The Dark Knight has utterly smashed the record for reaching $200m the fastest, the previous record was eight days – by three films – Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Spider-Man 2 and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith; all big name contenders. The Dark Knight has achieved this in five days, knocking a whole 3 days off the record. That’s phenomenal.

On Monday the movie took $24.5 million (a best ever non-holiday Monday) and Tuesday it added a further $20.87 million (second best ever to Transformers).

SSH has a nice summary of The Dark Knight’s major accomplishments so far:

Widest release (4,366 theaters), biggest midnight opening ($18.5M), biggest opening weekend ($158.4M), biggest July opener ($158.4M), biggest PG-13 rated opening ($158.4M), biggest single day ($67.2M), biggest opening day ($67.2M), biggest Friday ($67.2M), biggest Sunday ($43.6M), biggest IMAX opening ($6.3M) and fastest to $200M in five days ($203.8M).

Source: Media by Numbers, Thanks Keith

Here it comes, the one we have been waiting for – The Dark Knight has set the record for best ever sales on an opening weekend, reaching $155.34m – beating Spider-man 3’s $151.1m.

We were holding a straw poll on potential weekend takings, my Friday prediction of $157m looks almost spot on , excellent!

“The Dark Knight” took in a record $155.34 million in its first weekend, said Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros., which released the “Batman Begins” sequel.

That topped Hollywood’s previous best of $151.1 million, set by “Spider-Man 3″ in May 2007.

Source: AP, thanks Keith!

EDIT: Looks like the final figures have been clarified – the WB had previously estimated $155.3m, it instead took in a record $158.4m, after tallying Sunday’s figures. It also set the record for an IMAX opener, earning $6.2 million from 94 IMAX theaters.

We’d hoped this might happen – after setting the midnight sales record at $18.5m, it looked inevitable that The Dark Knight would go on to beat Spider-man 3’s record of $59.8m. Variety tells us that early reports put The Dark Knight at between $60m and $63m from a record 4366 theaters.

We’re $60m up, just $90m to go to beat that weekend record set by Spidey. Still time to make your predictions.

EDIT: Record confirmed at $66.4m, smashing Spider-man’s $59m! Source: AP

After breaking the record for opening in the most theaters nationwide (4,366 of them), Batman has now achieved the record for highest grossing midnight sales. Last night TDK took a whopping estimated $18.5 million – NOT including the 3am and 6am screenings! This breaks the previous record set by Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. To put this into some context, Batman Begins made $15m on its first day whilst the highest single day opening belongs to Spider-man 3 at $59.8m.

You may want to take these figures into account when predicting The Dark Knight’s weekend gross.

Source: Variety:

Warner Bros.’ “The Dark Knight” grossed the most ever for midnight shows, racking up an estimated $18.5 million.

The follow-up to 2005’s “Batman Begins” outstripped the previous midnight record set by Fox’s “Star Wars, Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith” which grossed $16.9 million from 3,663 venues. “Sith” went on to make $50 million in its first day, which was a Thursday. The highest single day opening record is currently held by Sony’s “Spider-man 3″ which made $59.8 million.

“Dark Knight” unspooled in a record number of sites – 4,366 – outstripping the wide bow of Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” which touted a theater count of 4,362.

Warner Bros. reported that the $18.5 million did not include 3:00 A.M. and 6:00 A.M.

“Batman Begins” opened on June 15, 2005, a Wednesday, earning $15.1 million in its first day. Both “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” are directed by Christopher Nolan.

As for the midnight shows themselves, they looked like a laugh – pictures by tech1987, Brendan Falkowskiand Clevergrrl

The Rejects Report over at Film School Rejects have put their money on a weekend gross of $136 million. This seems like a pretty good baseline to start out predictions – the record, biggest ever opening weekend was set by Spider-man 3 at $156 million, second is Dead Man’s Chest at $135m followed by Shrek The Third on $121m (Source: Box Office Mojo).

The Dark Knight has already broken one record, opening in the most theaters:

The film’s more than 4,366 domestic playdates is a record, surpassing the 4,362 theaters for May 2007’s bow of “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.” Double- and triple-screening at many venues means “Dark Knight” will play on 9,200 screens in the U.S. and Canada.

Its engagements include 94 Imax venues — Nolan shot long segments using Imax-format cameras — and most of those giant-screen auditoriums were sold out by midweek. A Warners exec estimated that Imax presales totaled $3.5 million, with advance ticketing for other venues adding considerably to that total.

– Hollywood Reporter

Rejects question why Mamma Mia was released the same weekend as TDK – I’d say to capture all those girlfriends and mothers that do not fancy a gritty action flick yet are being dragged to the theaters by their wide-eyed male counterparts looking to get their Joker fix. A quick dash, a fork split, you watch this and I’ll watch that sort of thing – shame they’ll be waiting a good 45 minutes after their movie has finished, with the Dark Knight clocking in at 152 mins.

I’m going to stick my neck out and go for an opening of $157m, because I am an optimist and Spider-man 3 deserves knocking off the top spot.

Place your bets now… (sorry, no prizes on this one, I haven’t got any free stuff to giveaway!)