LOS ANGELES — Batman fever continued over the weekend, with ticket sales for “The Dark Knight” far outpacing the competition and breaking a fresh batch of box-office records.
“The Dark Knight” sold an estimated $75.6 million in tickets at North American theaters from Friday to Sunday, according to Warner Brothers. Among other records it delivered the best second-weekend gross in recent Hollywood history.
“This picture has really taken on a life of its own,” said Dan Fellman, Warner’s president for domestic distribution.
The success of “The Dark Knight” is an example of what can happen when an array of factors coincide very much by accident, industry analysts and studio executives said.
An expertly executed promotional campaign from the studio’s marketing chief, Sue Kroll, helped build anticipation for the performance as the Joker by Heath Ledger, who died in January. The brooding film, directed by Christopher Nolan, also fits the nation’s mood, Warner Brothers executives said. The sour economy is probably helping, as movies are still a relatively affordable form of entertainment.
“We are starting to see a lot of repeat business,” Mr. Fellman said. “Older audiences are also starting to turn out in big numbers.”
Going into its second weekend “The Dark Knight” may also have benefited from a storm of publicity that came when its star, Christian Bale, was questioned by the police in London after his mother and sister accused him of assault. Mr. Bale denied the accusations and was released without being charged.
“The Dark Knight” has sold $314.2 million in tickets domestically in its first 10 days of release, a record. The film is still rolling out internationally.
The weekend was not as kind to 20th Century Fox. The studio’s “X-Files: I Want to Believe,” a big-screen revival of the hit television series, sold an estimated $10.2 million in tickets in North America. It landed in fourth place, narrowly ahead of “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” which sold $9.5 million in tickets — $72 million total since its July 11 release. Chris Aronson, Fox’s senior vice president for distribution, said that “X-Files” had also sold $9.3 million in tickets in its limited overseas release, and as a result, the $30 million movie “will be more than profitable at the end of the day.”
“Step Brothers,” starring Will Ferrell and distributed by Sony’s Columbia Pictures, opened in second place with an estimated $30 million in domestic ticket sales, demonstrating continuing demand among younger moviegoers for sophomoric comedies.
In third place was “Mamma Mia!” with an estimated “$17.8 million in sales ($135.3 million total). The second-weekend performance of the musical, distributed by Universal Pictures, was strong, dropping just 35 percent, one of the lowest dips of the summer among wide releases.
By BROOKS BARNES
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