The results are in for the 2009 81st Academy Awards – Heath Ledger has won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his portrayal of the Joker. The Dark Knight also picked up another award for Best Sound Editing. In The Dark Knight’s six other nominations it often lost out to either the Curious Case of Benjamin Button or Slumdog Millionaire, the latter of which won 8 in total including Best Picture and Best Director.

Full results list after the break…
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On the eve of Oscars night 2009 The Dark Knight’s total international earnings soared past the one billion mark, one of only four films to ever do so (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Titanic and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King being the others). The re-release in IMAX locations finally tipped The Dark Knight over the final elite boundary.

The figures break down as:

Domestic: $533,090,262 53.3%
Foreign: $467,991,898 46.7%

What a day to be comparing the $1bn making Dark Knight with films such as Titanic and Return of the King – movies that swept the Academy Awards up in stunning fashion – each grabbing 11 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director; making the Academy’s 2009 Best Picture and Best Director Dark Knight snubs even more galling. As it is, all our chips lie on the Best Supporting Actor where we are all crossing our fingers and hoping that Heath Ledger can pick up that much deserved posthumous Oscar award for his stunning portrayal as The Joker.

Other categories include: Art Direction, Cinematography, Film Editing, Makeup, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects. The Dark Knight could win a total of 8 awards, which would be a grand enough sweep minus the big two, although this is predicted as very unlikely.

As expected, and in following the Batman Begins to The Dark Knight journey, Christopher Nolan is taking some time out from Batman to pursue another movie – “Inception”. Do not fret, The Prestige was filmed between the first two Batman movies and this certainly does not rule Nolan out from a third movie. What’s more, Warner Bros. are producing “Inception”, keeping everyone happy.

“Inception” is billed as “a contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind”, with an original screenplay by Nolan it plans to begin shooting this summer with a summer 2010 release in mind.

Bearing this news in mind, the earliest point at which production on The Dark Knight sequel might begin is Summer 2010, and with production taking approximately 14 months it could be late 2011 or Summer 2012 before the caped crusader returns to theaters.

The BBC have put up the BAFTA acceptance speeches, below is the speech made on behalf of Heath Ledger on winning Best Supporting Actor:

The British movie awards have just ended, Slumdog Millionaire swept up the majority of the awards whilst The Dark Knight picked up just the one – Heath Ledger posthumously awarded Best Supporting Actor:

Supporting actor
Robert Downey Jr – Tropic Thunder
Brendan Gleeson – In Bruges
Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
Brad Pitt – Burn After Reading
Philip Seymour Hoffman – Doubt

View the full results at the BBC.