No, not struck down another member of the cast or crew with the ‘curse’, which is apparently floating around these days. The film has gone and broken the record for the fastest $400 million in box office history, making the money in a frankly ridiculous 18 days.

Imagine making four hundred million dollars in 18 days. How many tricks you’d have to pull to draw in that amount… it’s hard to take in. Though it would also be hard to take in if you pulled $400 million-worth of tricks, let’s be honest here.

But at least it shows that maybe, just maybe, Christopher Nolan’s film is living up to its reputation, even with the extra bits of accidental hype popping up here and there.

The previous record time in which the fabled $400 million mark was crossed – as you should all know too well – was a pathetic 43 days by Shrek 2. More than four hundred million for doing a crap Scottish accent? Ruddy hell.

But in less than half the time it took for a CG ogre voiced by an irritating comedy hack to reach the milestone – just over two weeks – The Dark Knight has taken its place in box office history, climbing up the highest US earners top 10 as fast as it’s cast can make headlines through their exploits, incidents and accidents.

Surely this means Hollywood will adopt the same technique for every new major movie release, pushing their leading stars into compromising positions for the sake of a few extra headlines. It worked very well here, and the world of film is surely cynical enough to see it as a viable strategy to affect the home lives of its stars.

Unless we’re being unnecessarily harsh here. Which we aren’t.

If the movie fatcats aren’t quite that cynical, they’ll probably just adopt a new film-making strategy to rake in the speedy $400 million. Said strategy will probably involve making every single big budget summer movie the most depressing, dark and downright unsettling thing known to man, while at the same time putting a welsh bloke in a weird costume and making him speak in a frankly ridiculous manner when wearing said costume.

It’s a definite recipe for success, if you simply follow the trail of facts staring you in the face.

We do have one real hope from all of this though, and that is to see The Dark Knight overtake Titanic as the highest grossing movie of all time. Meaning whenever we hear about the film that brought home the most clams we won’t have to be reminded of the time James Cameron went mad and made one of the worst films ever. Starring a sprout.

Keep in mind none of this applies if the specific panda is still a communist. If it’s a communist panda the people generally consider it an idiot.

But perhaps this panda-love is the reason Kung Fu Panda just shattered Korean box office records. We think the previous record holder was their version of Lonesome Dove, which was similar to the better known 1989 mini-series except their dove actually had quite a few close friends.

Chances are right now that Jack Black is sizing up his suitcase set and considering a move to Korea – we hear that country has even offered him an apartment. It’s above a butcher, and is quite peaceful except on Monday afternoons when the chickens have to die.

His movie Kung Fu Panda just broke records as ‘the fastest moving animated movie in Korean box office history,’ 908,368 people apparently payed several shiny, polished stones to see it in it’s second weekend alone. This lifted it’s total gross to a nice $15.4 million. Sure it made a boat-load elsewhere too, but this is Korea we’re talking about!

Variety has a few more details:

“The pic passed 2 million ticket sales landmark Saturday, its tenth day of release. That is some four days quicker than “Shrek 2,” which in 2004 went on to garner 3.3 million admissions.

“Another green monster also showed impressive performances at No.2 in the Korean chart. “Incredible Hulk” opened on 529 screens and grossed $2.8 million from 455,588 admissions during the weekend. Helmer M. Night Shyamalan’s mystery “The Happening” also debuted at No.3 with a $1.2 million cume from 200,576 admissions during the weekend.”

We’d imagine with tremendous success like this sequel discussions are underway. Might we suggest the incorporation of a Korean water-buffalo as a possible sidekick, a North Korean water-buffalo as a possible nemesis, and perhaps John Belushi as a dead guy that really likes the blues.

We’ve got the script half-written.

Read more on Variety’s Website.

We only mention this because the poor lad seems compelled to try and impress us all the time with a range of increasingly attention-seeking adventures. Yes, OK David, you can stand on top of a pole for a few hours at time – what do you want, a medal?

