In 18 days, "The Dark Knight" has crossed the $400 million landmark in its domestic release, according to Media By Numbers. It killed the competition last weekend, including and especially "The Mummy" sequel, despite being in its third week of release. Amazing to note that the drop-off in interest in "The Dark Knight" was smaller this past weekend than the week before that, and the exit polls suggest that viewers are going to see the Chris Nolan action-drama figure repeatedly. Meanwhile, let's remember that the international box office has only just gotten started. (And can someone please answer my question on the absence of a day and date release?)

As we suspected, "The Dark Knight" will become one of the most successful movies at the box office in Hollywood history. The only question is: how successful? Warner Bros expects the film to top out domestically at around $500 million, which will knock"Star Wars" from its number 2 perch [1], and put it just after "Titanic" - the top-grossing film of all time, which took in $600 million domestically, and a total of (gulp) $1.8 billion worldwide. But "Titanic" will hold on to its title. "Nothing is going to touch 'Titanic,'" Paul Dergarabedian, the president of Media By Numbers, told me today.