The Dark Knight Breaks Records In Just Ten Days

The Dark Knight had been breaking box office records since its showing day. It is now Hollywood's shining knight.The Batman sequel, starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger, shattered another box-office benchmark this weekend – reaching beyond the $300 million mark in a mere 10 days.

The movie grossed $75.6 million in its second weekend in theaters, bringing its North American box-office total to $314,245,000, Warner Bros. head of distribution Dan Fellman tells the Associated Press.

The number breaks the record established by 2006's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which hit $300 million after 16 days.

Fellman says Dark Knight could conceivably reach the $400-million mark in about 18 days – placing it ahead of Shrek 2's 43-day record in 2004.

Hold on to your life preservers – The Dark Knight might also surpass 1997's Titanic as the highest-grossing film in U.S. history, according to Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers. That sinking-ship saga, starring Leonardo Di Caprio, made $600,788,188 domestically.

Rounding out this weekend's top five at the box office were Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly in Step Brothers, with an estimated $30 million; Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia!, $17.9 million; David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in The X-Files: I Want to Believe, $10.2 million; and Brendan Fraser in Journey to the Center of the Earth, $9.4 million.

Batman - The Dark Knight Now Showing; Heath Ledger Gives An Astounding Performance

The Dark Knight is a vivid, magnificent film simply among the best movie I've encountered in a long time, and easily the most effective of its form.

Christian Bale comes back as the serious-minded caped crusader opposing an international class villian, an all-consuming first-rate joker, played Oscar-caliber by the late Heath Ledger.

Ledger's joker is no joke. He's a chaos-seeking human missle and the best bad guy in motion picture history.

Now and then, The Dark Knight comes in the cinematic stratosphere as a guessing man's comic book hero attempting to spare the world and in the procedure, feeling immoral around the outlook it requires to fight pure evil.

The Dark Knight is written and directed to the letter by Christopher Nolan. Consider this backing cast - Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Gary Oldman - altogether assisting a technically impressive film that lives on a higher level.

Be deliberate, The Dark Knight is graded PG-13 but feels like an R, and runs two and a half hours.

Every frame is a gut-wrencher, an ethical motive tale about a bad guy without any ethics and a benevolent guy that comes out to be over his head. This is why I attend the motion pictures.