“Dark Knight” overshadows box office rivals again
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Batman buried his rivals at the North American box office for a second weekend on Sunday, racing past $300 million in a record 10 days.
The Caped Crusader’s blockbuster outing, “The Dark Knight,” sold an estimated $75.6 million worth of tickets during the three days beginning Friday, taking its haul to $314.2 million, distributor Warner Bros. Pictures said.
The previous speed record for a $300 million film was 16 days set by “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” in 2006. “The Dark Knight” now ranks as the biggest movie of the year, surpassing the $315 million haul of “Iron Man.”
The next target is $400 million, which took “Shrek 2” 43 days to reach in 2004. Warner Bros. distribution president Dan Fellman predicted “The Dark Knight” would take just 18 days to reach that milestone.
As was the case with last weekend, when “The Dark Knight” enjoyed a record-breaking $158 million opening, the other films were a bit of an afterthought.
The Columbia Pictures comedy “Step Brothers,” starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly as perpetual adolescents, opened surprisingly strongly at No. 2 with $30 million. The 20th Century Fox sci-fi sequel “The X-Files: I Want to Believe” came in at No. 4 with $10.2 million, a figure at the lower end of expectations.
In between, the ABBA-inspired musical romance “Mamma Mia!” slipped one place to No. 3 with $17.8 million while its 10-day total rose to $62.7 million.
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