And just like a door to door salesman, David Blaine’s been back again with another spectacular stunt – this time involving gallons of water, Oprah Winfrey and a silver wetsuit.

Most magicians make their living by ballsing up card tricks at birthday parties and consequently making small children cry, or misjudging the drop of a burning torch and melting the skin off their hands.

But David Blaine is not your average magician. Instead of making balloon animals and poking swords through ropey-looking women, he mainly does long overdrawn stunts that bore the hell out of everyone. Previously David Blaine has stood in some ice and sat in a box and sort of spun around for a while. Truly he is a god among men.

So after dipping off the radar for a while, Blaine returned with a feat that many have almost died trying to do. Yes, the age-old hold your breath underwater game. You know, like he tried a few years ago right before he started convulsing and getting divers to rescue him and stuff.

Many of us have attempted to hold our breath underwater in the immature phase of life, by competing with each other to see who can bring themselves closer to death without actually meeting the grim reaper. Whilst most people reach a worthy 30 seconds, smarty pants David Blaine wanted to be the outright winner of said challenge so he’s had another go at it.

Of course the feat wasn’t done in public. It was done on Oprah Winfrey’s show – aka TV for the dumb. Obviously short of an X Factor reject or a zany Tom Cruise to interview, Oprah needed something to fill up her airtime. So for 17 minutes and four seconds, she let David Blaine float around in a huge tank as she pranced about and shrieked. Or something like that. According to BBC News:

Magician David Blaine has set a world record by holding his breath for 17 minutes and four seconds on Oprah Winfrey’s US TV show in Chicago. “I feel great”, he said, as he was pulled out of the water. “I actually started to doubt I was going to make it because I’d never done it with such a high heart rate,” he added. Winfrey asked him what he was thinking about during his time in the water, to which he replied: “You.”

Blaine told everyone’s favourite billionaire chatshow host that it was a “lifelong dream” to potentially kill himself in front of millions of Americans. And later thousands of Brits when we get the repeats in November. Whatever his strange ambitions, David Blaine is now recognised as the bloke who can hold his breath for quite a while in the Guinness book of records.

Next up, David Blaine doesn’t go to sleep for a while. Perhaps his mother didn’t hug him enough as a child.

Read more:

Blaine Sets Breathtaking Record - BBC

As such, we can't remember a single thing about last year's X Factor – we seem to recall that it was won by a plank of balsa wood dressed as Frank Sinatra that couldn't stop crying, but that's about it. Anyway, apparently someone from X Factor called Rhydian Roberts has just signed a million-pound record deal.

Wait, no, it's all coming back. Make it stop! Lord, make it stop! Mother! The pain!

X Factor is called X Factor because to win it you can't just be a good singer, you have to have another, more elusive quality. Judging by the last two X Factor winners Leona Lewis and Leon Jackson, it looks like the 'X Factor' in question is a crippling inability to say, do or think anything to prove that you've got the remotest sliver of a personality tucked away inside your probably robotic brain.

But Rhydian Roberts, runner-up in last year's X Factor competition, doesn't have that problem at all. He oozes with personality. Trouble is, it's the personality of a dickhead.

That much was clear from Rhydian's very first X Factor audition when Sharon Osbourne called him 'vile' and Dannii Minogue mimed a puking fit after he left – and became even more clear when he eventually lost X Factor to Leon Jackson, spent the entire evening sulking bitterly in a corner, made some weird claims about the result being a fix and avoided the X Factor wrap party because he was too busy standing on a rock in the middle of nowhere screaming swearwords at the moon.

The truth is that Rhydian lost X Factor because people either love his shouty operatic hits-from-the-musicals shtick or they hate it, depending mostly on whether they're retired librarians called Gerald who go on walking holidays and collect commemorative coin sets or not.

