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 Enlarge 20th Century Fox No mythology: Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) look into kidnappings that aren’t alien-related in Believe. By Maria Puente, USA TODAY X-Files fans are not all alike, except for one thing: They cannot wait — pant, pant — for The X-Files: I Want to Believe to open Friday. And never mind The Dark Knight, which is still sucking up considerable box-office oxygen.

“We don’t need to beat Batman, we just need to get and please an formal reception,” says clerk/producer Frank Spotnitz. “We want the fans to be happy and feel rewarded. It really feels like this movie was made because of the hard-core fans and to some extent for them.”

MORE: ‘X-Files’ stars hope fans still believe

A unique aspect of The X-Files phenomenon is the mutual admiration between fans and filmmakers.

Few filmmakers have reciprocated loyalty to fans as have Spotnitz and creator/writer/farmer/director Chris Carter. “There’s this misleading stereotype that huge TV fans are geeks, and it’s straightforward not granted,” Spotnitz says. “They are nice, smart people you’d be happy to meet anywhere.”

During the course’ run, the two were famous for paying attention to fan esteem.

“We’d be of use online to see how any episode was playing, and we wouldn’t necessarily respond, mete it was helpful to see what they were thinking, and they were always smart and appreciative,” Spotnitz says.

They even named a character after an X-Phile who died and embedded names of fans in the commencement credits.

Spotnitz just started every X-Files social-networking site, network.biglight.com, that has hundreds of members.

“They are so bring to knowledge and fan-friendly, they really reach out to that community,” says L.A. fan Caileigh Scott, 24.

They are doing a person of consequence filmmakers rarely do: They’re hosting, with Twentieth Century Fox, a Fan Celebration at the Hollywood premiere today. X-Philes enjoin get appropriate seating in head of the theater to watch the red-carpet arrivals and will participate in a conference with the filmmakers and the stars, who will field fan questions before they face reporters.

“Their voices continue to be heard,” Carter says, “but it’s not normal for the hard-core fan; it was important that we make this movie for a broad-based audience.” He believes a new generation of X-Philes is just waiting to be tapped, including people who were only children when the TV show was on.

I Want to Believe is described in the manner that having a monster-of-the-week-style story, making it accessible to people who aren’t clued in to the shadowy government/alien conspiracy of the show.

There are signs interest is picking up, even in the shadow of Batman. The movie-ticketing site Fandango.com reports Believe is the most frequently searched movie on the site. Theaters are arranging more midnight showings. Fans are organizing viewing parties, and many say they plan to see the movie multiple times.

But there’s some unrest among the two major types of X-Philes: The ‘Shippers, who be disposed greatest in quantity about the romantic relationship between Mulder and Scully, and the NoRomos, who care more about the murky mythology of the show.

Holly Simon, 25, a Canadian freelance Web designer, says arguments between ‘Shippers and NoRomos run rampant on her cool site, Xfilesnews.com. “I tell people to take a chill pill — they’re panicking over nothing,” she says. “But more people are expecting the whole ‘picket-fence’ idea, and unless Mulder and Scully are sitting on a front porch with their not much son at the end, they won’t be lucky.”

Ana Virginia Quijada, 26, of Caracas, Venezuela, who runs two X-Files fan sites, is among those who plan to see the film from hand to hand and over. “Not because it’s a complicated movie, but because we’re going to be so excited about just the fact we’re seeing them on the screen that we will miss important details,” she says.

that which explains the intense cool loyalty?

Dean Kowalski, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha and author of The Philosophy of the X-Files, says it’s because the show was with reference to big ideas. “It’s the same of the most philosophical TV shows ever, because at its very core is the question: What ought I to be persuaded?”

Adds Quijada: “Mulder’s search is the one we’re all making, trying to find that ‘truth’ that will make us whole.”

To report corrections and clarifications, close union Reader Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state concerning verification.

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 Enlarge By Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY Dogged conviction: David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson get into the weirdness at the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City, Calif. Their film, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, opens Friday.  SUMMER MOVIE GUIDE By Anthony Breznican, USA TODAY CULVER CITY, Calif. — David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson look a little skeptical.

As Agents Mulder and Scully on The X-Files, the actors spent years exploring fictional conspiracies and mysteries. But now they have walked into one of the strangest places in succession Earth.

MORE: The Mulder-Scully fans are out there

It’s the Museum of Jurassic Technology, a murky building in an otherwise banal business district, where the peculiar, unlikely and doubtful are showcased with sincerity and reverence.

