Here’s some hardly very surprising news – The Dark Knight is the number one movie at the weekend box office this week.
More than that, though, The Dark Knight is the biggest-ever movie at the number one box office – to the tune of $155 million. That’s even more than Spider-Man 3 managed. The Dark Knight better than a film about Kirsten Dunst doing a dance about some eggs? Wow, that is good.
What’s more impressive is that The Dark Knight managed to be the best ever movie at the US weekend box office even though it’s an overlong pitch-black morality tale made notorious by the death of one of its stars. That means that The Dark Knight is also the most depressing box office megahit since at least Big Momma’s House 2 came out.
Looking at the list of all the other movies that have at one point had the biggest-ever weekend box office grosses, there are some pretty big names on the list. Spider-Man, Pirates Of The Caribbean – but now The Dark Knight has topped the lot of them. That’s right – the death of Heath Ledger is the new Johnny Depp‘s funny run, or something.
The runaway weekend box office success of The Dark Knight just goes to show that movie audiences are sophisticated enough to enjoy complex, endlessly deep meditations on the similarity between good and evil after all.
And, given Hollywood’s love of ripping off other successful ideas, we’re now looking forward to seeing the upcoming reinvention of Digby The Biggest Dog In The World, which will now be four hours long, shot entirely at night and have a profound philosophical core based on Eliezer Yudkowsky‘s principles of Singularitarianism.
Here’s this week’s US weekend box office top five…
1 – The Dark Knight (As exciting as it is, The Dark Knight might just go down in history as the most depressing movie to be crowned biggest-ever film at the weekend box office. And now the focus will turn to how Christopher Nolan plans to top The Dark Knight – we’d imagine that it’ll involve a noose being given away with each movie ticket in case the audience feels like hanging themselves at the futility of it all by the halfway point) $155,304,000
2 – Mamma Mia! (Forget the deformed face of Harvey Dent, the unexplained motives of The Joker or the constant reminders of Heath Ledger’s untimely death – by far the scariest thing about this week’s weekend box office is the sound of Pierce Brosnan caterwauling his way through SOS like Lee Marvin in Paint Your Wagon repeatedly stubbing his toe on a breezeblock made of stinging nettles in Mamma Mia!) $27,605,000
3 – Hancock (Number three? That’s rubbish! Perhaps Hancock would have fared better if it had taken a leaf out of the number one and number two movies at the weekend box office, and either starred a dead bloke or featured a song and dance number performed by a man who sounds like a wounded dog drowning at the bottom of an abandoned well. Next time, Will Smith. Next time) $14,000,000
4 – Journey To The Centre Of The Earth (Forget Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, we want to know why Space Chimps only got to number seven at the weekend box office. Sure, The Dark Knight probably stole some of its audience away but, come on, Space Chimps? It’s called Space Chimps, for crying out loud. You’ve disappointed us, America) $11,910,000
5 – Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Hellboy II managed to lose 70% of its opening weekend audience in the space of seven days. Meanwhile, Meet Dave only lost 68.9%. Suck it, Hellboy II: The Golden Army!) $9,813,000
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Joshua says
Um, no need to be sarcastic and mean. You are however correct that the movie was way too long. Also, Heath Ledger did make the movie what it is. If he hadn’t been in it, this movie probably wouldn’t be a quarter of what it has become. It is good, but it is definitely not the best movie ever and I hope the whole world decides to jump off the band wagon.
euclid says
How about we cast Harry Potter as the Dark Knight
in a Lord of the Rings prequel that takes place
in Liberty City? Bank! Oh, and we can give Jesus a part too.
But not a speaking part, that costs.
J Bollocks says
Hey, we can afford a speaking bit for Jesus! After all, Sydney, Aus. just paid $AU300,000,000 to have the Pope for a week…
Special Reports says
Is the Dark Knight a success, because of Ledger’s death? Some people have said that the movie blatantly played on the symbolism of 9-11 with the poster, some say it’s a great movie, some say heath ledger played his best role. What do you think? SpecialReport.com
Larry King says
The reason the Dark Knight is doing so well is because it’s a GREAT movie. All the actors did a fine job. Heath was awesome as the Joker, your on the edge of your seat waiting to see what the Joker will do next. The opening bank robbery scenes were an excellent way to start the movie. Very good stuff.
The movie is a success not because of Heath Ledger’s death, but because of his over the top performance of Batmans most well known rival, the Joker. The Dark Knight is a well-made movie. Unless you hate yourself, you should go see it.
guy says
Please Stuart, venture into the twentieth century. I don’t know what you fancy yourself as, because it should not be a movie reviewer. You claimed that the Dark Knight had “endlessly deep meditations on the meaning of good and evil after all” in the most sarcastic manner possible, comparing Christopher Nolan’s work to big momma’s house 2. Well, that would have possibly been funny, excuse me valid, if you had mentioned a movie that was not sarcastically humorous when dealing with the dichotomy that is good and evil. And I dare you to mock that dichotomy and risk the wraith of the entire media going public who happens to be remotely religious and incur the fate of one David Edelstein who was stupid enough to pan the Dark Knight and the late Heath Ledgers performance. Beyond that, lets dissect your review shall we? First and foremost lets try to understand your play on the metaphor “pitch black”. Obviously you need to go back to college (assuming you have had a college education) and understand the meaning of your words, as any liberal arts or communication major would agree. “Pitch black” would imply a direct and undisputed meaning of things meaning, quaintly put colloquially, black and white, which implies the fact that you did not account for the grey in the movies plot or writing. Clearly when the joker declares that he is not in this for the money and declares that Gotham “deserves a better class of criminal” implies that Nolan was going beyond the cut and dry black and white distinction to try and understand the nature of human emotions, which is decidable gray. Because the Joker character asks for Harvey Dent to shoot him in the nurse/hospital scene after he is clearly guilty for the death of Rachel Dawes and Dent refuses, it suggests something that goes beyond a very basic, black and white, human emotion, namely revenge and at least attempts to explain the conflict that survives within all of us going, altruism versus social Darwinism. That is one of the many scenes where the Dark Knight surpasses the bland and perfunctory (I’m sorry is that beyond your lexicon), which you so beautifully describe it in (forgive the ending in a preposition I’m drunk). Furthermore I have not seen Digby the Worlds Biggest Dog but I read a few summaries online and I have a few qualms anyway. Once again I have to say that you need to refresh yourself on the use of metaphor as a slapstick humor flick that may hold some value today considering the rapid advance of science and the implications of its discoveries on the family life of citizens around the present should not be brought into play just to prove your mastery of the cinematic field. Taking in context that the last great discovery of science in the magnitude of “Digby’s” fantasy was in 69 when the US landed on the moon, I have to say yes you overshot your landing Bruce Willis (yes that was a movie reference) and this was a commentary on the present state of morality and politics more than anything having to do with science. Lastly to re-affirm that you are firmly rooted in science fiction, and not the advancement of the movie going public, what the hell was that reference to Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Singularitarianism? That is more in the line of Ayn Rand and her hypothesis of a purely fictional world or Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” than Christopher Nolan and his commentary on the present state of human affairs. Either way it is no surprise that the Dark Knight is tops at the box office and I hope that people see beyond the scathing unfounded review you just issued. Personally, i would like to see movie reviewers applaud a blockbuster hit going beyond the boundaries of pure entertainment to deliver a message to the masses. despite my obvious bias, (i loved the Dark Knight), i think this movie did that.