TDKR: How Much $$ Will It Earn When It Opens?

Three weeks out from release of Christopher Nolan's bat-capper "The Dark Knight Rises" and the early earning estimates estimates seem to indicate one of the biggest openings of all time reports The Los Angeles Times.

In fact folks who stated that they are 'definitely interested' in seeing the film and placed it as their 'first choice' are 64% and 22%, respectively - higher than "The Dark Knight" and identical to the numbers of "Marvel's The Avengers", three weeks away from its release.

TDKR won't get the 3-D ticket price bump that "The Avengers" had , and it's not appealing as strongly to women, so the possibility of it breaking that $207.4 million opening weekend record seems unlikely.

Anything can happen though- 'Avengers' ended up exceeding expectations, 'Knight' might end up doing the same as well. The film should easily surpass the $158.4 million opening of "The Dark Knight", in '08 the real question is how close will it get to $200 million.

Christian Bale Tom Hardy Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt Marion Cotillard Josh Pence, Alon Aboutboul and Nestor Carbonell star along with a return of the trilogy's ensemble cast such as Morgan Freeman Gary Oldman and Michael Caine Cillian Murphy and Liam Neeson might also be making cameos.

Matthew Modine Tom Conti Joey King Daniel Sunjata Diego Klattenhoff Christopher Judge "CSI: Miami" co-star Adam Rodriguez and Burn Gorman take on secondary roles. Rob Brown and Italian actor Massi Furlan have small roles in the film as well

Nolan called action on the DKR from a screenplay he wrote with bro Jonathan Nolan, from a story by Nolan and David S. Goyer that features Bane (Hardy) and Catwoman (Hathaway) plotting to take down Batman (Bale).

The sequel is set to hit theaters on July 20th, 2012.