There is so much going on these days in the marketing of The Dark Knight (see Chris Thilk’s most recent update/summary here), but Warner Bros. may be wasting a lot of time and money on its campaigns. If we’re to believe an AP story from yesterday, there’s already enough interest in the Batman Begins sequel coming from two separate directions: comic book fandom (”the magnitude of a comic-book franchise with an illustrious 70-year history”) and, of course, the cult of celebrity death (”arguably the biggest movie featuring a posthumous role in Hollywood history.”).
The article highlights a number of posthumous film releases, including those of James Dean (Rebel Without a Cause and Giant), Spencer Tracy (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner), Will Rogers (Steamboat Round the Bend), Bruce Lee (Enter the Dragon), his son, Brandon Lee (The Crow), John Candy (Canadian Bacon and Wagon’s East!), Natalie Wood (Brainstorm), Carole Lombard (To Be or Not to Be), Oliver Reed (Gladiator), Clark Gable (The Misfits) and Aaliyah, whose Queen of the Damned is implied to have only been successful on account of the singer/actress’ accidental demise. However, none of these performers, the article argues, had the benefit of having such a blockbuster swan song as a Batman movie (coupled with the Terry Gilliam movie, of course, but Ledger’s actual final film is considerably less anticipated and so may be less notable). So certainly Ledger will be winning the contest for Biggest Posthumous Box Office.
And who knows, perhaps Ledger will even receive a posthumous Oscar nomination (as I predicted prior to his death, and others discussed afterward) for his performance as The Joker. Maybe he’ll even win, making him the only other actor besides Peter Finch (Network) to do so. But would either honor be simply because he’s dead? As it will be difficult to determine just how much of The Dark Knight’s gross comes from the celebrity death cult, it will be questioned, if nominations or awards do come, whether Ledger would receive such recognition for a comic-book-movie role were he still alive. And with that, the question of whether or not our society is more fascinated with celebrity death in and of itself or whether or not it’s a matter of tribute.
Consider this quote from the AP article, which seems to teeter the line between saying people are going to see The Dark Knight because they want to experience the performance of a dead man and saying people are going to see it because they want to pay tribute to the life and last living performance of a great actor:
“More people will come to see it because of his death,” said Bill Ramey, founder of the fan Web site Batman-on-Film.com. “No doubt some people may be apprehensive about seeing it because there may be a little ghoulish factor about it. But I’m betting that more people now kind of look at it as a tribute to him, and the biggest tribute you could give someone is to go see it and enjoy his performance.”
I guess there will be both kinds buying tickets, those who want to see a “ghoul” and those who want to specifically see Ledger. And they can together join the theater already near-filled with those who want to primarily see Batman vs. The Joker.
