Will Batman Ruin Your Company's Productivity?

As a big movie fan, I am highly anticipating next Friday's release of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight. The movie, which features Heath Ledger in his final full-length role (and who is receiving Oscar-worthy praise for his performance), has been one of my most anticipated movies of the year. In fact, it is the most anticipated movie among Fandango visitors as well, as it selling out at record levels, beating out such films as Iron Man and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

So what does this have to do with your company, or employee productivity, you ask?

Fandango recently surveyed 3,000 of their customers (not me, unfortunately, as apparently I don't buy enough overly priced movie tickets to warrant their interest) and the results indicate that next Friday, July 18th could be a rather pitiful day in the workplace. You see, The Dark Knight is debuting with midnight showings across the United States, which means that there are people who are going to stay up until 3am watching the movie. Not only that, but theaters are apparently selling out so far in advance that they are adding 3am and 6am showings to satisfy demand.

Specifically, though, of the 3,000 people polled, a whopping 37% said that they plan to see The Dark Knight at least once at a late night showing. That's 37%, if you missed the number. Beyond that, 38% said they plan to take off some or all of Friday from work. If an employee calls in sick that morning, you may want to question whether they're a Batman fan at all, and then ask yourself, Why didn't I get invited along?

Just for the record, 60% of respondents were male and 71% were under the age of 35. Obviously, this survey is slanted toward heavy Fandango users, but it'll be interesting to see how next Friday turns out for the average company.