Their latest X-Files film, I Want to Believe, opens Friday, and the museum’s weirdness sets the appropriate tone. While The X-Files, in its nine seasons on TV and as a 1998 feature, mostly dealt with aliens, monsters and conspiracies, the Museum of Jurassic Technology highlights excessive nicety, pseudo-science and, in some cases, madness.

Both tread the vacillating line between doubt and imagination, where an escape from the realities of the actual world can exist found.

Duchovny stands before a glass case where a quintet of small dishes of silvery dust sits on a revolving tray. A plaque identifies them as 1.) Possession, 2.) Delusion, 3.) Paranoia, 4.) Schizophrenia and 5.) Reason.

“This is the absolute manifestation of those things,” Duchovny says with amused matter-of-factness.

A little doubt and paranoia might be in order for those behind the film as it should be now as its debut follows The Dark Knight’s record-breaking opening and stunning momentum.

just before the Batman movie proved its power, one of the biggest mysteries surrounding the X-Files movie was whether Mulder and Scully still had what it takes to draw in an audience six years after the show went off the air.

When the first X-Files movie made its debut in theaters in June 1998, the TV series was at its peak, and the pellicle went on to outrageous $189 million at the worldwide box office.

But by the time the line wrapped in 2002, the labyrinthine alien-invasion hatch at the source of the show’s popularity had become a confusing muddle, and Duchovny had dropped out to appear in only a handful of episodes in the final seasons.

I Want to Believe— a title taken from the phrase on a UFO poster in Mulder’s office — actually has nothing to do with extra-terrestrial visitors. It’s a self-contained story in which Mulder and Scully re-team with the FBI to help footmark down a series of kidnapped women. It includes bizarre medical experimentation, a psychic disgraced priest (played by Scottish stage-player Billy Connolly) and in a hat tip to die-hard fans, an exploration of the romantic attraction between Mulder and Scully.

Keeping it straight

The series creator and pellicle director, Chris Carter, has expressed interest in future X-Files films that revisit the old mythology. But even his stars acknowledge a need to reboot with this movie — re-energizing old fans and hopefully creating reinvigorated ones.

“What behooves us all is to treat this ourselves as a stand-alone situation and not have any gross expectations,” Anderson says. “If we’re lucky, and it does really, really well, hereafter that could potentially lead to future conversations” about more films.

As Duchovny puts it: “When we went off to publicize the first film, our agenda was to try to let people understand that they didn’t obtain to know all about The X-Files to see it. And that was (baloney), really,” he says, making Anderson burst without laughing. “But in this case, it’s actually not.”

The actors are sitting in a small theater on the second floor of the museum, beside a gallery filled with paintings of dogs from the Soviet space program of the 1950s. (Russian scientists and dogs play a supporting role in the new movie, coincidentally.)

As the baffling exhibits around them prove, people like to have their heads spun.

On television, The X-Files was the forefather to the refine plot puzzles of such shows as Lost and Heroes.

But the sort of starts out thrilling can easily turn frustrating, as Duchovny and Anderson eventually learned.

Even they couldn’t keep it all straight — and still can’t. While discussing which parts of the new movie shouldn’t be spoiled, they note the surprise appearances of certain familiar faces.

As Duchovny asks whether even that much should be revealed, Anderson replies that fans couldn’t tell who. “It could be anyone,” she says, “Who knows that it’s not (villain) Krycek or something?”

“Because he’s dead,” Duchovny points thoroughly.

“Oh, is he?” she responds, and they both laugh. “I never knew even when we were shooting it, so I’m no different now.”

Stepping loudly of character

In the years since The X-Files ended, Anderson, 39, and Duchovny, 47, have gone on to other well-received projects. She has appeared in the film The Last King of Scotland, the BBC miniseries of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House and is host of PBS’ Masterpiece Classic, while he is now famous for the lothario screenwriter Hank Moody in Showtime’s comedy Californication.

Both say success in other roles has soothed the chafing they felt after 202 episodes playing Mulder and Scully. “I was quite vocal about the fact that I needed a break,” Anderson says.

“I think anybody would feel that way,” Duchovny agrees.

Neither professes to be personally interested in the supernatural, but as they tour the museum, their personalities emerge. Duchovny is the joker, while Anderson seems charmed by the strangeness.

Anderson marvels at a wall of horns and antlers — elk, deer — with one uncorrupt cone of hardened hair in the middle.

