The last $100 million is the hardest.
The Dark Knight yesterday became only the second movie in Hollywood history to gross $500 million or more. The movie now stands within $100 million of toppling Titanic as the biggest-ever movie at the domestic box office.
Elsewhere, Tropic Thunder made it three wins in a row at the weekend box office, with a $14.3 million four-day, holiday take, per studio estimates today from Exhibitor Relations.
The Dark Knight's estimated Sunday gross of $3.3 million put the Batman movie over the $500 million mark only 45 days into its release, per Box Office Mojo stats.
For the Friday-Monday, Labor Day weekend, the Christopher Nolan film made $11 million. Its overall take now stands at $504.7 million.
Titanic rules the all-time box-office chart with a domestic gross of $601 million.
While The Dark Knight has made its money in lightning-fast time, it is not expected to have enough left in the tank to get to $600 million.
Not that $500 million won't get you pretty far.
Here's a recap of the top-grossing weekend films based on Friday-Sunday estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
- Tropic Thunder, $11.5 million
- Babylon A.D., $9.6 million
- The Dark Knight, $8.6 million
- The House Bunny, $8.3 million
- Traitor, $7.9 million
- Death Race, $6.3 million
- Disaster Movie, $6.2 million
- Mamma Mia! $4.4 million
- Pineapple Express, $3.5 million
- Vicky Cristina Barcelona, $2.8 million