The Bat signal has been burning brightly in the night sky.
At 56 area theaters, fans, many in costume, eagerly queued up yesterday morning at 12:01 to be the first to see The Dark Knight, the explosive new Batman movie.
The Dark Knight set a new mark for midnight ticket sales with $18.5 million, surpassing the $16.5 million of 2005's Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, a record that was believed to be unassailable.
Outside the AMC Loews Cherry Hill 24, Hezi Lowe, a teenager from Lower Merion, exclaimed, "I found out about this movie last July 18, so I've been waiting an entire year for this!"
Nearly three hours later, the crowd streamed out of the cineplex, duly impressed. "It was . . . awesome, man," said a 25-year-old moviegoer who identified himself only as Mike from Penn State. "I don't want to spoil anything. . . . The action sequences, the overall story from beginning to end, I was just clinging to the edge of my seat. It was just phenomenal."
"It lived up to the hype. It was probably the best movie I've seen this year so far. . . . The Joker, the Joker was amazing," said Greg Noga, 17, of Marlton, marveling over Heath Ledger's final performance, as the film's garishly made-up arch-villain.
Midnight openings have become fairly standard for big-ticket movies. But in other parts of the country, theaters were adding 3:30 and even 6 a.m. showings of The Dark Knight to accommodate overflow crowds.
That new wrinkle - call them soirnees - had the film industry cracking open a brand-new box office category: predawn grosses.
The critically hailed film, starring Christian Bale as the Caped Crusader, is not merely a fly-by-night sensation. Batmania seems likely to build through the weekend, with The Dark Knight playing in an unprecedented 4,366 theaters domestically.
Based on blistering early volume yesterday, Harry Medved, spokesman for Fandango, the movie-ticket-sales Web site, was confidently predicting that "Friday is absolutely going to be the best-selling day in company history." The frenzy is almost entirely due to The Dark Knight, with a minor assist from Mamma Mia!
Director Christopher Nolan's decision to simultaneously shoot the film in large-screen format also seems to be paying off. As of yesterday afternoon, showings of The Dark Knight on the two local Imax screens - the Franklin Institute's Tuttleman Theater and UA King of Prussia - were sold out through Monday morning.
