Officially a Billionaire, 'Dark Knight' Will Now Host 'The Apprentice'

Now, only $800 million more to go! The Dark Knight kind of made history this week, becoming just the fourth film ever to cross the $1 billion mark in worldwide box office. I say "kind of" made history, because, after all, who's the fourth leading rusher in NFL history? * It's just the latest in a long line of remarkable achievements for The Dark Knight, which set records for opening day and opening weekend box office, and is also the fastest movie ever to $100, $200, $300, $400, and $500 million in the United States. But unlike Titanic, which is the current all-time record holder at $1.8 billion, The Dark Knight has only been in theaters for 184 days, whereas Titanic hung around for nearly a year. DVD sales being what they are, studios can't afford to put off the home video releases very long, so movies don't get the extended theatrical runs they enjoyed even ten years ago. Oh yeah - The Dark Knight owns most of the DVD sales records, too. But where the film was really vulnerable was in the international markets. It's the only film in the worldwide top 20 that generated less than 50% of its audience overseas, and only six films on that list made less than 60% of their revenue in other countries. To give that number specific relevance for The Dark Knight, it's not even the top 2008 movie in international markets. That's Indiana Jones, albeit by about a million dollars. And the Batman sequel has only outgrossed Mamma Mia! by about $20 million overseas. In the U.S., there was a gap of nearly $400 million between those two films. We did the math, just in case you were curious, and if The Dark Knight had performed to the average of films in that group of twenty, it would have made about 61% of its revenue abroad, so another 15% of its total, roughly. That would've been enough to make it the runner-up to Titanic, but it would have still been about $400 million away. *Curtis Martin, with 14,101 yards