Batman box office super hero with record opening

BATMAN has sent Spidey packing as king of Hollywood’s box office superheroes.

The Dark Knight movie took in a record $155 million (€97.8m) in its first weekend, said Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Brothers.

That topped Hollywood’s previous record of $151m set by Spider-Man 3 in May 2007.

“We knew it would be big, but we never expected to dominate the marketplace like we did,” Fellman said, who now expects the movie to shoot past the $200m mark by the end of the week, he added.

Factoring in higher admission prices, however, Spider-Man 3 may have sold slightly more tickets than The Dark Knight.

At 2007’s average ticket price of $6.88 (€4.33), Spider-Man 3 sold 21.96 million tickets over its opening weekend. Box office tracker Media By Numbers estimates today’s average movie prices at $7.08, which means The Dark Knight would have sold 21.94 million tickets.

The movie’s release was preceded by months of buzz and speculation over the performance of the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, Batman’s nemesis.

Ledger, who died in January from an accidental prescription-drug overdose, played the Joker as a demonic presence, his performance prompting predictions that it might earn him a posthumous Academy Award nomination.

The Dark Knight, which cost $185 million to make, also broke the Spider-Man 3 record for best debut in IMAX large-screen theatres with $6.2m. Spider-Man 3 opened with $4.7m in IMAX cinemas.

On opening day, The Dark Knight also took in more money than previously counted, Fellman said. The film pulled in a record $67.85m, up nearly $1.5m from the studio’s estimates a day earlier.

Reviews were excellent for director Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, but they were stellar for his Dark Knight.

“We’ve really never seen anything like this,” said Paul Dergarabedian, of Media By Numbers. “The death of a fine actor in his prime, a legendary performance, and a movie that lives up to all the hype.”