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The Dark Knight Rises is released in the next 36 hours, yet we are still talking about Scrat and Spider-Man. This is the equivalent of having delicious banana pudding inches away while your parents tell you to eat every bite of your spinach. And I don’t eat green vegetables. As a child, I was convinced that such foods would give me the same skin pigmentation as The Hulk.

Yes, I’m rambling. Some daily box office columns are harder to write than others. I’m like a child on December 23rd right now. The professional in me needs to tell you that Ice Age: Continental Drift earned $6,804,326 yesterday, a fantastic 29% gain from Monday. The Batman fan in me wants to talk about Catwoman. Because of this, I have a difficult time mustering enthusiasm about Ice Age 4’s running total of $58,697,462. Scrat cannot capture a nut that is standing beside him. Batman could excavate a nut from the Garden of Eden. You must understand my conflicted emotions here.

Spider-Man, a comic book character once considered on the same level of Batman in the movie realm, earned $5,439,054 yesterday, a 25% increase from Monday. Christopher Nolan and the kind people at Warner Bros. think this is cute. You know what they call $5.4 million in box office? A good hour. The fourth Spider-Man flick has a running total of $210,293,031 after 16 days in theaters. The over/under on when The Dark Knight Rises hits this total is five days. Hint: take the under.

Ted, Brave and Magic Mike comprise the rest of the top five. The movies increased 13%, 34% and 32% respectively. In fact, every feature film in the top ten increased from Monday to Tuesday. Ted has a running total of $165,514,890, which is an amount Batman will beat in three days. Brave is on the cusp of $200 million and will have reached that landmark by the time you read this column. This is the target range for Batman’s opening weekend. Magic Mike has a running total of $94,862,679 and will surpass $100 million by Friday. Friday, in case you haven’t gotten the point yet, is when The Dark Knight Rises is released into theaters.

The domestic top ten yesterday combined to earn $23.5 million, which is a decent over/under for the midnight sneaks of The Dark Knight Rise. Hint: take the over. This is a 25% increase from Monday. We will see a drop tomorrow with Thursday being a wild card depending on how Warner Bros. chooses to report box office for The Dark Knight Rises.

PS: Batman!