By almost any metric, The Dark Knight Rises is a success: a hit with critics and a summer picture flirting with $400 million.
But Chris Nolan's Batman franchise has never been weighed on a standard scale. When Nolan began the reboot with Batman Begins in 2005, he had to revive a franchise that had flat-lined with 1997's laughably bad Batman & Robin.
In 2008, The Dark Knight had to step out from the shadow of Heath Ledger's death, and it did so historically, claiming $533 million and a posthumous Academy Award for Ledger — the first major Oscar for a comic-book movie.
Now The Dark Knight Rises faces heavy expectations — even three weeks after its release.
Fans call the final chapter a masterwork that will outlast the shooting in Aurora, Colo., July 20 that left 12 people dead and 58 wounded at a midnight showing of the movie.
Supporters say the movie's performance despite the tragedy is testimony to the trilogy's cinematic brawn.
But some analysts point out that fewer people will see Rises in theaters than saw Dark Knight— a turn no one saw coming because Dark Knight was such a hit commercially and with critics.
Some box-office firms are letting their analysts hash out the debate publicly. Boxofficeprophets.com posted a single question: Is Rises a disappointment or fighter?
"I think the current Batman's performance at the box office is fine, actually," writes Boxofficeprophet.com analyst Jason Barney. He says the movie's take is more impressive given the shootings.
But the site's Felix Quinonez argues that the tragedy turned the film into a letdown. "For most movies, (the box office) would be amazing," he writes. "But if that tragic event hadn't occurred and these were the numbers The Dark Knight Rises was putting up, I would have been disappointed and surprised."
Michael Levine, publicist and author of Guerrilla P.R., says the damage already may have been done. "No doubt, this was a final straw for people who already feel the movies are a hassle and were looking for a reason not to go," he says.
"Chris Nolan's departure is the end of a golden age" of comic-book movies, says Jim Littler, founder of Comicbookmovie.com, adding that the last film "still has some legs and might surprise people when final numbers come in."
