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Fans stay up all ‘Knight’ for Batman movie

(CNN) — As The Dark Knight’s crusading District Attorney Harvey Dent vigorously tries to combat Gotham City’s crime spree, he quotes the old saying: The night is always darkest before the dawn.

But the dawn may have been the brightest time for The Dark Knight, which was scheduled to have around 3,000 late-night showings, including almost 100 showings at 3 and 6 a.m. Friday, according to Fandango.com spokesman Harry Medved.

Medved said he couldn’t remember the last time there were more than two or three such showings in the middle of the night — usually in New York or Los Angeles.

Isn’t that when people are just thinking about waking up and going to Starbucks? Medved said. I predict coffee sales will increase tomorrow.

With a running time of two and a half hours, Medved is declaring The Dark Knight’s opening day Dark Friday, predicting attendance at work could be dramatically down.

During a survey given to people who buy tickets through Fandango.com, 38 percent of those who are working said they would be taking either some time or the day off to see the movie.

According to MovieTickets.com, Dark Knight sold out more than 150 performances in Los Angeles and New York alone.

The midnight show times were not just for major movie centers, either. Medved said cities such as Fresno, California; Orlando, Florida; and towns in Minnesota are hosting early-morning showings.

Enthusiasts showed up in groups, some dressed head to tow in costume to celebrate the movie’s release. The midnight showing at the 428-seat Henry Ford IMAX theater in Detroit sold out in less than a week according to the Detroit Free Press. One group attending the showing, which was preceded by a costume party, showed up with a homemade version of the Batmobile and outfits representing nearly every major Batman character.

The film also opened Thursday in Australia and Wednesday in Taiwan. It will be released in Japan August 9. See when the film is opening around the world

The Dark Knight already has risen to second place on Fandango.com’s all-time list of advance tickets sales, second only to Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The Dark Knight tickets represent 94 percent of Fandango’s sales, Medved said.

Interest is high at IMAX theaters, too, especially because six film sequences were shot with IMAX cameras.

And it’s not just the movie business that were looking to cash in on the blockbuster. Corporate America hopes to capitalize on the hype, too, with Dominos offering a Gotham City pizza, and Comcast showing behind-the-scenes movie footage and interviews with the cast and filmmakers via their On Demand service.

As fans left the midnight screenings, the hype surrounding the movie has only continued to build. The film is even earning Oscar buzz, thanks to the late Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker.

Moviegoers purchasing tickets on Fandango echoed those sentiments, with 53 percent saying his performance was their main motivation for seeing the film.

Ledger’s performance has been hailed as indelible (Los Angeles Times’ Kenneth Turan), powerful (The Washington Post’s Stephen Hunter, in an overall mixed review) and mesmerizing (CNN.com’s Tom Charity); clips of his character have dominated the movie’s marketing campaign. See how Ledger made the joker his own

His absence was conspicuous Monday at the New York premiere, his co-stars noted.

He should be here, shouldn’t he? Because this is his big moment — because he is the most amazing thing in the picture, said Michael Caine, who plays Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred. And it’s not because he’s dead or something and everyone’s concentrating on him. He would have been the most amazing thing in the picture anyway.

Caine also praised the late actor’s commitment to immersing himself in a character, something he says is evident from Ledger’s opening monologue.

It’s one of the finest close-ups I’ve ever seen, Caine said.

Other members of the cast praised Ledger for redefining the character brought to life in the past by Mark Hamill (Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker) and Jack Nicholson (Batman) See members of the cast praise Ledger

Aaron Eckhart, who plays Dent, said it was tragic that Ledger wasn’t around to celebrate his achievement.

It’s hard to talk about; this is his. He created the Joker, Eckhart said. He did it in his own way, and it’s sad, but on the other hand, I am proud to be able to honor him tonight.

Director Christopher Nolan also praised the rest of the cast, including Christian Bale as Batman, Gary Oldman as police Lt. Jim Gordon, Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes and Morgan Freeman as tech wizard Lucius Fox.

Nolan, who directed Batman Begins three years ago, said he was glad he was able to take a step back and opt for a different approach. See the cast on the black carpet

I think we’ve tried to expand the scope of the story, to tell a grander, more epic tale, he told CNN. We’ve tried to really take the character and take it to darker territory by introducing it to the Joker.

