I think some of you are over-estimating the potential box office of The Dark Knight Rises. The Dark Knight's box office performance was a combination of a number of things, including the mood of the country at the time, the general refreshed feeling of Schumacher's Batman movies being washed away, and a rather morbid fascination with Heath Ledger's Joker and his untimely death. I think all of those factors (and probably others) came together to turn it into the phenomenon that it became. But I don't think we can take The Dark Knight's performance as the new benchmark for all Nolan Batman movies. The Dark Knight Rises will still probably rake in amazing amounts of cash... I just don't believe it will be the phenomenon its predecessor was.

@geoffmorton

There is a possibility of a negative backlash to TDKR as well very similar to what we have seen this summer and what happened to Cap. Mind you Cap had to go up against Potter and Transformers but I get the general feeling the average moviegoer kind of gets tired after the 4th or 5th superhero/comic book movie comes out.

TDKR will come out after Avengers, Men in Black 3, Spidey and GiJoe. Don't forget the negatives about this movie. Bane the Gimp/Road Warrior and no Catwoman and just Selina Kyle doesn't cut it for some (including me). I would have preferred an end to this trilogy with other classic Batman villains like Riddler and Penguin but I guess they are not "realistic" enough for Nolan.

The one benefit both Avengers and TDKR have is they do not have heavy competition the following 2-3 weeks after their release dates so it should make for an interesting race.

Avengers has the Disney marketing machine to back it up.
 

Agree that its going to be a tight race between TDKR and Avengers. I think Avengers might win because its a team effort! Look at all those stars together. Never been done before. Well they did do movies like Freddy V Jason but that was done in a campy way (is that the right word?).

BUT in the far future ... in an elseworlds scenario ... when the JLA movie comes out ... its going to rule them all ... ahhh ... [cue dreaming music]

And will James C please do another "Aliens" or T2 and show these "action" directors how it should be done!

Oh yeah. This will be the first time a true all-star team up occurs on the big screen. There had been some Vs stuff in the past like Freddy vs Jason or the Godzilla movies but Avengers will be the ultimate hero team-up.

I'm thinking it might set a trend too if mega successful. Something the 90s could have used. Imagine a Harry Tasker (True Lies), John McLean (Die Hard) and Rambo team-up? Would have been kick-ass.

The success of this could push DC for a JLA movie. 

Of course, we could end up seeing good all-star team-ups (say JLA or even Pixar does Monsters Inc meet Woody and Buzz) but also bad (like say the Chipmunks meet Garfield meet Scooby-doo). 

forgot to mention Expendables which tried to gather a whole bunch of stars ... too bad they're past their prime

Let's leave the team ups like Monsters Inc meets Woody and Buzz for bad fanfic.  Stuff like Aliens vs Predator and Freddy vs Jason represent the cannibalization of franchises which are past their prime.  This repackaging of fan favorites is just a desperate attempt to cash in.  They don't have anything genuine to say or anything new to present.  If such a trend were to become popular it would really suck.

Which is not to say that I think an Avengers or JLA movie would fall into that category.  Those characters have known eachother and had adventures together for years. 

But try to present an Avengers Meets The JLA movie and I'm outa here!

In the 70's and early 80's the two biggest B.O. movie stars were Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds, so naturally they tried pairing them together. They made the movie City Heat which was an action comedy. It played to their strengths with Eastwood as his grim Dirty Harry self and Reynolds as his joking Smokey & The Bandit type personality. I haven't seen it in years but I know it was not a successful film.

In fact, I see it's on youtube in separate parts. I'll have to check it out sometime.

I would like to point out that the reason why studios state that their disappointed with the numbers is because, for example, Marvel has Paramount to share the profit with and this must frustrate them to no end.

I really don't blame them, though. But often times, studios lie about how much money they pump into a production and that's why I don't take those numbers seriously. But, overall, it's been a pretty busy summer this year and that might have resulted in Captain America taking a hit. Which is unfortunate as the movie was actually good.

As for the Dark knight rises. It's being commercialized as the last one. It will make money because people will be curious to see how it ends,

Looks like I spoke too soon on Captain America earlier.  The film took a huge jump in numbers this weekend from the foreign market.  It's now at $251 million, which is enough to consider it to be a success.