The Dark Knight Powers To Record Box Office

Just as the Joker assures the Batman late in The Dark Knight that "You complete me", moviegoers lived up to their side of the bargain this past weekend and dutifully trooped in record numbers into theaters showing the much-ballyhooed Warner Bros. release.

An estimate from the studio--a bit of a controversial figure, accompanied by some  reported muttering from rival studios about the tally being rounded upwards--placed three-day ticket sales at $155. 3 million, narrowly displacing Sony's Spiderman 3 (at $151. 1 million in May of last year) as the weekend record holder.

By Monday morning, despite the early arithmetic that showed Spidey may have scored more actual filmgoers, the official numbers came in to give The Dark Knight the unchallenged crown--well, cowl--with $158.3 million.

The upbeat mood was heightened by Universal's Mamma Mia! projected as hitting the mid-20's but surprising pundits a bit by raking in $27.6 million--becoming the winner by a nose over Hairspray! as the biggest opening ever for a musical. The film continued strong overseas, where its cumulative total is $72 million.

As a result of those two and other strong performers like Hancock, the weekend's 12 top films culled $249.6 million, for a 2008 domestic total of $5.36 billion.

Call it stagflation, but that leaves the seemingly robust and recession-proof industry down by a single percentage point from last year, with the number of fannies in seats down 3.7 percent.

Variety chronicled not only the domestic record-setting but a very healthy $40 million overseas, and pointed out that a likely week-long gross, playing in 4,366 theaters, of $205 million--more than the entire domestic gross of the previous Batman Begins, also directed by Christopher Nolan and staring Christian Bale, of $205 million.

"Dark Knight's" added popularity," wrote Variety, " is due in part to the death of Heath Ledger, who stars as the creepiest Joker yet."

Part of the rationale for projecting improved numbers, the Variety piece explained, is seasonal:
"Because it is the heart of summer, Fellman said "Dark Knight" has an advantage over "Spider-Man" in that more kids will go the movies on Sunday because they don't have to wake up Monday morning and go to school."