The Dark Knight Rises grossed $30.6 million in midnight shows, a great opening for the final film in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. The movie has been tracking toward a huge opening, expected to top The Dark Knight, which hit $158.4 mllion its first weekend, but perhaps not beating The Avengers, which did $207.4 million and had 3D prices boosting its take (see “’Dark Knight Rises’ Tracking as Monster Hit”). 

But the tragic mass shooting at a midnight showing in Aurora, Colorado, which as of this writing accounted for 12 deaths and 59 injured, may affect the film’s opening nationwide, since media reports were making a strong connection between the film and the shooter. ABC News was titling its coverage “Tragedy in Colorado: The Batman Massacre” this morning, although that tag line had disappeared later in the day, according to Variety. The deranged shooter told police he was the Joker, according to ABC.

This is the culmination of a very rough week for public relations tied to the film, after threats and other violations of its Terms of Service caused Rotten Tomatoes to disable commenting on reviews of the film (see “Rotten Tomatoes Disables ‘TDKR’ Comments”), and Rush Limbaugh, among others, tried to tie the film’s choice of villains to a conspiracy against Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney (see “Limbaugh Sees Conspiracy”). The shooting is, of course, on a very different scale and only time will tell what the impact will be on enthusiasm for the film on which so much is riding.