Stephen Vaughan / DC ComicsIt's not that $512 million isn't enough. It's that The Dark Knight could do so much more.
No exact date has been settled on, but Warner Bros. is planning to rerelease the box-office behemoth in January, just in time for a final Oscar-season push before Motion Picture Academy members have to turn in their ballots.
"It's just a matter of bringing it back as a reminder for people," a studio source told the Hollywood Reporter. It's uncertain how wide the release will be or whether both IMAX and conventional theaters will be involved.
The relentlessly bleak and critically beloved Batman sequel is already the second-highest grossing movie of all time in the U.S., where it falls about $78 million short of Titanic's $600.8 million in box-office receipts but towers over fellow comic-book-inspired films.
But it was the early Oscar buzz for Heath Ledger, who curdled blood as the murderous Joker, as well as for Christian Bale, director Christopher Nolan, and the film's effects and visual artistry that really differentiated The Dark Knight from its superhero brethren.
And while Ledger's performance will still be rattling around in most brains even without the extra theater time, the fact that the film will be back on the big screen just in time for the one-year anniversary of his death on Jan. 22 will make the late actor doubly hard to ignore when it comes time to pick the '08 Academy Awards field.