Total Worldwide Box Office Gross: Over $1 Billion Christopher Nolan's cinematic masterpiece and the sequel to 2005's Batman Begins, The Dark Knight was released in 2008 and was an immediate box office success. The film would have an opening week tally of over $238 million dollars, with a whopping average of over $54,000 per screen. It crushed its production budget that was set at a huge $185 million dollars, and it cemented Nolan and his vision as the new landmark for which all other comic book films, and most other films for that matter, would go on to be judged. TDK was also the first commercial film to have portions filmed exclusively in IMAX, including its opening bank robbery scene and also its fantastic BatMobile/BatCycle versus The Joker chase scene, which was featured midway through the flick. In IMAX showings alone, the film brought in nearly $535 million dollars. Casting another hot up-and-comer, Heath Ledger, as the villainous Joker, along with another rising talent in Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight would go on to not only commercial success, but critical acclaim as well. While the film did fall by a gargantuan 53% in its second week of release, word of mouth would keep it steady at the box office for the next 7 weeks, where it would climb to over half a billion dollars worldwide. Ledger would die prior to the film's release, but would go on to win a posthumous Academy Award for his mesmerizing portrayal of The Joker. The Dark Knight ranks as the 17th largest grossing film of all time at the worldwide box office.