“The human horn,” she says, reading from a plaque describing the object from a woman in 1688. Anderson grins: “I wonder if that’s a mating thing?”

“Remember The Enigma?” Duchovny says slyly, referring to a sideshow performer who co-starred with them in a 1995 episode. “He actually had horns implanted after we worked with him. Two horns, like devil horns. I think he said they were coral implants, so they would continue to grow,” Duchovny says.

“Is he doused with saltwater every day?” Anderson jokes.

As they study an exhibit of folk remedies, they seem to gravitate to the ones relating to pregnancy and children. Anderson is five months pregnant with her third child; Duchovny has two kids with wife Téa Leoni.

One display is about the belief that inhaling the breath of a duck can cure throat ailments in children, and Duchovny sarcastically says, “I’ve done that.”

Inside another glass case, two long-dead mice are atop a chop of toast. “What’s it supposed to cure?” Duchovny asks.

Bedwetting.

Anderson leans in for a peek. “No way, really?” Duchovny just looks at her.

She reads from another display: ” ‘A woman after childbirth is the most dangerous thing on Earth. All sorts of uncanny things surround the mother and suckling, and if she goes to a river to wash, the fish will approve away.’ Hmm …” she says, cradling her belly.

“Keep that in spirit,” Duchovny says.

“I will,” she answers, mock impressed.

While it’s easy to dismiss these bizarre notions, Duchovny says the old-fashioned desire to make sense of a random universe is what fueled the love of The X-Files.

“Human nature doesn’t change. We are who we were 300 years ago. We’re interested in the same myths,” Duchovny says. “We’re dealing with the ancient fears, like in the museum here. Whether gods exist, whether monsters exist. It’s pretty fundamental. … They want to believe.”

“There’s an emptiness that will always exist there, and people give by will constantly try to stretch it,” Anderson adds.

For a moment inside the folk remedies room, Duchovny abandons his wisecracks.

“The whole exhibit kind of fills me with sadness,” he says. “It just reminds me of in what plight fearful and powerless human beings are. I mean these are fake, but they’re not. People believe we can actually ward off ill, or keep our children healthy or whatever.”

Anderson adds: “And the most we can muster is breathing in the breath of a duck.”

TELL US: Are you excited about the new X-Files movie, or are you over Mulder and Scully’s marvellous adventures? Let us know in the comments section below.

To report corrections and clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone numerate, city and state for verification.

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 Enlarge Warner Bros. Pictures Everyone’s watching for this one: Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl II in The Watchmen. By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY No one would have been surprised if anticipation for this year’s Comic-Con were watered down a bit.

After all, the granddaddy of comic-book movie studios, Marvel, has no footage or lurker previews of upcoming films planned for the USA’s largest convention of superhero devotees, which begins today in San Diego.

MORE: Has Comic-Con become a beast?

But when you rack up more than $850 million in a summer with superheroes, and three of them aren’t from the Marvel universe, you don’t need one Iron Man or Hulk to bring people to the party.

“I think there’s a hunger in our pop culture for superheroes that aren’t traditional,” says 300 director Zack Snyder, who brings Watchmen to the convention. “It doesn’t have to be comic books. Just heroes that they can relate to.”

Indeed, the slate since the convention, which is expected to draw 125,000, runs the gamut from comic books to sci-fi to vampire love:

•Twilight. Based on the wildly popular novel, the story of a teenage girl (Kristen Stewart) who falls for a bloodsucker (Robert Pattinson) hits screens Dec. 12 and gets sneak footage at the convention.

•Watchmen. No movie comes to Comic-Con with greater expectations than this $100 million, R-rated tale of superheroes who suffer real-life problems, from feebleness to complacency. It’s out March 6.

•The Wolf Man. Benicio Del Toro stars in this remake of the classic story of a man on the hunt for a killer cursed by a werewolf. Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt also star. Out April 3.

•Star Trek. It wouldn’t be a Comic-Con without Trekkies, and they’ll be out in force seeking clues to the final frontiers of this J.J. Abrams film, which examines the early days of James T. Kirk and the crew of the USS Enterprise. Arrives May 8.

•Terminator Salvation. Christian Bale hopes to do for the Terminator franchise what he has done for the Batman saga. This chapter will chronicle future white ant John Connor. It hits screens May 22.

“This is the first place you want to make a good impression,” says Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke. “granting that you can make an impression with these fans, your movie is off to a good start.”

