I have a couple friends with a booth at the San Diego Comic-Con and they invited me down on Sunday (I actually think it was because they needed someone to watch their booth why they went to events, but whatever).  I've not really been a comic fan in recent years but I was a huge fan in the past and not that much has changed so it was a fun trip. 

The one exception being the beating I took over a post I made on this blog last week entitled "How Numbers Lie: The Dark Knight Returns."  In it I tried to make the point that, while the film's box office totals were impressive the press had made it look like they were more impressive than they are and the film was in fact under performing Spider-Man 3 based on theater counts. 

With the limited amount of data available (one weekend) that was true. 

But what appeared to be a downward trend turned into a record breaking upswing in the week that followed.  The Dark Knight had a very good week.  As of Sunday it should easily break $300 million dollars in total box office sales (by about $14 million) which means it got to $300 million a full 3 days faster than the previous record holder "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" 

That's amazing.  That's beyond Amazing, it's Spectacular, Sensational and any other adjective you can think up.  So I'll be the first to admit I underestimated the film (though in all fairness its run is unprecedented which makes it easy to do so)

So this is me giving the film it's "just deserts" 

To give you the complete picture here's the film compared to Tim Burton's Batman (inflation adjusted thanks to the fabulous service offered by Boxofficemojo).  Anyone who remembers 1989 remembers just how big that film was.  Seeing how much bigger Dark Knight has been gives you a good idea of how impressive the film's run is...

(I also added Dead Man's Chest just for Good Measure)