“Dark Knight” Breaks Box Office Record!

“The Dark Knight” swooped into theaters to gross a record $18.5 million from midnight preview screenings ahead of its official opening on Friday, according to distributor Warner Bros.

WB reported that the $18.5 million did not include 3:00 AM and 6:00 AM.

The film opened at midnight and that single session pulled in $18.2 million, outgrossing Fox’s “Star Wars, Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith” midnight screenings which took in $16.9 million in 2005. Estimates for the weekend are now in flux with the $151 million three-day opening weekend record set by “Spider-Man 3″ looking likely to fall.

A $100 million “Dark Knight” debut would more than double the $47 million opening gross averaged by the five previous Batman movies released by Warner Bros, a unit of Time Warner Inc.

Those films have collectively have amassed over $1.6 billion in ticket sales worldwide since 1989, according to box office tracking service Media By Numbers.

The fortunes of “Dark Knight,” which cost about $180 million to produce, were further brightened by mostly positive reviews and a record wide release in 4,366 U.S. and Canadian theaters. Read the rest of this entry