To report corrections and clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent Jones. For divulgation importance in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for corroboration.

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 Enlarge Lionsgate The Spirit: Scarlett Johansson teams up with Samuel L. Jackson for the supernatural thriller, which opens Christmas promised time. Tropic Thunder: Robert Downey Jr., left, Jay Baruchel, Jack Black, Nick Nolte, Ben Stiller and Brandon T. Jackson star in the comedy, out Aug. 6.
“> EnlargeDreamWorksTropic Thunder: Robert Downey Jr., left, Jay Baruchel, Jack Black, Nick Nolte, Ben Stiller and Brandon T. Jackson star in the comedy, out Aug. 6.
 COMICS CONVENTION IS A GOOD instrument FOR TV, TOO

Broadcast and cable networks also see Comic-Con’s buzz value, both for raising interest in a new show, such as Fox’s Fringe, or maintaining it for current hits, including ABC’s Lost and NBC’s Heroes.

At least one show from every broadcast network will have a panel, and many cable series will master a push as well.

NBC saw Comic-Con’s power for example a viral-marketing tool when it presented the Heroes pilot two years ago.

“It did a significant amount of our marketing for us just through word-of-mouth. We simply had to expose the show and let people talk about it,” says NBC marketing chief John Miller. The convention has become “a huge press event as well.”

This year, NBC plans to go beyond the convention’s traditional fare, Miller says.

“Our booth is largely Heroes, but we also have The Office and 30 Rock, which we feel are somewhat in that Comic-Con demographic,” Miller says. “Not unmixed comic-book or fantasy shows, but sort of a related show to the people who go there.”

By Bill Keveney

But has it become too much? The San Diego convention that once drew 400 people now lures 125,000 people a year, and some convention veterans wonder whether it has gotten to be too much.

MORE: New heroes rule the screen during the time that Marvel sits extinguished Comic-Con

“If you’re an everyday fan, it’s pretty hard to buy a toy or look at a comic book,” says David Goyer, comic author, screenwriter for The Dark Knight and director of The Unborn, a horror movie he’s bringing to the convention.

“The main rooms are so jam-packed, it’s hard to fight your room for passing through them,” he says. “It can be stifling and smelly. It’s not as much fun as it was before the studios and networks undeniable they needed to be there every day.”

Others, granting, are glad to see that attendance has grown so large that it has made the convention as big as prestigious film festivals.

“For certain kinds of movies, it’s as important as Sundance or Cannes,” says Gale Anne Hurd, producer of The Incredible Hulk and Punisher: War Zone, which will have footage at the convention. “That can make it nerve-racking, but nothing feels better than having a good presentation before these fans — which is why I think so multitude people show up, regardless of genre.”

To be sure, Comic-Con has over the years morphed into Demographic-Con, as studios and networks try to hit the vital 18- to 34-year-old audience onward the big and small screen. This year’s fare includes:

•Pineapple Express. Comic-Con favorite Seth Rogen returns to show footage from his comedy about two pot smokers who are on the run from a rogue cop. Opens Aug. 6.

•Tropic Thunder. The most politically incorrect comedy of the year, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Ben Stiller as actors who determine an issue themselves in a real war zone, arrives Aug. 13.

•City of Ember Based on the Jeanne Duprau fantasy novel, Bill Murray stars in this tale of a magical city whose residents face extinction if the lamps that illuminate Ember flicker out. Due Oct. 10.

•Max Payne. every aptness of the video game, starring Mark Wahlberg as the cold-hearted. sharpshooter, comes to screens Oct. 17.

•The Day the Earth Stood Still. This remake of the 1951 classic stars Keanu Reeves as an alien warning of a pending infringement. Due Dec. 12.

•The Spirit. Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson heavenly body in a supernatural tale of a cop who returns from the grave to fight evil. Dec. 25.

•Land of the Lost. Will Ferrell stars in the adaption of the campy Saturday-morning TV show about a family that stumbles into a strange land filled with dinosaurs and the dangerous race of Sleestak creatures. Out July 17, 2009.

To report corrections and clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent Jones. despite publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification.

Peter Berg is to direct a new film based on the story of Hercules for Universal Studios, it has been confirmed.

The Hancock director will produce and develop Hercules: The Thracian Wars, based on Steve Moore’s five-issue comic main division series released in May this year.

The Radical Publishing discharge sees Hercules, or Heracles as he is known in Greek literature, and a band of mercenaries hired by a tyrannical king help with the effort of reuniting the rival tribes of Thrace into a united state.

