{"id":2251,"date":"2008-08-05T19:22:58","date_gmt":"2008-08-05T18:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=2251"},"modified":"2008-08-05T19:24:11","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T18:24:11","slug":"the-dark-knight-passes-the-400-million-mark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2008\/08\/05\/the-dark-knight-passes-the-400-million-mark\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dark Knight passes the $400 million mark"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dark Knight<\/a> <\/strong>has now crossed the $400 million mark at the US box office in just 18 days.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Variety report<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In only its 18th day in release, Warner Bros.’ “The Dark Knight”<\/a> reached the $400 million mark in domestic sales on Monday, grossing $6.3 million for a cume of $400.1 million.<\/p>\n

That easily beats the 43 days it took “Shrek 2”<\/a> to jump the $400 million boundary.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some pundits were predicting that The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor<\/a> would just beat out the Batman sequel this past weekend but the caped crusader grossed $42.7 million, narrowly ahead of The Mummy which took in $40.5 million.<\/p>\n

In foreign territories it has taken over $200 million, which is pretty remarkable even for a summer blockbuster, especially as it has achieved this number in 18 days.<\/p>\n

Unless there is an unexpected drop off, it will almost certainly end up in the top 5 grossing movies of all time but can it beat the all time champ Titanic<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Jeremy Kay crunched some numbers recently over at The Guardian<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Talk has turned to whether the bat has the chops to overtake Stars Wars’ $460.9m (\u00a3233.4m) lifetime tally to become the second biggest earner in history.<\/p>\n

It could well do. Overhauling Titanic’s legendary $600.8m (\u00a3304.2m) mark is another kettle of fish, however.<\/p>\n

Many believe it will never be bettered and I’m inclined to agree. Still, you never know, and I’ll gladly take my hat off to Nolan if it does.<\/p>\n

By the close of Tuesday, after 15 days on release, The Dark Knight stood at $333.9m (\u00a3169m) in the US and Canada, making it the biggest film of the year-to-date in the US and Canada and the 16th biggest release in North American history.<\/p>\n

It’s been averaging a little over $10m in daily tickets sales this week thanks to rabid word of mouth and nationwide school holidays.<\/p>\n

By conservative estimates, factoring in a 50% drop-off in ticket sales in the third weekend, The Dark Knight should boost its cumulative gross by $35-40m (\u00a317m-\u00a320m) by the end of Sunday, which would catapult it into the lifetime earnings top 10 on a tally of more than $380m (\u00a3192m).<\/p>\n

How much it drops off this weekend is contingent on the number of new and repeat visits and, of course, the competition.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The extraordinary thing about Titanic was that when it opened in the US in December 1997 it didn’t have the blast off that accompanies a lot of blockbusters.<\/p>\n

It actually took 12 days to pass the $100 million mark and just kept grossing consistently<\/a> as it stayed top of the box office for an unprecedented 15 weeks, which is still a record.<\/p>\n

Strangely, it had it’s biggest weekend gross in mid-February as no doubt the Valentines Day<\/a> effect kicked in. In short it is an anomaly amongst big grossing films and unlikely to be broken in the near future.<\/p>\n

The Return of the King<\/a> ($1.1 billion) and Dead Man’s Chest<\/a> ($1.06 billion) are the only other films in history to enter the $1 billion club and even they are still some way off Titanic’s $1.8 billion gross<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I personally don’t think The Dark Knight can sink Titanic, but is there a possible contender?<\/p>\n

My hunch is that in 2011 when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II<\/strong><\/a> comes out (the final book will be two films<\/a>), the fan base, media hype and expectation of the final Potter film could mean the all time record finally being broken.<\/p>\n

> The Dark Knight<\/a> at Box Office Mojo
\n> List of the highest grossing films of all time at Wikipedia<\/a>
\n> More on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows being split into two films<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Dark Knight has now crossed the $400 million mark at the US box office in just 18 days. Variety report: In only its 18th day in release, Warner Bros.’ “The Dark Knight” reached the $400 million mark in domestic sales on Monday, grossing $6.3 million for a cume of $400.1 million. That easily beats […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[2791,123],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2251"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}