Nolan seems to have made believers even out of those who were not die-hard fans of the Batman series, including Gyllenhaal, who said she was never a superhero movie kind of girl.

I watched a Batman here, a Batman there, but this is different, she said. Chris [Nolan] wanted us to play everything for truth. It’s about real people in the midst of this wild crazy Batman world. And I became a Batman fan shooting it. I mean, have Batman sweep you up and save you from certain death. It converts a girl, you know?

The movie was expected to be shown on a record-breaking 9,200 screens in its opening, according to its studio, Warner Bros. (Like CNN, Warner Bros. is a division of Time Warner.)

Hollywood columnist Nikki Finke said insiders at the studio are being conservative, predicting a weekend opening of between $90 million and $100 million — strong, but not record-breaking.

But box office experts, according to Finke, are saying the movie could make as much as $130 million, which would make it a narrow third for best opening weekend, behind Spider-Man 3 ($151 million) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest ($136 million).

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Etihad bullish as rivals scale down operations

FARNBOROUGH, England (CNN) — James Hogan is the CEO of Abu Dhabi-based airline Etihad. MME caught up with him at the Farnborough International Air Show this week to discuss the airline’s future expansion plans as it struck one of the biggest deals in aviation history after placing orders worth more than $20 billion.

The five-year old airline placed one of the biggest orders at the Farnborough Airshow this week for 100 fuel efficient jets with Boeing and Airbus.

James Hogan explains to MME’s Jim Boulden why the company is in such a buoyant mood, while some competitors plan to scale down operations.

CNN - On Monday we thought the airshow might be really boring, and then you came along and made a big announcement. You’re really sticking your neck out here aren’t you?

JH– Well it was a great announcement, but no we’re not sticking our neck out. When you look at a deal of this size, which is well over 100 firm aircraft and another 105 options of purchase rights, that’s all built about a plan, and we have a strategic network plan out to 2030.

This gives us the opportunity from the end of 2011 to 2020 to bring in aircrafts aggressively to meet that plan. So a year and a half of detailed negotiations, analysis, making sure we made the right decision to grow our business and to grow our business on a commercial platform.

CNN– Even your competitor Emirates airlines said this week that they were not going to make any orders for a while, just to slow down a little bit and see how things will progress this year. What makes you so confident?

JH– Well, I think one has to remember, these aircraft do come in from 2011 through to 2020 so the 380s come in 2012, we have 320s in 2011, the 787s in 2014 and the 350s in 2017. Watch interview with Etihad boss

Now in our part of the world, our catchment area is in the Indian subcontinent, Middle East, South Asia and of course the Gulf and their markets are still not liberalized. As those markets liberalize, we’ve got the flexibility with short haul aircraft to service India and the Middle East, and the narrow bodies to also build that air bridge we have in Abu Dhabi between Europe, Australasia, China and the Americas.

So we believe that planning makes sense, achieve the aircraft we need to grow and enable us to build the business in a fairly structured way.

CNN– Etihad is part of a larger plan for Abu Dhabi, what is that?

JH–Well Abu Dhabi is the capital of the United Arab Emirates and you are seeing a wide range of programs to move away from oil related industries of the past.

They’re still there of course but the diversification is into tourism, real estate, hospitals and services. In excess of $200 billion will be invested over the next ten years to drive that activity. Now this activity brings traffic and that’s why we’re so bullish about the figures moving forward.

The IATA figures for the Middle East are 15% growth over the next 3 years, Europe’s 4% growth. So we’re bullish, the business is there and the market is opening up.

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90 years on, Russia remembers slain royals

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) — It was 90 years ago Thursday that Russia’s last royal family was executed — but this year’s anniversary comes with scientific proof ending years of speculation that some of the Romanovs managed to survive.

Medical, forensic and ballistic tests conducted in several U.S., Russian and Austrian laboratories identified bone and tooth fragments unearthed last summer as belonging to two missing children of Czar Nicholas II.

Chemically damaged and burnt remains found outside the city of Yekaterinburg in 2007 are those of Crown Prince Alexei, 13, the last emperor’s only son and heir to the throne, and his sister Grand Duchess Maria, about 19, according to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office.

