For the fourth week in a row, The Dark Knight has managed to hold on to its place at the top of the domestic U.S. box office. With the arrival of two more movies to make a play for the top spot, Pineapple Express and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, some of us thought it might take a fall to number 2. But it has held strong, and taken the second largest grossing film of all time within just 24 days.
TDK managed a reasonable $26 million, beating out Pineapple Express which itself managed a respectable $22.4 million. Sisterhood came out with a $10.7 million haul, not too bad considering not only the geeky competition, but the chick-movie subject matter of a movie starring four girlfriends.
But as mentioned, TDK in only 24 days has managed to take the second largest grossing film of all time, with a total of $441.5 million, compared to Titanic’s $600.7 million. TDK ’s place at number one however is definitely tenuous, with Star Wars: The Clone Wars being released this weekend; a heady challenge for any period in a movie’s run.
But TDK is still going strong to beat Titanic’s overall gross. At only 24 days, TDK has a long way to go before it reaches the nine months that Titanic ran at U.S. theaters.
As always, thanks to Box Office Mojo for statistics.
Actually, Dark Knight hasn’t overtaken Star Wars: A New Hope yet. After it’s numerous rereleases, Star Wars sits at around $461 million. Dark Knight needs another few days to beat that.
Did anyone read that story by EW about The Dark Knight trying to take down Titanic’s record?
The author wrote this long essay about how The Dark Knight will not ever overtake Titanic’s record and blah, blah, blah. I wonder how smug he still is in his thinking.
It still seems pretty unlikely that Dark Knight will overtake Titanic. Even the head of Warner Bros. has said as much. It’s definitely slowing down, so unless it has really long legs, it’s not going to make another $150 million before leaving theaters.
Plus, just to follow-up on my earlier post, one thing to keep in mind is inflation. Star Wars has made $461 million, most of that is in 1977 dollars. At today’s ticket prices, Star Wars earned around $1.2 billion. So even though Dark Knight will certainly overtake it on the blockbuster list, it doesn’t even come close to being the cultural phenomenon that Star Wars was.