For the third straight weekend, the latest Batman film, The Dark Knight continued to top the box office numbers, earning Warner Brother another $43.8 million. In the three weeks of its release, the movie has already raked in $394.9 million and the over the next few days, the studio hopes the film will reach the $400 million mark.

The weekend earnings of The Dark Knight got some competition from the opening weekend sales of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor which earned around $42.5 million. If it reaches the $400 million milestone, The Dark Knight will be poised to take on the original Star Wars which at present holds the second position in overall box office earnings with $461 million. However The Dark Knight will still remain one place behind Titanic which continues to be the top grosser of all times in US and Canada with revenues of $601 million.

The Dark Knight is the latest movie in the Batman series which stars Christian Bale in the role of the troubled, caped crusader. However it is not so much the heroics of Batman which have propelled the movie to the first place but the antics of Batman’s manic adversary, the Joker, played by Heath Ledger in his last and most popular role before a sudden death. The film has already broken records for the fastest movie to cross the $200 million and $300 million milestones and for earning the highest revenues in its opening and second weekends.

-Kalyani Mookherji