The remains that were found belong to Alexei and Maria. We can say that with certainty, Vladimir Solovyov, a senior investigator with the committee, told a news conference Wednesday.

Bolsheviks executed the czar’s family and a few servants July 17, 1918 in the basement of a home in Yekaterinburg. But the two children’s bodies were missing for decades, leading to persistent hopes among royal supporters that one or both of them had survived.

Although the investigative committee stated the remains belong to Alexei and Maria, its report said scientists will nonetheless continue comparing DNA from the remains to that of the living Romanovs.

We have to be really careful with release of the information, because previously too many unnecessary disputes happened regarding the DNA data and genetics data, said Evgeny Rogaev, a czar family DNA researcher for over a decade.

We have to complete our analysis. There are some new possibilities, new findings — some findings of a blood sample, for example, in museum storage in St. Petersburg recently, of Nicholas II. It is a potential future study.

Since last weekend, Russian royalists have been commemorating the killings of the last members of a centuries-long imperial dynasty by singing, praying and joining religious processions.

Grand Duchess Maria of Russia, the head of the Russian Imperial House and Nicholas’ great-grandniece, has come from Madrid to visit places related to the royal saga and meet Russian Orthodox Church representatives and relatives.

The ceremonies culminated Thursday in Yekaterinburg, in the Ural Mountains about 880 miles (1,400 kilometers) outside Moscow, at a cathedral built on the spot where the Romanov family was killed.

Both sets of remains were found around that area. The so-called second burial spot is about 230 feet (70 meters) away from the first grave discovered in 1991, where bone fragments of Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra and their three daughters were exhumed.

Those bodies were solemnly buried in 1998 in a cathedral in St. Petersburg among other Russian royalty crypts. The Russian Orthodox Church canonized Nicholas and his family two years later.

The two newly identified bodies, however, remain unrecognized by the church. The Russian Imperial House of Romanov announced they would follow the Russian Orthodox Church’s opinion and therefore also refuse to recognize the remains as Emperor Nicholas’s offspring.

Of course, as a head of the Imperial House, nothing would please me more than (if) these remains would finally be those that we’ve been looking for so many years, Grand Duchess Maria told CNN.

But, unfortunately, some dark forces around the country have popped out some doubts about whether they really are. That’s why the church and the patriarch have asked to have questions answered about previous remains and these. But unfortunately these questions haven’t been answered.

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Pilots say they feel pressure to cut back on fuel

NEW YORK (CNN) — U.S. Airways is pressuring pilots to use less fuel, undermining their authority and possibly compromising safety, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Airline Pilots Association.

Eight pilots and their union have filed complaints with the Federal Aviation Administration, accusing the airline of infringing on their authority and making them fly with less fuel than they feel is safe, said James Ray, a spokesman for the U.S. Airline Pilots Association.

The pilot in command of each flight determines the amount of fuel carried. FAA regulations state that each flight is required to carry enough fuel to reach its destination plus an extra 45 minutes’ worth.

The eight senior captains say U.S. Airways singled them out for carrying 10 to 15 minutes of extra fuel above the FAA mandate and called them in for fuel conservation training, Ray said.

Ray said the training amounts to intimidation and said the pilots feel it could place their licenses in jeopardy if they request extra fuel. Watch a report on the pilots’ claims

Captains have been singled out for exercising their judgment on determining fuel loads for their flights, he said.

But a spokesman for U.S. Airways insisted the training is not punitive and denied the pilots’ jobs were in danger.

We are absolutely not employing intimidation tactics to pressure pilots into operating aircraft with unsafe fuel levels, Morgan Durrant said. Safety is the number one priority in everything we do.

Durrant said the airline organized the paid, one-day training session to review safety practices and emphasize the need to use appropriate fuel levels in a time of necessary conservation. iReport.com: Are the skies still friendly?

Extra fuel makes the plane heavier, causing it to burn more fuel as it flies. A gallon of jet fuel weighs almost 7 pounds, and a large, twin-engine jetliner can burn hundreds of pounds of fuel an hour.

Our arrival fuel amounts on average are more than twice the FAA minimum standards, Durrant said. With the high price of oil, it is a balance between having enough to travel safely and also flying efficiently.

U.S. Airways said it will pay $2 billion more in fuel costs than it did last year.

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