Batman - The Dark Night

According to studio estimation on Sunday (7/20), Batman’s latest movie, Batman “The Dark Knight” had made a record by earning $155.34 million in its first weekend, topping the previous best of $151.1 million for “Spider-Man 3″ in May 2007 and pacing Hollywood to its biggest weekend ever.

Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros., said enthusiastly, “We knew it would be big, but we never expected to dominate the marketplace like we did. The movie should shoot past the $200 million mark by the end of the week”.

The movie has been the buzz for months before it’s finally released last week (June 16 in Australia Mexico and Brazil. June 17 in several countries in Asia, June 18 in North America, next June 24 in UK and rolls out to most of the rest of the world over the next few weeks). Heath Ledger’s death, the actor who played Joker, also plays a big role on the movie’s ‘promotions’. The Aussie actor who died last January from an accidental prescription-drug overdose, is rumored will earn an Academy Award nomination (and might be also the trophy) for his incredible job portraying Joker.

Heath Ledger as The Joker

President of Media By Numbers -box-office tracker-, Paul Dergarabedian said, “The average opening gross of the last five ‘Batman’ movies is $47 million. This tripled that, and for a reason. A big part of that was the Heath Ledger mystique and a phenomenal performance that absolutely deserves the excitement surrounding it”.

‘The Dark Knight’ starred Christian Bale, reprises his role as Batman in ‘Batman Begins’, along with Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman. Along with Ledger, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal and Aaron Eckhart are the new faces in ‘The Dark Knight’. Directed by Christopher Nolan, the same director from ‘Batman Begins’, the movie cost $185 million to make.

New Batman suit and vehicle, Bat-Pod, are introduced, along with great action scenes and psychological-twisted-strategy of Joker, added the plusses in this movie, including story plot which a bit unpredictable. No wonder ‘The Dark Knight’ had crowned last week’s box office, and I predict will still be number one in weeks ahead. Great job!