The Christopher Nolan countdown to The Dark Knight Rises

People coming out in droves for quality is a statement about the film's opening: whether or not they keep coming out will depend on whether or not The Dark Knight Rises is about as good as its predecessor. That's the idea here: the quality of the last film helps determine how the next one opens, but its total cume beyond that is a product of how good this one is.

Again, it's important to emphasize the distinction between worldwide box office and domestic box office. It's far more plausible that it matches The Dark Knight in the former than the latter. You mentioned Transformers as a comparison to establish a baseline, but how well a film does overseas has a lot less to do with quality than you might think. Lots of great films do very badly overseas because they don't translate as well across cultures. Transformers can be dumb, but spectacle it promises travels well across borders.

Interesting point about the translation. I hadn't considered that at all. I suppose giant robots fighting each other is a universal language.