Dark Knight Makes Record-Breaking $300M in 10 Days
By Stephen M. Silverman
Originally posted
Sunday July 27, 2008 06:50 PM EDT
Heath Ledger as the Joker Photo by: Warner Bros |
No argument:
The Dark Knight is Hollywood's brightest light.
The Batman adventure, starring Christian Bale and
Heath Ledger, shattered another box-office benchmark this weekend – reaching beyond the $300 million mark in a mere 10 days.
The movie grossed $75.6 million in its second weekend in theaters, bringing its North American box-office total to $314,245,000, Warner Bros. head of distribution Dan Fellman tells the Associated Press.
The number breaks the record established by 2006's
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which hit $300 million after 16 days.
Fellman says
Dark Knight could conceivably reach the $400-million mark in about 18 days – placing it ahead of
Shrek 2's 43-day record in 2004.
Hold on to your life preservers –
The Dark Knight might also surpass 1997's
Titanic as the highest-grossing film in U.S. history, according to Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers. That sinking-ship saga, starring
Leonardo Di Caprio, made $600,788,188 domestically.
Rounding out this weekend's top five at the box office were Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly in
Step Brothers, with an estimated $30 million; Meryl Streep in
Mamma Mia!, $17.9 million; David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in
The X-Files: I Want to Believe, $10.2 million; and Brendan Fraser in
Journey to the Center of the Earth, $9.4 million.