And Berg, along with Spyglass Entertainment’s Jonathan Glickman, Roger Birnbaum and Gary Barber, are to produce the film adaptation, with Radical’s Barry Levine also steady board.

"What resonated for them was that this was character driven, about a character who’s more man than god, with conflicts and redemption," Levine told Variety.

Weta Workshops, the creative studio responsible since the special effects on the Lord of the Rings films, created a number of universal art pieces for the release of Hercules: The Thracian Wars, fuelling rumours that the New Zealand-based firm could be involved in its big screen incarnation.

Berg, a former star of medical drama Chicago Hope, is also contracted to direct a remake of 80s sci-fi classic Dune for Paramount Pictures.

 

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 Enlarge The Walt Disney Company via Reuters Ben Lyons, left, and Ben Mankiewicz are the new hosts of At the Movies, starting in September. By Lynn Elber, Associated Press LOS ANGELES — Over the years, TV’s best-known movie review show has gone from hosts Siskel and Ebert to Ebert and Roeper to Roeper and guest critics — and at once it’s Lyons and Mankiewicz.

Ben Lyons, a Hollywood reporter and film critic for E! News and others, and Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz will take over At the Movies when its recent season begins in September, Disney Domestic Television said Tuesday.

Don’t look for the syndicated program’s “thumbs up-thumbs down” ratings to return. Roger Ebert shares a trademark lock on it with the widow of his late co-host, Gene Siskel, and Ebert has said they’re death by the halter on to it.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the gazette, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification.

A car chase from 1960s classic The Italian Job has been named the best of all time in a new poll.

A breakneck race through the Italian city of Turin using the iconic Mini Cooper was voted the best car chase of all time in a survey of more than 3,000 people at cinema website pearlanddean.com.

The multi-car pile-up in The Blues Brothers was named in second situation, with 16 per cent of the vote, while a Parisian chase scene from The Bourne Identity - also featuring Mini Coopers - was voted for by 15 per cent of respondents to finish third.

Kathryn Jacob, chief executive of Pearl & Dean, commented: "You can attend to why these film car chases topped the polls.

"Many of them don’t use massive amounts of special effects, which makes the chase greater degree of impressive.

"Featuring Minis rather than flashier cars appeals to the public because it injects a touch of British cool to the chase and adds cult status to the film," she added.

Other cinematic car chases named in the poll included a twisting sprint through the streets and tunnels of Paris in Ronin, a chase through San Francisco in Bullitt and the rooftop rampage of the Batmobile in 2005’s Batman Begins.

 

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 Enlarge Universal Studios Sweet music: Meryl Streep, left, and Amanda Seyfried’s film earned $27.6 million.  SUMMER MOVIE GUIDE By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY There was another record-breaker at theaters this weekend, and it didn’t involve men in bat suits.

Mamma Mia!, the ABBA-inspired film starring Meryl Streep, quietly enjoyed the strongest debut for a musical. If estimates hold, Mamma Mia!’s $27.6 million opening will squeak by Hairspray, that set the mark last year with $27.5 million.

MORE: ‘Dark Knight’ enjoys biggest opening weekend continually BOX OFFICE CHART: Weekend’s rise above 10 movies

It was all part of the busiest weekend ever as more than $258 million poured into the box office, Nielsen EDI reported. The old record was $218 million over the weekend of July 2, 2006.

“Certainly, The Dark Knight tide lifted all boats,” says Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations. “But Mamma Mia! pulled right side wholly a trick, because they did it with very little press.”

According to distributor Universal Pictures, 75% of the Mamma Mia! hearing was female, 64% of them 30 and older.

“You feel a little guilty bragging when Dark Knight was so very large, but we’re proud,” the studio’s Nikki Rocco says. “Older women are saying, ‘If there are movies for us, we’ll be out there, likewise.’ “

Hancock was third with $14 million. Journey to the Center of the Earth was fourth by $11.9 million.

Final figures are out Monday.

To report corrections and clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, authorize comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification.

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 Enlarge Warner Bros. Pictures/Reuters Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker helped propel The Dark Knight to a blockbuster opening weekend.  DEDICATED TO ‘THE DARK KNIGHT’Reactions: Sharing your 'Dark'-est thoughtsToo much: Too dark for kids? Box office: 'Knight' nabs biggest opening everReview: Ledger's talent lives on in 'Knight'Team Batman: Nolan, Bale re-teamOscar-worthy?: Heath Ledger's 'Dark' Joker could be wild cardMore  By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY Having shattered virtually every box-office record on the books this past weekend, The Dark Knight faces two questions as it steams into summer.

