Written by David Benioff and Len Wein
Cast
Hugh Jackman ... Wolverine
Ryan Reynolds ... Deadpool
Liev Schreiber ... Sabretooth
Dominic Monaghan ... Beak
Lynn Collins ... Silver Fox
Danny Huston ... William Stryker
Daniel Henney ... Agent Zero
Taylor Kitsch ... Gambit
Kevin Durand ... The Blob
The Dark Knight has crossed it's $400mil mark and in record 18 days beating Shrek 2 for a 43 days sprint. This places TDK at 8th position on the All-Time US Box Office and at 39th on the Worldwide Box Office leaving only 5 movies between TDK and 2nd position Star Wars (1977) that had grossed $460mil in domestic sales. The well anticipated sequel of the Mummy took 2nd place for it's first weekend box office at $40mil just $2mil behind TDK's 3rd weekend. At this time last year The Bourne Ultimatum opened at $69mil, which doesn't leave the Mummy 3 looking very good. However on a global scale, the Mummy sequel won the gold with $102mil worldwide beating TDK at $81mil.
According to Rotten Tomatoes things look very promising for TDK as past records show very little decline in August. 2006's Pirate's of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest grossings consisted of the 76% late summer cummulation as did Bourne Ultimatum's 72% of last year out of their total box office. Of course without being over optimistic, should TDK continue at this pace it will take the 2nd place on box office within the next 2 weeks, bringing it well within reach of the elite $500mil mark that only Titanic (1997) holds to date.
"Internationally, TDK grossed an estimated $37mil from 51 markets to boost its stellar overseas tally to $202mil. That gives the comic book flick a worldwide cume of $597mil with much more fuel still in the tank as major markets like Korea, Japan, Spain, France, Russia and Germany have yet to open" Gitesh Pandya, www.BoxOfficeGuru.com
From Rotten Tomatoes
More records were smashed into bits by the unstoppable megahit The Dark Knight which remained at number one by a comfortable margin for the second straight time. Moviegoers had mixed feelings for the two new releases with the Will Ferrell comedy Step Brothers scoring a solid second place bow while the sci-fi sequel The X-Files: I Want to Believe underperformed barely reaching double-digit millions.
Audiences once again filled theaters all weekend for the superhero blockbuster The Dark Knight which grossed an estimated $75.6M dropping a reasonable 52% from its record-breaking opening weekend. With the cume soaring to an eye-popping $314.2M after only ten days, the Warner Bros. release shattered the $300M mark in record time. The old record was held by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest which banked $258.4M of loot over its first ten days and crossed the triple-century mark in 16 days.
The new Batman film also set a new record for the largest second weekend gross outdistancing the $72.2M that Shrek 2 hauled in back in May 2004. Knight has now virtually matched the $314.9M collected by Iron Man over the last three months and will become the year's highest grossing blockbuster on Monday. On the all-time list, the new Joker saga has quickly climbed up to number 23 sitting right next to 2001's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
Dark Knight's hold was impressive considering how much business it already absorbed on the first weekend. Looking at the largest opening weekends in movie history, second weekend drops were 62% for Spider-Man 3, 54% for Dead Man's Chest, and 56% for Shrek the Third. Word-of-mouth has been strong for the Christopher Nolan-directed sequel and the Imax showings continue to be a major event creating even more excitement and repeat business.
Given its sturdy hold, Knight now looks to be on a trajectory that will see it zoom past the $400M mark by the end of its third week of release. With most of the summer's tentpole titles already played out, and a full month before students go back to school, the Caped Crusader now has a realistic shot of breaking through the $500M mark domestically joining only Titanic in that exclusive stratosphere.
Overseas, The Dark Knight was a dominant force grossing an estimated $65.6M and ranking number one in 43 markets. The opening in the United Kingdom which followed last week's glitzy London premiere led the way with $22.3M, including previews, while holdover markets dropped by an average of only 38%. The early international cume rose to $126.3M putting the global tally at a stunning $440.5M with major territories like Japan, Germany, Korea, and France still to open. A worldwide haul of more than $1 billion is certainly possible for Bruce Wayne and pals.
