I just heard a movie reviewer speculating on the effect, if any, the shooting in Colorado will have on ticket sales. They mentioned The Dark Knight ticket sales being better than expected due to Heath Ledger’s death and the likelihood that the same type of thing will happen with the sequel.
Thoughts? (aside from “too soon”)
If anything, I didn’t think that the shootings would increase ticket sales but rather lower them.
I think that with Ledger it was a different type of death. More of an “Oh, this great actor died, let’s go see his last movie” kind of curiosity among people. This newest tragedy instills fear among people because this happened to people just like us- multiple moviegoers, not just an accidental death of one actor. If anything I would guess that people would be more reluctant to go due to fears and worries of the same thing happening in their own community.
I hope that’s not true, and people go see the movie without automatically connecting The Dark Jnight with actual terror and death in their minds, but there are always some people who do that. Anyway, that is my guess.
I’m guessing that overall it will boost ticket sales. There’s of course no way to know whether ticket sales would have been higher or lower had there not been the tragedy.
Some people will want to see it so they can better relate to the victims, some will want to see it to understand what attraction the film had for the shooter, and some won’t want to see it for fear that something bad happening may happen to them…