Enough is enough. I’m calling it so we can all move on - The Dark Knight WILL NOT beat the domestic gross of Titanic. It’s just not going to happen, $15 IMAX ticket sellouts or not. At 342mil, the film is still about 60mil away from eclipsing 2002’s Spider-Man and more than 80mil from 2006’s Dead Man’s Chest, and about to enter it’s third week of release - the week where even well performing films slow down considerably no matter how popular.

1997’s Titanic, in contrast, started slow - built over a series of weeks, slowed down, then won a record amount of Oscars, giving the film it’s second best day of its entire run 56 days into release at a measly 13.1mil. A recent E! Online article highlights how Titanic grew its audience over time, rather than play the “How Much Audience Can We Keep Week-to-Week” game of recent challengers…

Opener smaller than The Flintstones. (Titanic is the 238th “biggest” of all time)

Play at fewer theaters, at your peak, than Lost in Space.

Never, ever make more than $13.6 million in a single day.

Post your second-biggest day ($13.1 million) on your 58th day in release.

Instead of falling by 50 percent in your second weekend, go up by 24 percent.

Go up by 25 percent in your fifth weekend.

Don’t sell fewer than $1 million worth of tickets until…day 102.

Bottom Line: The way to 600mil is to build an audience with repeat customers who bring friends week-to-week. A portion of The Dark Knight’s audience is returning, no doubt - but they aren’t bringing friends the second time around.

Step 1 was to extract several thousand still frames from the original movie. Easily done if you have a copy and know how to use mplayer’s video filters.

Step 2 was to take the Speed Racer trailer and extract the individual frames and soundtrack. Again, easily done with mplayer.

Step 3 is as simple as doing some magic foo with your mosaic tools so you end up with mosaic versions of each trailer frames, using the original movie frames as tiles. Easy but slow.

Step 4 is to put the mosaic’d trailer frames back with the soundtrack and encode it all with mencoder. Doodle.

We’ve all seen this effect as posters, but the result as moving video is beyond trippy. Hit the link to see the vid in action, and be sure to check out the 120mb two minute video download, if your rig can handle that kind of action. Link. [via]

Ever wonder how long the average time between cuts is? The guys at Cinemetrics have, and they decided to find out with a little heavy-lifting help from their friends… If you consider their “friends” anyone with a PC or flash-enabled web-browser that is willing to watch a film while clicking their mouse at every cut.

You are presented with a simple interface allowing you to push buttons as shots on the movie player switch. The software must be run simultaneously with the user watching the movie. So one movie’s dynamics data can be gathered in one viewing. There is an option to pause for tea as well. Once the movie is over, you are presented with some basic statistics (length of the movie, number of shots, average shot length).

The results are then uploaded to Cinemtrics database which, in true crowd-sourcing fashion, is open to everyone for viewing and analysis. Did you know the average length of a single cut in The Matrix Reloaded just barely squeaked past 3 seconds? Well, now you know.

I love the internets. Link.

“Mohney says officers who were dispatched early Sunday to the theater arrived to find employees restraining a man wearing a purple suit, a green wig and face paint…”

Well, at least Batman isn’t the only one getting arrested these days. Link.

A trailer for the first *official Wolverine film, slated for May 2009, screened at Comic-Con this past weekend. Inevitably, it has leaked and is now available for online viewing for what is presumably a limited time viewing period (quick, try to stay ahead of the lawyers!) by clicking here and then here. The trailer is full of geeky goodness, including appearances by Marvel favs Sabertooth, Gambit and Deadpool, among others.  [via]

*I consider X-Men 2 the unofficially the first Wolverine film.  Disagree?  Prove me wrong.

Geeks of Doom brings us the latest info on the sequel to the nu-classic cult-film The Boondock Saints, entitled Boondock Saints: All Saints Day. The sequel has been tied up in a stack of lawsuits for years, mostly related to the fact that Duffy had signed away the DVD rights for the film, leaving him none of the estimated $100,000,000 million home-video take. According to a recent radio interview, everything has been settled, a script is written, everyone is back, and shooting begins in August in Canada. Click here to listen to the radio interview (warning: Duffy spoils practically the entire plot of the sequel) and see above for the first in what will hopefully be a series of video blogs coming out of the production.

Seriously…

CraigsList was flooded Friday with ads for buyers and sellers of weekend tickets. While most seem to be willing to spend around $50 for a ticket — well above the $11 face value for many theaters — others say they’ll beat any offer as they expect theaters to be sold-out for an extended period of time.

This is getting ridiculous. Link.

Also, this.

Apple just posted up a massive HD version of the Watchmen trailer that is scheduled to appear before prints of The Dark Knight this weekend. Peep it here. I must say - it’s looking leaps-and-bounds better than what I had expected from Snyder. [via]

• Michael Bay’s Rejected ‘Dark Knight’ Script
This took a lot of time and care to pull off, and boy does it. Hilarious in all the right ways.

• 30 Seconds With Mr. Freeze
While drinking in the inevitable greatness of Nolan’s second, I think it’s important to remember the travesties of the past. Never forget.

• A Look Back At ‘Begins’
iFanboy takes a hard look at Nolan’s first Batman film. I agree with everything their crew has to say both pos/neg but would add that the first needed more action. Early word says we are getting that with TDK. Huzah!

• Joker -vs- Joker
Not as good as Battle of the Batmans, but I see what you did there. [via]

• JoBlo Interviews ‘Dark Knight’ Director Chris Nolan
It’s loading a little slow at the moment, but well worth the wait.

• More Cowbell
Vaguely related.

• ‘Dark Knight’ Casts Oscar Record
Impressive. I don’t think I realized until just know how deep Nolan’s cast really is.

• WTF?!
The ‘Dark Knight’ trailer on a budget. You gotta love Youtube. Or not.

• Why ‘Dark Knight’ Might Not Break Records
Just for arguments sake.

• The Origins of ‘Dark Knight’
Our link of the week. Vh1 (of all places) links the actors performances in Dark Knight with their comic counterparts. Influences, inspiration? It’s all explained (or hypothesized - depending on your point of view) within.