Maybe you’ve noticed, or maybe you haven’t. But if you look around the internet, every other story on just about every site except this one is about The Dark Knight. For instance, Ben Barna, one of the great guys over at JoBlo recently pledged to do a Dark Knight story every day until the movie’s July 18th release. He seems really excited about this Batman character. I hear Barna has even taken to beating up on clowns while wearing tight, black underpants. While I support his reign of terror against Ringling Bros. Circus, I’m less on board with this Batmanizing of the internet.
To deliver that kind of Dark Knight reporting volume means that unfortunately, most of the time, the story in question is something so minor that under normal circumstances it wouldn’t be worth writing about, let alone reading. How many mostly similar TV spots for The Dark Knight actually need to be brought to our readers’ attention? If it were any other film, the answer would be one or two. With The Dark Knight, apparently the answer is every single one we can get our hands on, whether or not it’s exactly the same as the last one. Were it any other film, this much reporting of minor details would usually indicate nothing more than a slow news night. However unless it’s a slow news night every night, that’s not what’s going on with The Dark Knight.
What’s going on is that the internet buzz for The Dark Knight is absolutely out of control. Movie sites like this one are running around slavishly reporting every single tiny thing they can find to make a Dark Knight story of, because doing so results in a ridiculous, almost unheard of amount of traffic. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about here. Google Analytics backs me up on this. Even the worst Dark Knight story we’ve ever written receives more reading than the best possible Indiana Jones or WALL-E article. For some of these sites which are Dark Knight over-reporting, they may also be motivated simply by an excitement for the movie all their own, and I’m sure if asked all of them will cite that, not the pursuit of your clicks, as the reason for their over-coverage of this film. Nobody wants to be seen as a traffic whore. Honesty only goes so far.
Truth be told though we’re all traffic whores in one way or another, and simply writing this nonsensical piece of fluff with The Dark Knight in the title is I suppose, proof that I’m one too. I’ll also admit to being sort of excited about The Dark Knight, in fact I’m so excited about it I’ve been taking this novel approach: I haven’t shoved every tiny piece of information or clip I can find which is even remotely related to the film into my brain at the alarming rate everyone else seems to. I’ve had this weird notion that I might actually like to enjoy the entire movie, before I start enjoying it in bits and pieces. I hear this Dark Knight thing might be kind of good. Who is the guy with permanent smile again?
The big question for me is whether or not all this insane internet buzz will actually translate into box office dollars. Or maybe the bigger question is why is everyone so excited about Batman, when his last movie, Batman Begins, barely managed to clear $200 million. That’s a nice box office total, but Superman Returns made pretty much the same box office bucks and is widely regarded as a failure. On the Spider-Man scale of superhero flicks, it’s barely a blip. Did Spider-Man numbers of people wait and discover Batman Begins on DVD, or is it the same moderately-sized Begins crowd clicking their lives away and inflating anticipation? Is The Dark Knight Snakes on a Plane with a cape? To the internet it doesn’t seem to matter, we’re all more than content to keep cashing in on your interest… while it lasts. Hey you, over here! Click on this article! It has The Dark Knight in the title, and that means it has value.
