10 things that make The Dark Knight the best Batman ever

Batman topped Spiderman as the king of Hollywood superheroes today, studio estimates showed.

The Dark Knight took a US box office record of $155m (£77.7m) in its opening weekend, beating the previous best of $151 million (£75.6m) set by Spider-Man 3 in May last year.

Studio estimates showed it was the biggest Hollywood weekend ever.

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Black carpet rolled out and talk of a posthumous Oscar at the unveiling of Heath Ledger film The Dark Knight

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BACKGROUND

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Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros, which released the latest instalment of the caped crusader, predicted the Batman film would shoot past the $200m (£100.1m) mark by the end of the week.

"We knew it would be big, but we never expected to dominate the marketplace like we did," he said.

Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office tracker Media By Numbers, said: "The average opening gross of the last five Batman movies is $47m (£23.5m). This tripled that, and for a reason.

"A big part of that was the Heath Ledger mystique and a phenomenal performance that absolutely deserves the excitement surrounding it."

Ledger, who plays the Joker, died in January from an accidental prescription-drug overdose. But his performance has prompted speculation that his role might earn him a posthumous Oscar nomination.

The Dark Knight also took Spider-Man 3's records for best debut in IMAX large-screen cinemas and highest opening day takings.

The Dark Knight, which cost $185m (£92.6m) to make, took $6.2m (£3.1m) in its IMAX debut, compared with $4.7m (£2.4m) for Spider-Man 3.

And Batman pulled in a record $67.85m (£34m) on its opening day, again beating Spider-Man 3's $59.8m (£30m).

But with higher admission prices, Spider-Man 3 may have sold slightly more tickets than The Dark Knight, analysts said.

At 2007's average price of $6.88 (£3.44), Spider-Man 3 sold 21.96 million tickets over opening weekend.

Media By Numbers estimated that today's average price was $7.08 (£3.54), which meant The Dark Knight would have sold 21.94 million tickets.

Hollywood set an overall revenue record of 253 million dollars (£127m) for the three-day weekend, beating the 218.4 million dollar (£109.2m) haul over the weekend of July 7, 2006, figures from Media By Numbers showed.

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