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Summer Knights

One is dark the other golden. One falls from the sky the other knifes through water. One is brought to you from a Hollywood studio. The other by way of a newcomer on the world pop culture stage, the Chinese politburo.

But, perhaps in a way, the differences stop there. Because the world can’t get enough of them. These two masked, high-tech superheroes of summer. And neither can the organizations and brands that placed such big bets on their muscular shoulders in hopes of that rarest of phenomena: the blockbuster summer success.

As given away up front by the pics, I’m of course talking about the latest Batman movie “The Dark Knight,” starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger in his final completed performance. And American Olympic-swimming wunderkind, Michael Phelps. Who today impossibly won his sixth gold medal and set his sixth world record in the Beijing games. His 12th career gold overall. More than any Olympic athlete in any sport. Ever.

When International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge was talking to reporters yesterday about Phelps’ impact, he could just as well have been talking about Hollywood:

“The Olympic Games live around superheroes. You had Jesse Owens, you had Paavo Nurmi, Carl Lewis and now you have Phelps. And that’s what we need to have.”

Batman, Spiderman, Ironman… Phelps, Lewis, Retton… or how about iPhone, iPod, Google to throw some phenom brands into the mix (oh just go with it, it’s summer). All are Supermen–some literally. All are icons. Heroes that defy the impossible. And break through the quotidian clutter to inspire outsized imagination and advocacy.

And it’s not just their feats that are heroic. It’s how they are saving business (and rescuing the rest of us in the US from the wasteland of reality TV and campaign coverage). Just look at Batman. According to boxofficemojo.com, the US Domestic box office total for “The Dark Night” as of August 13 was, as Robin Leach of “Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous” used to say, a hefty little $451 million. That’s nothing compared to the worldwide box office. It now stands at $715 million! Can you say ka-ching?

Back in Beijing, polls estimated that the opening ceremonies were viewed by 1 billion worldwide. That’s 15% of tout le monde. In the US, the broadcast averaged 34.2 million viewers and received an 18.6 national household rating, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Impressive to be sure.

But Phelps himself is drawing a tidal wave of eyeballs. According to the International Herald Tribune, he’s shattering Web traffic records just on NBCOlympics.com alone:

More than 2 million people have clicked on NBCOlympics.com to watch a video replay of the thrilling men’s 4×100 swimming relay, where the Americans scored a come-from-behind victory over the French… That race alone accounts for more than 40 percent of the nearly 5 million video on demand orders from the Web site, NBC Universal said on Thursday… Three of the next four most-ordered clips were also Phelps gold medal races, with his 400-meter victory called up 492,000 times. The only non-Phelps video in the top five was a collection of highlights from last Friday’s opening ceremony… Web site users have also called up Phelps’ profile 3.7 million times, far and away the most of any other athlete.

Fortunately, this is one story it won’t be difficult to find great stats on, as it will be endlessly written about, talked about, and analyzed. Which after all is the point. An astonishing aside, in what has otherwise been an impressive use of digital media by both the producers of Batman and the Olympics broadcast to engage vast audiences, was the whack-a-mole-like efforts of the latter to keep images of the tape-delayed opening ceremonies from leaking out in the age of broadband. Check please.

Even as we all marvel at and enjoy the great success of these Summer Knights, Batman and Phelps, we’d do well to remember that every Superman has his kryptonite. As observed by the New York Times today, that might simply come down to what home team you root for. Phelps it appears is not quite yet a universal hero. He’s ours here in America, splashed everywhere across our screens and imaginations. But virtually unknown and relegated to the back of the local media coverage in China!

That’s just the way it works with heroes. Or villains for the matter. After all, it was the Joker who stole the spotlight in “The Dark Knight!”

Image credits: FilmSchoolRejects and Telegraph.co.uk