When The Dark Knight came out in 2008, it was a legitimate phenomenon. While superhero movies had performed well up to that point, Christopher Nolan's second Batman film became a cross-over hit, as it appealed not only to the comic book/summer movie crowd, but also those who enjoy gritty, dramatic crime films. By the time it finally left theaters the movie made $533 million at the domestic box office and a little over a billion worldwide to become the most successful comic book movie of all time...that is, until today.
With box office numbers coming in from this past weekend it has been confirmed that The Avengers, in its fourth week of release, has surpassed The Dark Knight both in United States ticket sales. While the Joss Whedon-directed Marvel film passed Nolan's epic internationally a little while ago - it has made $1.3 billion worldwide - it was this weekend that finally pushed The Avengers over the top in the states, having made an additional $20 million this past weekend. The total domestically now stands at an estimated $552 million. It now ranks third all the all-time chart, behind only Avatar ($760,507,625) and Titanic ($658,645,188, though the 3D conversion is still adding to that total). The Avengers placed third at the box office this weekend behind Snow White and the Huntsman and Men in Black III.
While the run that The Avengers has been on is damn impressive, sadly it looks like it's going to have to be satisfied with #3 on the list (unless the studio announces in the next couple weeks that they will never release the movie on Blu-ray and plan on burning all of the prints, but I just don't see that happening). Now, however, the challenge goes to Nolan. Can The Dark Knight Rises take vengeance for its predecessor and bump The Avengers back down? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.
