This weekend looked like it would bring in more big numbers for The Dark Knight, and that it certainly did. After very strong mid-week sales of $18.4m and $16.5m on Wednesday and Thursday respectively, the caped crusader added another $23.2m on Friday, making the $300m target reachable by the end of the week.

In its second weekend The Dark Knight grossed an estimated $75.6m in 4366 theaters, the record for biggest second weekend ever (set by Shrek 2 - $72.2m), putting Batman at a whopping $314.2m after only 10 days - smashing the previous $300m record set by Dead Man’s Chest by 6 days.

The movie is now up to #23 on the domestic blockbuster chart. Internationally The Dark Knight added $65.6m in 7,143 theaters across 43 locations - reaching a foreign total of $126.3m. In 12 days the worldwide gross has reached $440.5m, despite key Asian and European markets getting a delayed release in August.

Sources: Variety, Box Office Mojo

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

Monday July 21st was the UK and European premiere of The Dark Knight, Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Chris Nolan, Michael Caine and the tumbler were all at hand to sign autographs, greet fans and attend the shindig.

Below is a 17 video playlist of television features, video interviews and candid shots of the Batmobile, cast and crew. YouTube is playing silly buggers and not letting me edit this playlist so the order of the videos may not be too great for the moment. Enjoy.

Images from outside by Samuel Judge:

Images from inside by Ben30:

Not meaning to sour the joyful occasion and celebration that is The Dark Knight, but it looks like Christian Bale has been causing trouble, as reported by the BBC:

Batman star Christian Bale has been bailed by police after being questioned about allegations he assaulted his mother and sister.

The 34-year-old was arrested and held for more than four hours after earlier attending a central London police station by appointment.

Mr Bale is alleged to have lashed out at his mother and sister in his suite at London’s Dorchester Hotel on Sunday.

He has been released on bail until September pending further inquiries.

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 previously reported that The Dark Knight had moved into IMDB’s top movie of all time list - entering at number 4. After another day of screening it moved up to 3, but today it hit the big one - with an average score of 9.5 from regular IMDB voters The Dark Knight took the top spot. No doubt this is temporary and after the initial flutter of activity the caped crusader shall fall and settle somewhere further down, much like Return of the King did - but this is too damn cool not to report!

After 23,000 votes, Batman still has an average score of 9.7!

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