But that hasn't stopped Rhydian from continuing his steel-eyed march to oppressive catch-all success. Leon Jackson may have won the battle by getting the Christmas number one, but Rhydian Roberts is determined to win the war, and now he has just officially signed a million-pound record deal with Sony BMG as well as getting a vague offer from Andrew Lloyd-Webber to be the star of the forthcoming Phantom Of The Opera 2: Viva Rock Vegas. And what has Leon Jackson got, huh? HUH?

That means that Rhydian Roberts is preparing to unleash himself as an actual popstar, hoping to emulate the second-place X Factor success of the evil Scouse ventriloquist dummy and the sad binman. Or maybe Rhydian will do better than that. Maybe Rhydian will go on to become one of the biggest popstars this country has ever produced.

If we're distant for the rest of the day it'll be because we're trying to work out how we did that emotional blocking thing from earlier. We get the feeling we'll be needing it.

Read more:

Rippling Rhydian: X Factor runner-up has the muscles but not the tan to fit in with the beach hunks – Daily Mail 

Historically the X Factor silver medallist is consigned to a simple future – one badly-selling album of Michael Ball cover versions that only gets television coverage on GMTV and then a couple of years of doing corporate shows for 50p and a handful of cakes – but Rhydian Roberts might just escape that, because Simon Cowell has signed Rhydian up and wants him to rush an album out before he ends up inevitably playing the Phantom Of The Opera. And, all being well, Rhydian's album To You Love Rhydian: Rhydian Sings The Best Of Ball should be released early next year.

Perhaps our favourite moment from Saturday's X Factor final came during ITV2's The Xtra Factor – look, it's a professional obligation, OK? We don't watch these things out of choice – when everyone was congratulating newly-crowned X Factor champ Leon Jackson except for Rhydian Roberts who, having expected to win the show from his very first audition, bitterly sat alongside him staring into nothingness like a man watching his house burn down.

Clearly Rhydian's tears were understandable – not only had he let the X Factor production team primp him up like an albino, shape his eyebrows and slap three inches of foundation onto his face, but he also had to come to terms with the fact that perhaps millions of teenage girls weren't so keen on a relentless barrage of one shouted churchy operatic ballad after another – but they were misplaced, because Simon Cowell has decided to sign Rhydian Roberts up after all.

You see, Simon Cowell has come to realise that the pop chart is a fickle bastard, and to get any sort of lasting career out of a reality TV gonk you have to make them produce an album full of operatic standards and pop hits made to sound like operatic standards with a picture of them looking thoughtfully serious in a suit as the cover. You know, the sort of think your Mum would like. It's worked for Il Divo and Paul Potts so far, and now it's time for it to work for Rhydian Roberts.

But there's one thing standing in the way of Simon Cowell's dream, and that's toady old Andrew Lloyd Webber. Even though he apparently turned Rhydian down on that godawful Joseph And His Slightly Girly Frock Coat show of his, Andrew Lloyd Webber is apparently hell-bent on getting Rhydian to star as the Phantom Of The Opera in a new Phantom Of The Opera sequel he's written about the hilarious exploits of the Phantom when he loses his job and has to go and live with his cantankerous father on a scrap metal yard singing songs like You Dirty Old Man and Whoops! (A Rat's Crawled Up My Pipes).

Not that Simon Cowell cares, of course. He'd release an album by a diarrhoea-stricken goat if it made him money, and nothing will stand in his way of doing that with Rhydian. An insider told The Sun:

“Simon is relaxed about Rhydian doing Phantom but he wants to make sure he gets his record deal done first. That way Andrew Lloyd Webber has to work around Simon rather than the other way round.”

So, despite him moping around like a bereaved mother on Saturday night, it looks like everything's coming up Millhouse for Rhydian Roberts. And the spirit of goodwill doesn't end there – Simon Cowell is reportedly close to offering X Factor third-placers Same Difference a deal as well. Admittedly that deal is 'get off my property now and I won't set the hounds on you', but a deal's a deal.

Read more:

Rhydian: 2nd But I've Got A Deal – The Sun