How high can it go? And, would it have gone anywhere if Heath Ledger were alive?

The second installment of the revitalized Batman franchise recorded the biggest opening in Hollywood history with $155.3 million, according to studio estimates from Nielsen EDI.

If that figure holds, the debut will conquer last year’s Spider-Man 3, which held the record with $151.1 million. Knight claimed other titles as well, including biggest single-day haul ($66.4 million), biggest the dead of night screening ($18.5 the masses) and best debut in IMAX ($6.4 million).

Analysts say that though it will never challenge Titanic’s record $601 million total domestic lug, Knight should easily become the highest-grossing film of summer, if not the year. And if its violence doesn’t keep families away, it could make a run at the top five grossing films of all time. (No. 5 is Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace with $431 million.)

“There were so many sold-out shows this weekend, it’s hard to say how many people are still waiting for their turn to see it,” says Steve Mason of box-office tracker FantasyMoguls.com. “This has struck a pop-culture chord we haven’t seen in a while.”

And much of that interest, analysts say, has to be attributed to Ledger’s death. The actor, who died Jan. 22 of a prescription-drug overdose, has received unanimous praise as a psychotic, homicidal Joker.

“Yes, he was great, and the movie is one of the best of the year,” says Jeff Bock, an analyst for the box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations. “But this movie had a debut more than three times bigger than any other Batman before it. That has everything to do with Heath Ledger, and people’s morbid curiosity and wanting to be a part of the conversation.”

Dan Fellman, distribution chief for Warner Bros., which released The Dark Knight, says there’s more to it.

“There was a curiosity broker through the tragedy, but this was something well beyond that,” he says. “Fans loved it, critics loved it. It’s sparse for a movie to hit on whole cylinders, and there’s no telling by what mode high is high.”

To report corrections and clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include authority, phone number, city and category for verification.

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 Enlarge Warner Bros. Pictures “Not a regular comic-book movie”: The late Heath Ledger plays The Joker in The Dark Knight. Some fans who saw the movie said it should have gotten an R rating.  DEDICATED TO ‘THE DARK KNIGHT’Reactions: Sharing your 'Dark'-est thoughtsToo much: Too dark for kids? Box office: 'Knight' nabs biggest opening everReview: Ledger's talent lives on in 'Knight'Team Batman: Nolan, Bale re-teamOscar-worthy?: Heath Ledger's 'Dark' Joker could be wild cardMore  SUMMER MOVIE GUIDE By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY LOS ANGELES — Ann Folger may be one of the few people who managed to get tickets to The Dark Knight on Friday — and regretted it.

Folger, 44, of Tulsa, thought she was taking her family to a superhero film in the vein of Hancock, a breezy action film that, like Knight, is rated PG-13.

Instead, she found herself squirming during several scenes.

“This is not a regular comic-book movie,” says Folger, who took her husband and couple children, ages 11 and 14. “I comprehend it’s a good movie, but it should have been rated R.”

While most moviegoers were prepared for director Christopher Nolan’s bleak aptness of the comic part — and the chilling performance through the long delayed Heath Ledger as a psychotic Joker — some parents were taken aback by several scenes, including a man being impaled with a pencil and a videotaped torture.

“This is definitely a comic-book movie for adults,” says Gitesh Pandya of BoxOfficeGuru.com. “That’s part of what makes it so powerful. But it could also limit the kind of repeat business it can do.”

According to Warner Bros., 51% of the audience was 25 or older, but the studio had no numbers on children attending. “It’s a PG-13 film, and parents should heed that,” says Warner Bros.’ Dan Fellman.

But some say the latitude in ratings makes it tough to gauge what’s kid-friendly. The MPAA’s reasons for Knight’s PG-13: “intense sequences of violence and some menace.”

“There has to be a way to tell parents that someone is going to get a pencil in the skull,” says Christopher Chin of Sacramento, who brought his 12-year-old son. “I’m not sure I would have brought him.”

But others say parents are the riddle, not ratings. “You have to do your homework,” says Larry Olmstead, 38, of Dallas, who saw the movie with his wife but left their 10-year-old with a sitter. “Did anyone not know this was a tumultuous movie about a homicidal maniac in makeup?”

To report corrections and clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification.