happened with any of his other movies.

David Mumpower: I agree with Max's sentiment. If we go back in time to May of 1994, there was a smaller scale version of this situation with Brandon Lee in The Crow. That was a modest $15 million production that no one expected to be a box office hit prior to his death. Due to the macabre publicity the movie received after his death, it became successful due in large part to rubbernecking. The movie opened in first place with $11.8 million, 80% of its budget, and went on to earn $50.7 million during its theatrical run. I have felt for a while now that The Dark Knight had a lot going for it anyway, but The Brandon Lee Factor created six months of anticipation and free advertising. It's a ghastly thought process, but it's true.

Tim Briody: I agree with what's been said. Immediately after his death, it was known that The Dark Knight was his final performance, and the first reports that he absolutely knocked it out of the park were surfacing. While TDK was brilliantly marketed, free advertising, as morbid as it might be, never hurts either.





Calvin Trager: Yes, it's morbid either way, but I think some credit is due for the fact that the formal marketing campaign didn't play on Ledger's death. They definitely benefited from the tabloid shows doing their dirty work for them but I think they can correctly be seen as having taken the high road in a difficult situation.

Tim Briody: Absolutely. The studio blatantly trying to capitalize on this would have probably been detrimental to the opening out of protest.

Daron Aldridge: It is likely impossible to try to quantify this in dollars, but I think that his death created more sense of curiosity, tribute, or fandom in the public conscious. Therefore, it caught the attention of people otherwise uninterested in a Batman movie, so they could see his final completed performance.

Sean Collier: It's hard to remember the buzz for The Dark Knight before Ledger's death, but think back. As much as people loved Batman Begins and Bale/Eckhart/Caine et al, Ledger was all anyone mentioned when The Dark Knight came up in conversation, from the moment the first image of him in costume and makeup was released. He was going to be the driving force behind the movie's success either way - his death, tragic though it was, added to the mystique that already existed around the role. Would TDK hold the record if Ledger were alive? Maybe not, but it still would've been damn close.

Scott Lumley: It might have impacted the box office a little, but really, is the demographic for people that slow down to look at car wrecks all that big? I hope not. This was eagerly anticipated long before Heath died and history shows that we as the viewing public love the Joker even more than we love Batman.

Brandon Scott: It's so difficult to put a dollar sign on this accurately. I'll say this, when I saw the film, I sat by my girlfriend, a 60+ year-old-woman who came alone to my right and an 80+ year-old woman who came alone in front of me. My bet is that at least three of these people were here, on opening weekend no less, to see a film based on a comic book(!) for one reason and one reason only...Heath Ledger. His death had an enormous positive financial impact on this film, no joke.

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