Holy box office breaking ticket sales, Batman!

Jul 22 2008 By Richard Mooney

Batman looks set to break box office records worldwide following a massive opening weekend in the USA.

According to early figures The Dark Knight has raked in just under $160 million in its first weekend, slamming the previous record held by Spider-Man 3.

The movie also helped shatter the three-day weekend, overall box office record, bringing in a total of $258 million.

Excitement for the movie has been building for the past two years since it was first announced in summer 2006. Following a year of speculation, gossip started buzzing of Ledger’s performance in 2007 with many describing it as ‘stunning’.

Aided greatly by a superb, viral-marketing campaign, hype for The Dark Knight gained momentum throughout the second half of 2007 and Ledger’s untimely death in January focussed the world’s attention on what is said to be the actor’s greatest performance.

Previous Batman movies have averaged out at around $46.5 million dollars in an opening weekend,

In other Bat-news, the current Batman comic book storyline is named Batman R.I.P and will be the end of Bruce Wayne as The Dark Knight.

Although this will have no effect on Nolan’s Batman in the current movie franchise, the character’s original comic book form looks set to fundamentally change forever

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